Hi Anonymous

I’m sorry to hear that you have experienced many traumas in your life and suffer from suicidal ideation.

Have you tried therapy? I’ve experienced some similar traumas to you and found it very helpful. There is hope out there, there are good people that can help you to heal. Aside from therapy, surrounding yourself with positive experiences helped me a lot. You have a wife and child, bring them on this healing journey too. The last thing your family needs is you dead. I can hear how much you love them and no doubt, they love you just as much.

Wishing you all the best! 🙏❤️

Four noble truths of the Buddha, 1. Life is suffering,   2. The truth of suffering,   3. There is a way out of suffering,   4. The path to freedom from suffering.

Life is tough and terrible. There is so much suffering and cheating and lying and everything. A toothache is painful but the suffering is in the mind who endures the toothache longing for it to end. Everyone suffers pain and has a terrible time. But, it is those, who reach beyond the suffering to see the truth of life and the truth of Buddha nature, they live a life of love, compassion and wisdom.

There are no simple cures. And, for the Buddha, he said one is reborn. So, in time you will return in another life. And go thru similar until you have learned the lesson that is taught. Suicide is not the answer. Karma will keep you in this circle. Despair is not the answer. You may need to express your feelings and that will help for the moment. You may need to take up the practice of mindfulness, meditation. Find a teacher and sangha to learn how to break into freedom. Maybe take lessons in self-defense. Be able to feel that you take control of your life.

Hi Anonymous

Of course, I’m happy to share my experiences of therapy.

I’ve had a couple of different therapists. One when I was a child where they didn’t say very much and very much just waited for me to share when I wanted to, if I wanted to. The therapist had a lot of boundaries in place to make sure I didn’t get too attached which is essential when working with children. They could never remember my mother’s name which amused me.

I worked with a counsellor when I was in college. They were very nice and provided some advice about stopping self harming tendencies by practicing being kinder to yourself.

I had therapy around the birth of my son to help with intrusive thoughts. The two people I saw were kind and supportive and I learned some useful advice for managing intrusive thoughts.

I had issues with one therapist. They hadn’t read my file and asked me to write down my memory of being raped as homework in the first session when I had told them that I had never spoken about it before. It was too much too soon and I didn’t go back.

I waited to see another therapist and ended up seeing the one that I had left years before. I thought that I would make the best of the situation and say what wasn’t helpful. That was taken on board and she apologised. A different approach was used moving forward. Things went much better with a different approach and it turns out she was an amazing trauma therapist. I did the bulk of my work in therapy with her. She had difficulty remembering names of family members too. I think it is a common thing, if you think about how many patients they have every week and they all have family members. It is a lot to remember.

I always tell people that if something happens in therapy to upset you, tell your therapist. They are experts in communication and should immediately apologise and work with you to find a solution.

The goal of therapy is really to learn to be your own therapist. The job of your therapist is to teach you a lot of tools and to model behaviour that you will learn to do for yourself. Your therapist should be kind and listen to you. There are some things that therapists commonly say that people can find upsetting. They will call some behaviour and thoughts that are upsetting normal. But they don’t mean it isn’t important or distressing. They mean it in the sense that if someone is in a difficult situation, the feelings or actions are a normal human reaction to the circumstances.

When starting therapy a goal is usually set. It is a good idea to consider what you might want to discuss in therapy and any goals that you would like to achieve before you go.

That being said, therapists can have their off days. I know of a therapist who was horrified that they fell asleep on a patient when they were ill with long covid. My therapist’s dog died and that day we just spoke about memories of her dog. And sometimes if a patient has difficulty staying on task it can be difficult for the therapist to keep the conversation on task.

I have had a bad mental health nurse once who said some awful things to me. I had just aged out of child therapy and was waiting on adult therapy, I was seeing this nurse in the meantime. She complained that she didn’t see why I should have more therapy since I had already had therapy and called me melodramatic and attention seeking because I said that I didn’t know how I would cope without a therapist and was crying. She also wouldn’t let me leave when I tried to and told me that I had to stop crying before I could leave. The important context here is that I was abused growing up as a child and raped shortly before child therapy ended. If I was more stable and was older and wiser at the time I would have reported her because her behaviour was wildly inappropriate. I never saw her again. A mental health nurse has very poor training compared to a therapist, psychiatrist or a psychologist. I have heard of lots of bad experiences with mental health nurses sadly.

There are ways to report these things and it should be done if someone treats you badly. I think there is a difference between mistakes and things not working and people being intentionally cruel.

