Emptiness taints everything

[Sunrise]

My external life looks great- friends, family, meaningful employment (albeit more difficult recently), sense of community, financial and housing security. 

But, life feels too big and too small at the same time. I feel like an empty shell, a person who is made up of a gaping pit of nothing, void. I feel vague, like I am a step behind myself, disconnected and the world is foggy. I’ve had suicidal thoughts on/off for 12 years now, with past attempts. I thought I had recovered and I had 3 years of stability but recently the thoughts returned with a vengeance. The thoughts are protective, they distract me from the emptiness inside but in the end their protection leads to destruction. The thoughts come with the need to act in some form- research - plan- preparation: purchase and hoarding of materials- rehearsal of plan- etc. Unfortunately, the actions tend to escalate over time. Lately, I’m not allowed to go to bed without the house clean and all rubbish in the bin outside and clothes washed, just in-case I am not around in the morning. I don’t want my family having to wash my clothes or see the last food I have eaten. This is the stupid level of detail my brain makes me obsess over, and it becomes exhausting. Even when I have a good day and the thoughts are in the background, they come to the foreground at night, in the end the rules must be followed. 

I have engaged in therapy continuously for 4 years, and on/off for a total of 10 years- including group therapy programs. I’ve had two therapy appointments already this week because I wasn’t sure how I would survive to the next week- thankfully I think I will be relatively safe until my next appointment. The GP wants me to see a psychiatrist, but I really don’t think my issue is neurochemical so I don’t hold much hope that psychiatry will be able to assist. The suicidal thoughts are just a well worn neural pathway, they’ve become an impossible habit to break and I fear they are chronic. Am I the only one who creates a life worth living and yet still finds it impossible to live in it? 

[indigo22]

Hi Sunrise,

Welcome and thank you for reaching out to us.

What you are going through sounds very difficult to manage and I am sorry you are feeling this way.

I am really glad you are getting help through therapy, and it sounds like you have a caring GP which is important. Have you tried any medication in the past? I ask because I have dealt with suicidal ideation a few times in my life, the last time was for a couple of years about 10 years ago. I have been much more stable since then due to a change in meds which work for me and keep my head above water when life throws a spanner in the works.

I agree with your neural pathway comment, however, neural pathways can be changed and that is probably something you need to do some research on and find the best way for you to achieve this.

Often meditation is helpful, as is a gratitude journal or getting out in nature.

You said you were stable for about 3 years. What changed? If you can figure out the answer to that, you may be in a better position to get back to stability again.

The psychiatrist may be a good suggestion, there may be something underlying that has not been diagnosed as yet that needs to be addressed. I went to counselling with a Social Worker for about 10 years and it did help me a lot in understanding myself and my reactions. However, it did not do enough as I have recently realised. I started going to a therapist about 12 months ago who also does somatic work and I now realise much of the emotional baggage is still trapped within my body and needs to be shifted in order for me to recover.

I hope this is of some help to you and I will be here if you want to talk further.

Take care,

indigo

[therising]

Hi Sunrise

What a deeply deeply challenging time for you to be facing. So incredibly tormenting and heartbreaking. I feel for you so much as you face one of the most challenging times in your life.

I think it can be so incredibly difficult to answer the following question at times, 'What part or parts of me have come back to life and why?'. I've found what can make it so difficult to answer involves 2 challenging areas of research, regarding greater self understanding. The first involves identifying that part or those parts or facets of self and the second involves knowing the trigger or triggers.

