04: Let’s Talk About Suicide: Healing from the Death of Loved Ones By Suicide & Addressing Suicidal Thoughts

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Written By Amanda Durocher

Suicide and suicidal thoughts are all too common in today’s society. In this episode, Amanda answers questions about how to heal from the death of loved ones who have died by suicide and how to handle suicidal thoughts when they arise.

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In this episode, you will learn about:

  • Why Amanda believes we need to have more conversations about suicide

  • Advice on healing from the death of a loved one by suicide

  • Advice on handling suicidal thoughts

Suicide Prevention Lifeline Info & Suicide Statistics

Episode References:

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    Amanda Durocher 0:00

    Hey there, today's episode may be triggering for some. The topic of today's episode is suicide. Before I start this episode, I want to say that I am not a trained professional. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can connect you to a trained crisis counselor at your nearest crisis center 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Please take care of yourself. I also want to mention that I use explicit language throughout this episode, listener discretion is advised. Welcome to New View Advice, a safe place for you to ask your most vulnerable questions about life, relationships, healing and so much more. I'm your host, Amanda Durocher and I believe our fears and traumas are often what holds us back from living life to the fullest. Join me here each week as I offer advice on how to move through whatever is holding you back from being your best self. Let's get started.

    Amanda Durocher 1:02

    Hello, and welcome to another episode of New View Advice. If you are new here, this is a podcast where I answer listener questions about real life problems, situations and traumas. My goal for this podcast is to take the shame out of the healing process. I stressed this today because today's topic is suicide. I had a different topic planned for today. But I received some heartbreaking news this week that caused me to switch gears and focus my pain and heartbreak into this episode. This past week, I found out that my cousin Robert died by suicide. I and many others are left heartbroken, shocked. And with so many questions, suicide and suicidal thoughts are so common in our society, yet I don't hear enough confrontations about it. And after the news I received this week I decided what the hell, it's a real issue. And let's fucking talk about it. I'm so sick of people shying away from it and I will be honest, I was one of those people shying away from the subject. So I am here showing up as I asked you to show up vulnerably honestly and ready to have the tough conversations. I did some research into statistics around suicide. And what I found left me heartbroken and enraged. These are statistics from the CDC website about suicide and suicidal thoughts in the United States in 2019. I use the 2019 statistics because they are the most recent stats on the CDC website. These are the following statistics I found more than 47,000 people died by suicide in the United States in 2019. This is one person every 11 minutes. Suicide is the second leading cause of death and people's ages one to 44. In the United States. Suicide rates have increased by 33%. Between 1999 and 2019. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States.