It is difficult when a patient has suicidal thoughts in therapy. There are a lot of strict rules about what can and can’t be done. Therapy can be distressing especially when talking about traumatic memories as the memories themselves are distressing. It is important to be stable when talking about these things, so you don’t go home and hurt yourself. You would need to be honest with your therapist about these thoughts and let them know if they get worse. They may work with you if you are very clear about how you are doing as you have a preventative factor, your child. As long as they believe you aren’t about to harm yourself it will be fine.

Hmm medication. There are a couple of different perspectives on it. Medication can make people more functional if they respond well to it. It may be suggested. But you can just say no. You don’t have to take it if you don’t want to. My trauma therapist actually helped me to withdraw from medication because she believed that medication interferes with therapy. Medication numbed my feelings, it was important to actually feel my feelings for therapy to be effective especially since I had habits of numbing my emotions based on trauma too.

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏

* It is possible that this post will come out messy because I am copied and pasted from an online source. If it does, I will resubmit the following in a clear form.

Dear anonymous:

“... I console myself  that everything is the outcome of overthinking… I need to take all my decisions. But this is where I get confused. It seems every decision I take will result negatively and I try to think of all consequences from the decisions I try to make and I get lost. Even a simple decision seems an uphill task for me hence this results in serious procrastination“- when one is lost in overthinking, then indeed even a simple decision is an uphill task and procrastination is the result.

From very well mind/ how to know when you are overthinking: “Overthinking can be a hard habit to break…  the longer you think about something, the less time and energy you have to take productive action. Plus, thinking about all the things you could have done differently, second-guessing your decisions, and continuously imagining worst-case scenarios can be exhausting… Overthinking involves thinking about a certain topic or situation excessively and analyzing it for long periods of time. When you overthink, you have a hard time getting your mind to focus on anything else… Research suggests that overthinking is associated with feelings of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)…

Back to your post: “Whoever I am communicating with at the moment, I try using compassion and empathy and ensure I do not use words that hurts them. In fact in the past, friends who used to come to me for sharing their issues. I listened to them and provided help to the best of my abilities.  I was deeply hurt when I was having issues and looked for them. They were not there“-

– in line with the last point in  article I quoted from, try using compassion and empathy toward yourself and ensure that you do not use words that hurt you. Listen to yourself and provide help to yourself. Be there  for you.

“I have been smoking heavily since the past 4.5 years. From this morning, I have made goal to reduce it slowly and ultimately quit“- congratulations for making this goal and I wish you success!

anita

Dear anonymous:

You are welcome, and no, you are not bothering me with your regular posts at the length they’ve been so far, not at all. I hope that you continue to post!

“In my childhood I was not allowed to make any mistakes either at home or at school. Whenever I made one… I was scolded and judged. Never was I taught that a mistake happens, and you need to learn from it“- sadly, and hypocritically, every person who did not allow you to make mistakes, every person who scolded and judged you for making mistakes, made mistakes himself (or herself), one of which was.. to scold and judge you for making mistakes.

“I have been abusing myself for my mistakes, for all the guilts, for the shameful events, for the helpless situations and for not being able to stand for myself when I should have. In fact, your response has made be realise how badly I have been self-mortifying myself mentally and through unhealthy lifestyle for a long time“- when anticipating abuse from the outside, as a child (from a father, a teacher), the anticipation itself (not knowing when it will happen, and how badly it will hurt) has been excruciating, has it?

So, you solved the anticipation difficulty problem.. by abusing yourself quickly, so to get the anticipation over with?

anita

The past haunts us thru our memories. Remembering and thoughts about it, bring us back to those fears. Those emotions come back to the surface again. If you make the attempt to watch your mind then you will see your emotions are very fast. Then, your thoughts will follow to support those emotions. Self observation will help you figure out how your mind works.

After you regained control over your emotions, you will find that you feel something missing. That is the constant echoing of the mind. The sinking feeling of past. Now you must take courses to change your life. YouTube has Charisma University. Learn how to be charming. Watch some of their videos. When you make people smile, laugh and feel good about themselves, they will seek you out. Then, you also need self defense courses. Go with the wife to learn to protect yourself. This is to regain the feeling of being safe in your own shoes. That is something that abuse takes away. Take it back. It all starts with you. Bring back the positive into your life. Make yourself happy.

Ok, I know it is silly advice. And, no one wants to think less of themselves by taking life courses. Trying to improve. But, for me, it is about changing focus from the past and abuse to right now.

I know I am not charming. I speak my mind. Straight forward. This is what I see. Do you know what 99% of people think right after they jump off a bridge or building. They want to stop. Change their minds. Well, you have to change your mind. Make the decision to take control.

Okay, I know I am not so smart as others nor am I so compassionate. Also, I can be quite rude. But, I don’t want to see anyone hurt themselves. Please.