If the saboteur in us comes to life, things are typically not going to go well. While something could say to us 'You need to get help, you can't manage this alone', the saboteur may insist 'Nothing's going to help. There's no point in talking to anyone. No one's ever been able to make any significant difference in the past so why should now be any different?'. If the objective is to seek a really solid and highly affective guide, to be able to manage the dark (of depression) or the fog, the saboteur shifts focus away from the objective. When the analyst in us joins in, it can then sound a little like 'Okay, what do you now need to do? You need to create a list of how you're going to manage this. You need to clean the house, you need to put your affairs in order, you need to...' and on it goes. I've found the analyst in me is not so much the problem, it's what leads the analyst to come to life in me that can end up being the real problem. It's like the analyst in me can be led to analyse the best possible adventure, when triggered to life by the adventurer in me. It can be led to come to life in the ways of good financial management or the best ways forward in general. When it comes to life when prompted by the pessimist in me or a part of me that leads me to focus on deeply depressing stuff, things start to seriously go south. I find myself creating terrible lists.

While certain things can trigger somewhat destructive parts of me to come to life, I've found 2 major triggers to be of influence are 1)a serious lack of mental and physical energy (including certain chemical energy like dopamine, serotonin, B12 etc) and 2) a serious lack of constructive guidance and direction. A great guide will help keep my focus on them and their plan regarding the best way forward and away from the saboteur, the pessimist or the harsh and brutal critic in me for example.

It can be an incredibly tough fight or inner battle, when there's a part of us saying 'You can't do this, it's not the best way forward. You have got to find a guide, you have got to reach out for help' and another part is dictating 'There's no point. Nothing's ever going to change'. We can feel so stuck in the middle, between the two. I've found a great guide will lead me to find my true north and an average one, depressing one or none at all will ensure things keep heading south, deeper and deeper into a depression. The practice of finding true north can be such a challenging practice to master, that's for sure. Sometimes it can't be managed alone.❤️

[Sunrise]

Thank you for your response Indigo, I appreciate it. 

I'm glad to hear that you have found some stability through medication. Thankfully the GP is happy to continue to be the main support for medical management, and they've reintroduced a medication I used to take in the past, so I am waiting to see if a therapeutic dose is of any benefit.

I am trying to be willing, but I find I just walk the line and don't know which side I am going to go down. I used to self harm, drink which are behaviours that I don't use very often anymore so I guess I have examples of creating a new, alternative neural pathway for coping. The difficulty is that the suicidal thoughts are just so strong and I often accidentally reaffirm my suicide plan. My brain is so manipulative that it was able to make the DBT skills part of the plan, like a check box 'try Opposite Action and TIPP and Self Soothe and now you get the reward of being allowed to plan/prepare/etc'. Nature is very important to me, but often I find I just start mentally saying goodbye to the world when I am alone in nature. 

What changed? I guess nothing, and that's the problem. When I am not significantly challenging myself (moving cities, new job, new relationship etc.) then I find that I am nothing and life is too long but too short, and I've wasted time but have too much time.  

How are you finding somatic work? I once tried EMDR but it wasn't for me at the time. I have heard that somatic therapy can be very valuable. 

Thank you again

[indigo22]

Hi Sunrise,

It's strange that we are having this conversation today, but then again, I don't believe in coincidences, I see it as synchronicity.

The therapist I have been seeing uses 'tapping' as the foremost somatic tool. I have had one session of tapping with her and it shifted something in me that was buried very deep. It also had a very explosive effect on my body for the following days, such as to leave no doubt that something significant was being released. I will spare you the details. She ended the tapping session with a small amount of EMDR, I think this was to help with the integration of the tapping session. There is another member here who I converse with regularly who's therapist uses Somatic Experiencing which has been very beneficial. so there are a few different types of somatic work that you could investigate.

My therapist is now on maternity leave with a new bub, so I had my first session today with a therapist who is filling the void for the time being. They know each other and do quite similar work so I think this will work fine. One of the things I said was that I often feel like I have a good guy on one shoulder and a bad guy on the other. The good guy says "why don't you do ..... you know you will feel better if you do". Then the bad guy responds with "that's all very well, but what's the point, every time you have tried to improve things, something happens to put you back in the dark hole again". The new therapist said it was just like a Native American story where the grandfather is talking to his grandson about the two wolves that live inside of each of us one good and one bad, that are always fighting for our attention. The grandson asked "so if they are as persistent as each other, who wins?" The grandfather replied "the one you feed".

