The One Rule I Use to Keep Suicidal Ideation at Bay
How I learned to shift my focus to make each day a little better
Content Warning: This article mentions suicidal ideation. If you or someone you know needs help, call The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800–273-TALK (8255).
I’ve struggled with suicidal ideation since I was a child. Some of my earliest memories are about those feelings and the fear that came along with them. Unlike most other kids, I had no difficulty understanding the concept of death.
My parents never had to sit me down and explain what happens when a living creature ceases to function. I knew what death was and I felt that it was stalking me around every corner. Somehow despite knowing that my time would always be running out, I still managed to lead a productive childhood. and focus on the frivolous.
It wasn’t until my mid-teens that the idea of the ticking clock began to feel more comforting to me. Despite my mental illnesses, I consider myself extraordinarily lucky and privileged. I was suffering from passive suicidal ideation almost every day but I “had things to live for” so I wouldn’t dare to act on these urges.
Occasionally I’d stand on the edge of a rooftop or press cold steel against my skin without penetrating my skin. I engaged in these dark rituals to remind myself how painful suicide could be.
But life has only gotten more painful since. I thought it was teenage hormones and the process of growing up but it became more difficult to resist. By that point, I had felt that I had already lost. My mind had framed it in such a way that by resisting I was already losing because to me, someone who was whole and healthy didn’t think about wanting to die.
Nevertheless, I survived that period. With no access to proper mental healthcare, I found workbooks about CBT and used the techniques I learned there to help calm down some of the anxiety and depression I was feeling.
The suicidal ideation was still something I could ignore because on some level it made sense. When you’re in pain, your brain does its very best to seek solutions. The brain maybe doesn’t understand the context that the heart might. It was natural for me to want an escape, even such a permanent one.
Then I got better. I saw success in a few different avenues of my life. I was in love and I felt hopeful. I would look forward to good dinners with friends and producing quality work. Everything in my life had changed in a few short years, despite those days that once felt so long. But one hadn’t left me. I had gained a constant: suicidal ideation.
Now it made no sense. I had everything I wanted, but I still considered what it would be like to end my life on a near-constant basis. Maybe even for just a few moments in the day as I’d drift off to sleep, but it was enough to rattle me. For the first time since childhood, I was filled with fear of my suicidal ideation again.
There are many things that scare me, and my number one way of coping is through knowing that I can always make up for what I lose when my fears come true. What terrifies me the most is the thought that the suicidal ideation will never go away.
I’m a few years removed from the realization that my life’s general rhythm has little impact on whether I want to end it. The years since have been difficult for different reasons but again, I survived. Each plunge into the darkness of suicidal ideation has given me different tactics that I use whenever I resurface.
Each tactic helps me keep my head above water a little longer, but being dragged back down is inevitable. However, the last rule I’ve adopted has kept suicidal ideation at an extremely manageable level for nearly 8 months.
Depending on your own relationship with suicidal thoughts you’ll likely see 8 months as too little or far too much. For me, 8 months without paying more than light attention to these thoughts is an incredible improvement, especially when I consider some I’ve been through things that caused me extreme pain but didn’t let myself wallow in my suicidal thoughts.
To try and explain how I reframed suicidal thinking, I need to cover some of the ideas that didn’t really help me combat those thoughts. Here’s a list of the things I’d tell myself when I felt suicidal:
- Don’t do it because your friends and family would be devastated.
- Don’t do it because you have yet to produce your best work.
- Don’t do it because you might fall in love with a person who makes you feel whole.
- Don’t do it because maybe your illness will disappear as you age.
- Don’t do it because your life will get better.
Now when I say these things were ineffective, I mean that they weren’t good enough to snap me out of considering suicide. However, when I try to consider this list objectively, it’s pretty clear that all these things are somewhat true. I have friends and family who do care, I’m constantly getting better at my crafts, I’m learning how to love others better, and mental illness can often fade in the later years of life.
But despite being true, all of these things are hopes and dreams. I cannot expect to use hope when I feel hopeless to trick myself into sticking around for the promise of a better life. When I finally noticed this pattern in my thinking I realized it wasn’t about looking forward to what could come later, it was about looking forward to what will come later.
I learned to lower my expectations and dream smaller. What does this mean? Focus on the most tangible and real things that you can guarantee you can make happen. I quit living for the idea that one day I’d be happy and instead decided to look forward to things as simple as waiting for my favourite band to release a new album or cooking a meal at the end of a busy week. It sounds ridiculous and far easier than it is, but I assure you this attitude in of itself is very difficult to adopt even if it is simple.
I don’t know if the human mind is meant to be constantly looking forward to some abstract time period later on. Especially when we find ourselves in this society and this moment in time where everything is just so fast. We create these plans and then have to constantly appraise and adjust them as we’re constantly taking in new information.
But if we can train our brains to focus on the frivolous, that can be everything. It still takes so much effort to convince myself to be excited about making tea or holding one of my best friends close, but these things are what make our lives worth living.
I can no longer live for the idea that I need to make my life matter because it’ll never be enough. I’ve already done so much that has mattered, but I always want to do more. I tell you my entire story so you understand how much it took for me just to understand I was living life for the wrong reasons.
People are incredible at assigning meaning to anything, and now I choose to assign meaning to the next time I’ll get to go to the movies or take a long walk around the city.
This is how I learned just a little about living in the present. A lifetime of being told to live in the moment was meaningless. Now I make lists of things that I can do with minimal effort over the course of the week. Little gifts I can give to myself each day that reminds me there’s so much more to life than these massive questions which are always making my skin crawl and heartache.
If you can take a single step to do just one tiny thing that you want every day, the suicidal ideation will be more manageable. It may never go away, and that’s okay because it has taught me what it takes to appreciate every single experience and sensation. Before you know it you won’t be living for someone else or for the future. Focus on the frivolous things, because they will add up, and then they will matter and you won’t have to be afraid anymore.
