Skibum, check in with us, do you feel better?

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How are you doing since last night? We understand on here.

Check with us please.

Thank you History Gal. Fortunately suicidal thoughts are things I deal with on a very frequent and regular basis and have done so for forty one years so to me it's as normal as breathing. So even though each moment is real and intense, I know how to deal with it an overcome it extremely well. But thank you so much for being such a good friend.

I care.......and I know pretty much you wouldn't do anything rash. I was feeling bad about you being depressed and wanted you to talk about it if you need to.

I don't know how you hold it together....keep swimming. Water helps.

What do you like better, Skibum: Skiing, or canoeing?

Thank you so much. That is one thing I love about this site. The friends we make here are such good friends. Water is awesome. Kayaking and swimming and just sitting by the water are so therapeutic. It really does help. I think a lot of us are very connected with water. I know I am.

I struggle from situational depression, not cyclical depression. So I get suicidal and depressed from being overwhelmed. That is why I recover so quickly and also why I get suicidal so often. But because it happens so often, it is just completely normal to me. It's like eating. You just do it because you have to. When these moments come, I just endure them and let them run their course. And it can be every couple of weeks. So it's no big deal to me. It's just another part of daily normal every day life for me. But I am so grateful for your love and concern.

I am actually not a canoer. I have paddled some but only a couple of times in my life. I will be learning soon though through my whitewater club. I love kayaking though and I am learning to be a competitive kayaker as well as a white water kayaker.

But I think skiing beats all. There is nothing quite like skiing. When you ski well it is absolutely magical.

LOL...I should have said kayaking.

No worries, it's all good. If it's on the water, I love it.

Smiles SkiLady. I like water too and do a lot of time at the pools in my gym.

I bet, if Skibum lived in a stilt house, or on a yacht, she'd be in Hog Heaven......

You're not alone with that, skibum; I'm much the same, and I suspect that there are others here that know it well, too. It became almost a running joke with my last therapist. I would always fill out the between session self-assessment form honestly; "Did you have any suicidal thoughts this week?" - "Yes, of course I did." At first, the counsellor would get into a panic and want to call around crisis services, and I would have to point out that I have had them nearly every day for as long as I can remember, sometimes fleeting, sometimes more persistent. "Hey, but I'm still here!" got to be my little bit of gallows humour every session.

Glad to see that you're "still here" too. You post some great insights and humour; long may you continue!

Oh yes.
I actually did live on a small private yacht for a few months. I had been working on it. It was incredible. Even on the river where we were docked, it was fantastic. It is a ton of work though to have a livaboard and it is very expensive. But there is nothing like being rocked to sleep every night by gentle waves.

I need to swim more. Because I teach and guard, I am pretty exhausted. Yesterday I only had the energy to do a 750 in a yard pool and work on my fly timing for less than a length. But I am grateful because I can only have access to a pool if I work there. I don' t have money for a membership so I am grateful for whatever time I get to work on my strokes.

LOL!! OMG, I have had those same conversations verbatim!! I personally know several HFA's who have the exact same story. It is extremely common for us. I have gone to the hospital at least three times in the past two months trying to check into the crisis ward just to be able to rest and recover. Of course they kick me out every time after few hours because they don't take me seriously and they don't understand that each time is very real and very intense even if I am a master of survival like many of us are. But when they ask me if I have had any suicidal thoughts lately I look at them funny and say something like, "Of course, haven't you?" And then they ask me about plans and I start listing all the different ways that I have thought of like they were recipes in a cookbook. Then they start to get concerned and ask me if I ever really think about executing those plans. I say, "Of course I do, I just don't have enough courage to go through with it." It's like they don't understand. The whole reason to come up with a plan is to think about how the plan would work. I don't do this because it's a hobby, and I definitely don't have a deathwish. I really am dealing with fatal levels of overload and being overwhelmed that often because I live in a society that is not only not made for me but that I am constantly bullied in and taken advantage of because it's not made for me. Anyone having to live in a society that treats them this way would be so overwhelmed that they would be doing the exact same thing. It should be a no brainer. You can't have a society that is constantly pushing people to the edge of their limits without ever letting them recover and then be surprised that they are on the edge of their limits.

But then they ask me the most idiotic question of all after I have explained to them that I have been going through this like every few weeks for 41 years. They ask me if I have coping mechanisms. I'm like WHAT?????? SERIOUSLY????? That is the question you think to ask????? I'm 51 years old people. Even a triage nurse should be intelligent enough to figure that out.

By the way, I wrote a whole section about this in the book I am trying to publish so that's a little taste of what is hopefully coming.

I've eventually come to think that the detailed planning is actually a very good coping strategy. Firstly, it's accepting the suicidal thoughts and engaging with them head on, rather than fighting them or trying to suppress them so that they fester under the surface - I don't really like the term as it's so over-used, but this seems to me a form of mindfulness. Secondly, it buys time - the longer I'm procrastinating about the details, the longer I'm putting off taking any concrete action (I swear that my executive function impairments have saved my life on several occasions.) Thirdly, it brings the consequences to mind; it gets me thinking about how awful it would be for the person who might discover the aftermath; about what loose ends in my life I might wish I had tied up before I go; what fears I would have to overcome to go through with it, and all the possibilities for messing it up so badly that I survive with worse quality of life than I have now.

Even trained psychologists and counsellors seem too squeamish to discuss the fantasising in my opinion, or leap to the conclusion that it's a sign that an attempt is imminent. It needs to be recognised more that, for some people, it's an integral part of working through it so that we can allow it to pass with the minimum of after-effects. Telling me that loved ones will be upset just comes across as emotional blackmail, especially when I'm convinced that I'm a burden who makes their lives more painful. Telling me that things could get better in the future is pointless when I intellectually know that it is true, but my mind is too exhausted to see anything but the repeating cycles of the same old challenges. Supporting the coping techniques that I have worked out for myself the hard way would be much more effective, IMHO, and could reduce the amount of time that I spend in that state (during which I'm not capable of anything else, including basic self-care.)


If your posts here are anything to go by, I would really like to read that. Best wishes for getting it published!

Yep.....tell me when the book gets published, so I can buy it.