I often find myself hearing this negative self talk and lately have just told it to shut the **** up and leave me alone. And to my surprise, it works. At least for a while anyway. My theory is that these voices are the echoes of those who most influenced our lives when we were young. Those who left us feeling somewhat worthless and hopeless. We took over where they left off, telling ourselves the negative things we became accustomed to hearing. It takes a lot of willpower to keep ourselves out of the black hole. The therapist said it has a lot to do with faking it until you make it, there needs to be repetition for there to be any real change.

I spent most of 2024 reading books on mental health and have learned quite a lot as a result. If you would like any recommendations, please let me know.

I hope you are having one of your better days today,

indigo

[Sunrise]

Thanks Indigo and Rising. 

Rising, I feel as though I can understand what you're describing and I tend to have a similar understanding for myself. Although at the moment all the parts of myself feel muddled or lost. We have been working on the underlying emotions that bring the analyst to life but sitting with these emotions and shifting the beliefs has proved difficult. 

Indigo I'm glad you've got a therapist filling the void- and I hope your first session together went well, it can be challenging meeting someone new. I don't think somatic is for me but it is interesting.

I like the wolf analogy, they're one of my favourite animals. I obviously feed the pro life wolf much more regularly, because I have solid periods of stability, but I guess perhaps I am keeping the suicide wolf sitting in the background dormant and waiting. Until she gets hungry and demands a feed. What your therapist says- Repetition Repetition Repetition- is so accurate and I like the notion of faking until you make it. I find I'm not really faking it, when I am doing things that I enjoy I am really feeling happy, stimulated, energised but then I am with myself and I am lost/empty/sad and the suicidal thoughts come in for comfort.  

I try to tell my thoughts to **** off, but unfortunately my thoughts don't seem to just be thoughts anymore. Logically, I know thoughts are thoughts and they don't require action but in reality these just feel too powerful. The thoughts are commands and they tell me that I have to hurt myself. I can't seem to disobey the thoughts and instead bargain with them, 'I can't hurt myself until I prepare this element' or 'I can't do anything today because I have work in the morning' but with each of these bargains means that I have to either take that step to prepare or reschedule an appropriate time to rehearse/practice and potentially hurt myself later in the week/month. I've been here before, eventually there are no more bargains to be made. I had a good week last week as a friend stayed with me for a few days meaning that my thoughts had to stay quiet (as staying quiet is in the best interests of the thoughts- we can't have family/friends intervening). But with that comes the scheduling of another rehearse/practise event and I just hope my thoughts won't make me do anything. Thankfully I have things to do for the first half of this week, so I can delay a little longer.

[indigo22]

Hello again Sunrise,

I have been sitting here thinking about your reply and it occurred to me there are a few things that we haven't touched on that could be relevant.

First one being, is there any family history of this type that you are aware of? Many moons ago, people where put into insane asylums for much less than we cope with today. Sometimes depression can be an inherited issue although I don't think it is all that common. I had twin cousins, my fathers sisters children, who committed suicide together when they were about 40yo. There were a lot of circumstances involved but they had that tendency which I have also had in the past.

The other things I wanted to mention are more of a spiritual nature (when I say spiritual I am not talking about religion).

There are many examples of people who have had unexplained pain or illness that ended up being something that had been carried into this life from a past life.

There are also shamanic beliefs in the holding of ancestral karma in our aura, meaning things that our ancestors didn't deal with when they were alive and passed down to us through DNA.

There is also the shamanic belief that when we are at a very low vibration, we can attract the non corporeal spirit of a negative entity that is not ready to leave the earth, and as such, interferes with our energy and perhaps also our thoughts.

These ideas may seem a bit 'out there' but there is much more to the universe than our brains are able to comprehend, so anything is possible when you think about it. I guess that's why Dolores Canon used the term  'Convoluted Universe' for a series of her books.