    The number of people who think about or attempt suicide is even higher. In 2019 12 million American adults seriously thought about suicide 3.5 million planned a suicide attempt at 1.4 million Americans attempted suicide. One out of six students nationwide grades nine to 12 seriously considered suicide in 2019. I found these statistics alarming and heartbreaking for a leading cause of death in this country. Why do I not hear more conversations about suicide and suicide prevention? I'm not gonna lie. I am currently going through some stages of grief. And today I am angry. The wave the emotion I am writing his anger. I am angry this happened. And I am angry that this happens all the time. I am angry that this happens every 11 minutes. I am angry that people feel so hopeless and lost that they feel like their only option is suicide. I am angry that we have left peoples to deal with their mental health alone and we have shamed people for far too long. I feel really angry that we've gotten to this point as a country. And I just want to state that this is a problem worldwide as well. But these were just statistics for the United States. But 800,000 people die a year of suicide worldwide. So today, let's have the uncomfortable conversation about suicide. The visual I'm getting about today is that as a society, as a collective, as a group of listeners, let's open the door on a dark closet on the closet Mark suicide and let's shine the light inside. And let's look at the skeletons that we have ignored for far too long. Suicide may make you uncomfortable and that's okay. But I asked you to be open about this conversation with me. I asked you to listen with me. And I asked you to hear my point of view and others questions. And I asked you to learn and I asked you to ask yourself if you are part of the problem about how Suicide is not talked about in this country about how suicide has been left as a shame painful secret in the back of people's closets. how so many people who suffered depression alone, I asked you to step into the light with me. And to help shine the light on something that people would call shameful, and that I call tragic. I don't think there's anything shameful about having suicidal thoughts. I think suicidal thoughts are a sign that something in your life needs to change. I think suicidal thoughts are like if you're having a heart attack. If you're having a heart attack, you call 911. Because your heart isn't working. If you're having suicidal thoughts, it is the same thing. Your thought patterns are not working for you. I don't talk about this very often, but I've struggled with suicidal thoughts my entire life. As someone who was raped as a child, and again, in my teens, I have struggled with suicidal thoughts, that I want people to know that suicide does not have to be the answer. Often when we have suicidal thoughts, it is because we are in so much pain, but it is pain the outside world can't see so they ignore it. Mental health is an issue. I have shied away from talking about suicide in my previous episodes. Well, I want to be part of the solution not part of the problem anymore. So let's talk about it. And how if you're having suicidal thoughts, you're not alone, I make my mental health a priority. And I still can find myself having suicidal thoughts, I can still find myself falling into patterns of unworthiness and self hatred. I just want to say that if you're a little uncomfortable by this topic, or even very uncomfortable by this topic, so am I. This is a difficult topic to talk about. We live in a society that shames people for having mental health problems, and suicide is the extreme of mental health problems. It has gotten this reputation for being a shameful secret. But I don't want it to be viewed that way. I want us to talk about it. If you're a listener who has struggled with mental health, depression and suicidal thoughts, I just want you to know that I'm right there with you. I also want to say before we jump into questions, that I think suicide is a societal issue. If you think to yourself, I don't know anybody who wants to kill themselves, right? I've never had these thoughts before. I think you would be surprised to know the people in your life who have thought about dying by suicide. I don't think it's very uncommon. I, for one, know many people in my life who have thought about it, and I know people who have attempted suicide. I know more people than I would like to be going through this and to feel like they're going through it on their own. This is a societal problem. This is a human problem. We need to start taking mental health seriously. So today, I want to have a vulnerable conversation about suicide and answer your questions. Again, I am not a trained professional. But I will link resources for suicide prevention and the Suicide Lifeline and therapy in the show notes. Today when I answer your questions, I want to be clear that these answers are based off of my own experiences. I can only speak to that. I hope by being open and honest about what I have been through in relation to suicide, it can help someone out there who feels the same. I just want to say to that for today's questions with two of the questions. We're focusing on the aftermath of suicide. Often when people are in so much pain and thinking about dying by suicide and do die by suicide, they don't realize how much pain they're leaving behind. They don't realize that they're leaving a shattered world for people to pick up the pieces. As I mentioned last week, for every person who dies, there's 10 people grieving. So if someone dies by suicide every 11 minutes, that means that there are 10 times that number of people left grieving that death. What comes with the deaths of suicide are all the emotions that come with grief, along with shock, guilt, shame, and another level of devastation because so many people are left thinking they could have done something wishing they had known and left thinking that there is something they could have done. Today, I want to address that pain that people go through on the other end. And I also want to answer a question about having suicidal thoughts. Let's jump on in.

