Does Anyone Have Or Know About Suicidal OCD

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It’s perfectly natural for people to have occasional thoughts of suicide. You might picture yourself driving your car off a bridge, jumping in front of an oncoming train, overdosing on drugs, or slicing your arm with a knife. However, for some OCD sufferers, suicidal thoughts turn into obsessions. You become so worried about killing yourself, that you feel unsafe when you’re alone. You worry that you’ll act on the images in your head at any moment. This thought can be incredibly debilitating. It’s important to remember that you’re no more likely to act on your thoughts than anyone else.

Everyday examples:
You have a fear of becoming depressed and feel compelled to commit suicide.
You have thoughts of sticking your hand in a blender and turning it on.
You’re afraid of using a curling iron and accidentally disfiguring your face, which might later compel you to commit suicide over your looks.

Differentiating Between Suicidal Thoughts and Suicidal Obsessions in OCD
Distinctions between suicidal thoughts and suicidal obsessions can often be made based on the characteristics of the cognitions.

When associated with depression suicidal thoughts are ego-syntonic or are congruent with the individual’s thoughts and mood state. For instance, the person may have suicidal thoughts related to a sense of hopelessness that things will get better, the belief that they are worthless and don’t deserve to live, or the feeling that they can’t stand the suffering any longer. In comparison suicidal obsessions are ego dystonic or are incongruent with the individual’s intentions and beliefs- specifically their strong opposition to committing suicide.

Individuals with suicidal thoughts, even when ambivalent, will often want to act on the thoughts, whereas those with suicidal obsessions desire to prevent themselves from acting on their suicidal thoughts and they attempt to avoid or escape the thoughts altogether.

Suicidal thoughts are more likely to be associated with previously reported ideation, self harm and suicide attempts compared to suicidal obsessions. It’s extremely rare that suicidal obsessions in the absence of true suicidal thoughts result in self harm.

Those who have suicidal thoughts often ruminate about a plan to carry out the act whereas individuals with suicidal obsessions ruminate about reasons why they’d never commit suicide.

While the characteristics of suicidal thoughts and suicidal obsessions may appear at first glance to be easily differentiated this is not always the case. The distinction is not always clear-cut given the high degree of overlap between the two categories of thoughts in individuals suffering from S-OCD. Several scenarios are possible which can make accurate diagnosis difficult.

How can I tell if I have Suicidal OCD and not suicidal ideation?

Our patient reported that he actually did not want to harm himself and therefore, the recurrent thoughts of suicide were highly anxiety provoking and distressing. He reported that he did not believe that his family would be better off without him and that thinking about what his death would do to his wife also caused him significant anxiety and distress. He also reported that he rapidly became overwhelmed and panicked with each intense thought of suicide. His suicidal ideations were therefore different in nature than “mood-congruent” suicidal ideations observed in uncontrolled severe MDD patients. In addition, he described that his attempts at suicide (holding an unloaded gun to his head prior to admission and unsuccessfully attempting to hang himself with a towel in the shower while at the hospital) were the result of him being unable to redirect his thoughts away from the obsessive suicidal thoughts, ultimately resulting in him acting out those thoughts. Although his suicidal behavior may stem from poor impulse control, they were not compulsions or behavior stemming from poor insight in believing that his family would be better off without him.

The main difference, I've found, is that if the thoughts are upsetting you and you're finding yourself obsessing over them and you're noticing your anxiety heighten, it's a suicidal obsession -- being *truly* suicidal doesn't make you feel like "Oh no I might want to kill myself!"

How can I tell if I have Suicidal OCD and not suicidal ideation?

@Booya I've read most of what you posted and it seems more like ideation

ok, that seems a bit easier to deal with! i hope.

hang in there!

i'll dig through more articles if that helps.

if you worry that you'll hurt yourself if you're left alone, it might be more than ideation.

I think it is pure genius the way you can use ideation to get through it and past it.

You have taught me something new today Mr Ferris.

It has a 100% success rate as I'm not dead yet I wouldn't suggest it to anyone though as I have acted on my impulses , luckily I appear to be suicide proof. Doctors don't know how I survived last time.