Just some things to think about (or not) 🤔

I hope to you have a good week,

indigo

[Sunrise]

I have had an extremely difficult week, although to outsiders my week looked pretty good. I'm at the point now that my therapist has told me that we are unable to manage as just the two of us and I now need family involvement. Additional clinical involvement is not sufficient because I know the laws around the Mental Health Act and I can present pretty well and say the right things to avoid an involuntary admission (plus the state based psychiatry exodus makes crisis support iffy, wait-times are long, admissions are not helpful for therapeutic recovery and not good for therapeutic relations). I don't lie, but I don't disclose the whole authentic truth. Having family involved is my worst nightmare, because it is against the 'rules' and I don't want to disappoint my family but I also don't want to disappoint the thoughts/commands. 

I guess my behaviours are frowned upon, but I'm not hurting myself (big win as this was a past behaviour). I'm just taking calculated but escalating risks.  Let's say that if my suicide plan involved a number of parts and those parts equalled the number 100, I've been rehearsing and/practicing the parts and gradually the inclusions are equalling 5, 25, 30, 50, 65... towards the full plan. It's all very methodical and strictly rule based. If I disobey the commanding thoughts then it feels like the world is ending, like I have spontaneously combusted, like my insides are being burnt with acid (figuratively).  We trialled safety planning & check ins, including heavy scheduling of distress tolerance skills and removing elements of the plan from my home (can't actually dispose of the elements because at this stage that is way too painful). But this doesn't seem to be enough to keep me from acting, I can delay for a couple of days but eventually it all becomes too much and I have to act. Actually it increases the suffering around the thoughts because I'm more aware of my feelings and I become really distressed.  Alternatively, if I avoid the thoughts/feelings I then move on autopilot and eventually just act on the thoughts/rules without thinking, Yay for impulsivity! Usually these thoughts and actions are egodystonic but last week, after one of these incidents, I woke up feeling disappointment. Disappointment that I was awake and in the world and that the partial plan was unsuccessful. From then I've spent my alone time in a state of anxiety, sadness and occasional dissociation, curled up on the floor with cartoons that I am not watching or in the shower trying to wash away the bad vibes.

I have a family member coming to stay with me from tomorrow, just to have someone else in the home. It was a non-negotiable from my therapist, either I ask them to stay or the therapist would contact and ask them to stay. I felt that, to maintain trust and confidence, it would be much better coming from me.

I am feeling so many emotions that I can't fully describe. I am exhausted and I feel like a failure. I love this person very much but I don't want them to come because I had scheduled a practice but I can't practice because they will be here and it's against the 'rules' to practice with someone else around. I am trying to reschedule the practice but appropriate available dates are becoming more difficult to locate. I am worried that I will become a not very nice person because my control will have been taken away. But then I do want this person to visit so I can have some respite from myself. I truly hate myself at the moment. I hate myself because I am disobeying the commands. 

[indigo22]

Hi Sunrise,

Perhaps it is time to start disobeying the commands and begin to start loving yourself again.

Your therapist would not have taken this step without a lot of consideration. It may be time to let your loved one in on what you are dealing with so you don't have to always feel like you are dealing with this alone.

Did you feel any resonance with any of the ideas I mentioned in my last post? This may be a situation that is outside the box of normal thinking and treatment. It certainly couldn't hurt to try something you have not tried before, you have nothing to lose by trying.

As for becoming a not very nice person because your control will have been taken away. Perhaps there is something at a deeper level that needs to be expressed through your loss of control. The control you are referring to is detrimental to your mind, body and soul so losing that control may be exactly what is needed at this time. We always have a choice, whether we believe it or not, so why not choose to defy the negative and destructive elements within you.

The best advice I can give you is to allow yourself to be helped and don't hide what you are going through from the one's you love.

Take care Sunrise,

indigo