    Amanda Durocher [listener question] 9:30

    Question one, dear New View Advice. One of my friends from my childhood died by suicide a few months ago and I'm heartbroken. Me and this friend were close enough that I would have thought he would have told me if something was wrong. I wish I had known he was so hurt. I feel like I failed as a friend. I keep replaying our last conversations over and over again in my head. I keep wondering what I could have said or done to have helped him. I'm heartbroken and lost. My friend is all I think about I find it hard to do my work or be at home by myself, because all I do is think about how much pain my friend was in, and how I did nothing. I'm wondering if you have any advice on how to heal from such a tragedy? Thank you for this question. I am so sorry for your loss. death by suicide is an epidemic in this country, and in many countries around the world, and you are not alone in how you're feeling. I want to start with that your feelings are valid. And I also want to reassure you that this was not your fault. Something I didn't mention in my episode on grief was that when my friend died in my 20s, we actually didn't know how he died for a very long time. And I thought he may have killed himself. And I had to go to therapy for all the guilt I had, because I felt like I could have done something to prevent his death. I was wracked with so much grief and guilt, and shame. And I too, felt like I failed as a friend. So I just want you to know, I completely and totally relate to this question. I really believe that that blame we put on ourselves, is a way for us to try and control such a shocking and devastating tragedy. Our brains aren't wired to understand this type of thing. And for so many of us, control is a coping strategy. So we go straight to how we could have controlled it and how we could have stopped it. When the truth is, we couldn't have stopped it. Your friend was depressed, your friend did not reach out for help. Your friend was in a lot of pain and chose death by suicide. And he was ravaged by these thoughts. And that's not your fault. Many people who are depressed don't feel loved because they don't love themselves. The truth is, we're all like, how did they not know how much I loved them? How did they not know how loved they were? How did they not know that their family loved them that their family needed them. But the truth is, suicide is rooted in self hatred, and the lack of self love, because society does not teach us the importance of loving ourselves. society teaches us about external IQ teaches us to buy happiness, to look outside of ourselves for happiness to give ourselves up in relationships. We live in a society that teaches us if you get the job, if you make enough money, if you go on that dream vacation, if your Instagram profile looks good, if you have a lot of friends, if you're thin, you'll be happy. Those are all lies, there lies. This is an internal issue we need to deal with. We need to start teaching our children, our friends, our partners, how much we love them. And we need to teach each other how important it is to love ourselves. It sounds like your friend didn't talk about how depressed he was. And that's very common. And I'm so sorry for your loss. You know, if you haven't listened to my episode on grief, you're also going through the stages of grief. So all that stuff I talked about in there is going to be really helpful for you. And what you have been through is a tragedy. Suicide is a tragedy. And I really do believe suicide is preventable, but it's only preventable. If the people who are having suicidal thoughts start talking about them. One, and then two, if somebody opens up to you, that we don't shame them. When I was thinking about suicide, I did some research and I watched this TED talk and suicide is happens to all genders, non binary, transgender, but I want to focus on men for a minute, because you said you kept using the pronoun he so I'm hoping it's a safe assumption to assume your friend was male. So what I want to say about male suicide, and I'm going to link the TED talk I watched because male suicide is actually more common than female suicide. And this is one because of what we put on men of what the idea of men is. We expect men to be dependable, strong and provide, which a lot of times it's financial. And as a society, we honestly shame men for having feelings. And I was also reminded of Glennon Doyle's chapter in her book untamed, where she talks about boys and how as women have for so long, we have shamed men for these feelings. So when they show us that vulnerability, women give a look of disgust or disdain or uncomfortableness that puts these men right back into their shells. So I just want to say that as a society, moving forward, we need to create open spaces for the people we love and care about. So what I learned through my own experience, and what I want to share with you is that there's nothing you or I could have done. Like you said, your friend did not open up to you about how he was feeling. There's nothing you could have done for your friend. I'm so sorry for this last year. It's variants, I want you to take yourself off the hook. I want anyone out there that is living with the guilt from a loved one, dying by suicide to take themselves off the hook, you didn't know how much pain they were in. Many people with depression get really good at hiding that depression. And they hide behind often characteristics that look really nice. They are so outgoing, and they care so much about everyone else. And they never talk about themselves. They're all about helping, they're all about you. And it's hard to see how much pain they're in. And it's not your responsibility to know how much pain they're in if they didn't share it with you. I know how hard it is. And I know