Recovery from suicide attempt - it can be done

[Junior1962]

Hi everyone 

I wanted to post something positive about how recovery from being suicidal can happen. 
I am a first timer. I’ve had episodes of depression but don’t usually go deep enough to be suicidal. My heart goes out to all of you and your mental health struggles. Bipolar runs in my family. Mum was a hospital admission last year and sadly, is now a resident in aged care. My 32 yr old son has autism and bipolar 2. 
My story is one of a battle with depression while supporting Mum (My older brother and I worked together) in hospital and Dad - who has Alzheimers- at home. Both are in their 80s. I was suicidal a year ago and made plans - but had a powerful spiritual experience and didn’t follow through. My naturopath helped me to sort the many Imbalances in my body and I recovered - for a time. 
Dad followed Mum into care in January and my brother and I sold their house. I then found myself being drawn into being a caregiver for Mum when I was already exhausted and struggling. Suicidal thoughts crept in but I pushed them away. I just tried to keep going - until I couldn’t. 
One sleepless night, I attempted …..

My husband took me to the ED… I was offered mental health support and I accepted. I was in a daze. This was 4 months ago. I was diagnosed with caregiver burnout.
I had five sessions with a psychologist, two with a psychiatrist- all from Monash Health and Medicare funded - and found myself doing a lot better. I’m now seeing a private psychologist and have improved even further. 
My son is almost my fully transitioned into supported accommodation and I am learning to deal with the things that wore me down. 
Very few people know what I did. I haven’t felt ready to tell them. But my whole outlook has changed. Getting help and being prepared to face my demons is what has changed me. I’m not good at asking for help. I’m better at helping others. I’m actually working on that in therapy. 
My message to you all is,- don’t be afraid to ask for help. Don’t be afraid to open up and let people in. They can’t help you if they don’t know you are in pain. If you don’t like the health professional you are seeing, ask to see someone else. A good relationship with that person is paramount. Therapy won’t work if you don’t trust them. 
Most of all, trust that you have it in yourself to overcome this. Your life IS worth living. People DO care. You just have to let them in. 

[Eagle Ray]

Thank you so much The Rising for those further insights. I recently had the intolerant cow come to the fore in relation to an impending situation. This was in the form of rising anger and the feeling of wanting to explode with it. This was the intolerant cow wanting to protect me from a situation that was likely to drain me and stress me based on prior experience. My intolerant cow was wise, correct and intuitive. But the naive part of me that can override the intolerant cow with an “it’ll be fine” voice took precedence. It wasn’t fine.

The result was I crashed and spent two days mostly in bed recovering from a stressful situation the intolerant cow warned me to avoid. I get the sense that ignoring the cow causes her to go delinquent inside and produce adverse health symptoms. Instead I should be offering her nice green pasture and listen to what she’s telling me.

In relation to what you describe above, the intolerant cow felt the trigger then tried to detach and analyse logically. Some analysis occurred but then the pleasing/appeasing part of me took over. In Pete Walker’s work on complex trauma this is the fawn response (he describes fight/flight/freeze/fawn as trauma survival mechanisms).

So my intolerant cow needed to nudge the fawn gently back to grazing contentedly (protect this part of myself), then bellow at the impending threat (say no to the threat) and then join the fawn to graze peacefully knowing the threat is over.

 I’ll have a look into Jamie Catto. And start treating my intolerant cow with more awareness and respect. She knows what she’s doing whereas the fawn part of me doesn’t yet. In fact the fawn part is really a child part of me (childhood trauma) and needs to be nurtured to grow up into an adult deer. Thanks again, you’re way of conceptualising things is very helpful.

[therising]

Hi Eagle Ray

I can see that furious cow clearly, as well as that beautiful gentle fawn. Can also see the cow taking the fawn over to the sidelines while saying 'You sit here sweetie and let me take care of this'. You so easily trigger my imagination and I'm grateful for that.

To be in more than 2 minds is interesting. For example, someone may trigger me to anger through shutting me down when I'm trying to convey the deep impact of what they've said to me. The internal dialogue could go 

Intolerant cow: 'Tell 'em they're a narrow minded self righteous a-hole! They need to know the truth!'

People pleaser: 'You can't say that. They'll hate you'

Kid in me: Not saying anything, just kind of quietly crying

The sage: 'Calm down, just calm down'

Intolerant cow: 'Why should I calm down? This person's an a-hole. Why should I have to be calm for their sake?!'