it's really hard not to think what could have I done. But I want you to take yourself off the hook. You are right, this is a tragedy you're healing from it is always heartbreaking when somebody decides to take their own life. So what I want you to take yourself off the hook to I want you to write your friend a letter, I want you to create a ceremony and I want you to write your friend a letter, everything you wish you could have said, and I want you to read it to your friend, somewhere in nature. And I want you to write your friend a letter, I want you to write your friend how sad you are and how much you love them. I want you to put everything you feel down on paper, this will be therapeutic for you. Don't judge yourself for what comes out. If you're angry, right that you're angry, right? Whatever is coming up and just right. It can be a one page letter, it could be a 10 page letter, but I want you to write a letter to your friend. And maybe because you said this was a childhood friend, maybe there's a group of you. And you could all do this, you could all write letters. And then together you could bury the letters or you could burn the letters. But I want you to create a little ceremony around it. So by ceremony, I mean, I want you to do this letter writing. And then I want you to intentionally do something with the letter. So you either intentionally can burn it, throw it in the ocean, bury it, rip it up and throw it in the wind. But I want you to find a way to release this from yourself. Like that's what this is going to symbolize. And I know that this might sound I feel like ceremony isn't talked about in our society. But truth Lee ceremony has transformed my life when we bring intention to something. And ceremony is the intention, right? So your intention is to write your friends a letter and to release these feelings doesn't mean it's going to change overnight. But that intention will move some of this energy, I want you to release this guilt, this burden you put on your shoulders. Again, it is not your fault. It is no one's fault. It is a tragedy. If anybody's fault, it's society's fault. Our world is so backwards. This patriarchal society we live in is not set up for mental health. It is not set up to talk about our feelings. It's so many of us live in shame for feeling depressed, anxious to feel this grief to have guilt. So many of us live in pain from our childhood experiences from things we experienced today from just moving through life and never being happy. And our society doesn't talk about that. And we need to talk about it. This needs to be a discussion we have mental health is part of the human experience. If you are on this earth and you're human, you have feelings, why that's not more commonly talked about and why our mental health isn't treated just like our physical health baffles me. I know you're so sad right now I know you're hurt. I know you're going through such grief and sorrow. This is a heartbreaking tragedy. But I want you to write your friend a letter. I also, as I mentioned, in every episode, I'd like you to find a therapist, I'd like you to find somebody to talk about these real feelings you're having. I'd like you to find a professional to work with. This is not your responsibility to go through alone. This was not your fault. This was no one's fault. This was a tragedy. Many people who end their lives who die by suicide are trying to end the pain there in as someone who's struggled from suicidal thoughts for a very long time. I would say that was my experience. For so long. The mental chatter in my head was so painful that I thought that dying was a way to end the pain. It's like the pain in my head is too painful. The self hatred is too painful. It's unbearable, that I would redirect the pain. So suicidal thoughts come from being in so much pain. It's like our mental health is a real issue. So what I want you to write a letter to I want you to find a therapist. I know it's so hard to wrap our heads around such a big tragedy. But really you just got to let yourself off the hook and move through the stages of grief. It's sad to shock you and through, it's such a shock on the body, give yourself a break, give yourself some love. It sounds like you've been really hard on yourself. So I would love it if you implemented some self love practices into your life. So this could look like a meditation practice, meditation could actually be really good for you, because it sounds like you're reliving the conversations you had with your friend, which means you're very much not in the present moment, you're very much in the past. So implementing meditation or journaling. If you find meditation too hard, just putting down all those thoughts and feelings you're having on paper, and moving your body, you went through a shock on the body. So moving your body moving, the energy that stuck in your body would be really great for you. The book waking the tiger book about trauma and how it gets stuck in the body. If you read that, it's all about how and why energy gets stuck when we experience trauma, because we often don't get to go through the full movements. So I want you to move your body behind yourself. Go through the stages of grieving, and check in with your friends, check in with your loved ones. Tell them how much you love them. I know when my friend died, I started telling everybody how much I loved them. And people were uncomfortable, but I think they appreciate it. Be the friend that people can come talk to be that safe space, be that light. And how you really do that is deal with your own emotions. You can be that emotional person for someone else when you create that space within yourself. So that's why it's so important for you to just not be so hard on yourself. Love yourself. Love yourself through this. Give yourself a big hug. I love you.