If I imagine the sage in control, 'Tell this person you can feel what they said to you and you can feel the shut down. Tell them you don't appreciate it'. The intolerant cow may chime in with 'Can I at least tell them they're an a-hole?'. The sage may dictate 'Fine, if you have to but don't start an abusive rant'. I should add, when all this is going on, it's so important to have a firm hold on a core sense of self. This is what dictates reality. Reality is you're imagining these aspects of self. If someone goes from hearing dialogue to hearing voices, that's a whole other story.

Like with an old style wagon wheel, core sense of self is the hub and the spokes are all that stem from it. Each spoke has a certain feel and dialogue to it, whether it's the adventurer chomping at the bit with 'There has to be more to life than this!', the intolerant cow, the sage, the child in need of compassion and guidance etc. May sound questionable but I've found it's a perspective that works. 'How many facets of my self exist?' is an interesting question.

All those spokes technically makes the intolerant sense of self a 'spokes person' or should that be 'spokes cow' 😂

[Junior1962]

Hi Rising and Eagle

I find your comments on this 'intolerant cow' rather interesting.  It also looks to me like Freud's original concepts of the id, ego and superego.  Essentially the id is the rash, impulsive child that seeks pleasure and wants it now. Superego is the moral conscience, and the ego walks a tightrope between the two, always striving for balance.

My therapist is encouraging me to let more of the id come to the fore as he sees well-honed reflective and analytical skills mostly.  I need to be allowed to let the playful child in me to come to the fore more.

Interesting stuff.

[Junior1962]

Hi all

I just wanted to - I guess, complete this post - by letting you know that today I took a big step and ended the therapy I’ve been doing for the past few months. I initiated the idea but my therapist agrees that it’s the right time. 

It’s a strange feeling because I had never attempted suicide before. I hope I never do again. But now, some 8.5 months later and following several months of therapy, I feel nothing like I did then. In fact, I can scarcely believe I ever felt that bad, although I obviously did. 
Having done a form of psychodynamic therapy, the biggest thing I’ve learned is that the unconscious psychological defence mechanisms I was using - more than I would ever have imagined - were no longer serving my needs. Life threw things at me that I simply couldn’t navigate; that I didn’t have the emotional skills to manage.  My biggest issue was an inability to open myself up and allow myself to be vulnerable. I am now learning to change that and it’s very liberating. 

Another facet to my healing is the spiritual. I’ve long believed that life throws lessons at us and that, when life is at its hardest, this is when we grow the most. This horrible time has been no exception. In a book called God I AM, it says, ”to embrace what we fear we must first learn the true nature of fear - to do this we have to admit to our fears in the first place. This is the embrace. It is called ‘dropping the front, it is vulnerability - it is also our ultimate strength”. It’s about trusting in what I call the Divine Universe and knowing that we are safe. I didn’t say it was easy though! Just that my personal journey has brought me to this point. 

I encourage you all to face your fears and try to work through them, to understand them. 
It is possible to come out the other side. I am living proof 🙂

[Eagle Ray]

Thanks for your uplifting post Junior. It’s a very good sign you feel ready to move on from therapy and you have a clear understanding of the processes you’ve been through.

 I think being able to be vulnerable can be a tricky thing in the society we live in, and I think many of us suppress it in one way or another, often not even being conscious of it as it’s so suppressed. It’s like it can be hard to admit the vulnerability to ourselves, let alone others. In my case it’s always about having to appear ok all the time because it was never ok to show vulnerability as a child. Still trying to reprogram that one.

I really like how you’ve incorporated the spiritual component of knowing you are safe within the universe. I need to keep being reminded of that because I feel it in places in nature I find especially spiritual. A few days before I plunged into another black hole in October I had the most peaceful feeling of connection I’ve ever had at my favourite nature place by the ocean. I had complete flow through my body, complete ease of breathing, feelings of complete connection with all things. So I know the state that it’s possible to attain. Or perhaps ‘experience’ is a better word than ‘attain’, as I’m finding it’s less about striving and more about letting go. In fact, maybe entirely about letting go - and trusting.

Anyway, thank you for sharing your story here Junior 🙏 By being so open it encourages others to do the same, including working through fears. Often once fears are less suppressed they actually have less power, and things become overall less scary too. Life challenges that seem insurmountable actually look much smaller and far less intimidating.

 I wish you all the very best going forward, but feel free to keep posting how you’re going too if it helps you to share your journey.

Best wishes and big hug from ER 🤗💕