    Amanda Durocher [listener question] 21:36

    Question to Dr. newView advice. My sister died by suicide over a year ago. But I still miss her every day. She went to college as such a happy girl. And when she came back for summer vacation, she was a different person. She didn't tell anyone what was wrong. I'm embarrassed to admit it. But I thought she was just going through a phase. She was always more moody than me. And I figured she grew out of it. I tried to talk to her about it. But she never wanted to talk and locked herself in a room for most of the summer. She died by suicide before returning to school for the next semester. We were all shocked and left in disbelief. She left a note saying she had been raped at school. None of us knew her death broke my parents. My family is not the same without her. And I don't know what to do. As her older sister, I should have been there for her. I have so much pain, grief and sorrow. How can I forgive myself for her death? I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm so sorry. As a survivor of rape, I know the devastating effects it has on a person as well as on their family. So I am so sorry for what you and your family have been through. I mentioned that in this question because especially when I was raped in my teens I disassociated from the experience. But I did not disassociate from the suicidal thoughts. And I'm bringing this up because there's again with this question, there's nothing you could have done because you didn't know what your sister went through. There aren't enough conversations about what the lasting effects of rebar. And it's another healable thing, but it's been the hardest thing I've healed from and I'm definitely still on that journey. I mentioned I shied away from talking about suicide in my previous episodes. And I actually started this podcast because I read this story about a woman who died by suicide after being raped, and then her mother died by suicide a year after I am all too familiar with how rape is connected with suicide. I sure know that's where my suicidal thoughts started from. I have fallen into the thought patterns of suicide many times before. So I just want to say that because this is so not your fault. There is nothing you could have done because you did not know what your sister experience at school, and your parents don't know what she experienced at school. So there's nothing you could have done. It does not make this any easier. But again, as I said, with the first question, I want you to take the burden off your shoulders. This was not your fault. society puts so much shame around suicide, but they also put a lot of shame around rape. Rape is a violent act happens to wait too many people for us as a society not to be able to have better conversations about it and better support systems and better systems set up. I just want you to know how much this is not your fault. There's no way you could have known. Again, people are depressed or going through real trauma and pain need to talk about it. And it can be really hard to talk about it because we are, as I said in a society that likes to shame us. But it's so important to talk about it so important to reach out. It's so important. And I'm so sorry for how it's affected your family dynamic. And I'm so sorry that you and your parents are all going through grief at the same time. And that's what can be so hard about when we lose loved ones is that it's hard to be there for each other

    They're because we're all going through our own grief. So I am so so sorry. I hope you have a therapist. If not, I'd like you to find one. So your question was, how can I forgive myself for her death, and you have put this on yourself this burden, this blame that is not yours, there's nothing to forgive. But since you have taken this on, you do need to forgive yourself, you need to forgive yourself for taking this on. So I'm going to give you some of my forgiveness practices. Forgiveness has changed my life. Forgiveness is the tool to healing forgiveness is the everything. And we do not forgive for others, right. So I've had people be like, I don't think you can ever forgive who raped you? Yes, I can. Because I deserve that. I deserve not to live with hatred in my heart that plagued me after what happened to me. So forgiveness to me and I always go back to an overcoat. Forgiveness is letting go of the idea that the past could have been any different. So how you're going to forgive yourself, is that you're going to let go of the blame, you've put on yourself that this situation could have played out any differently. And to do this, you're gonna have to feel all your feelings around it. forgiveness doesn't happen overnight. You have nothing to blame yourself for. But if you are blaming yourself, that's human. Okay. Since you asked, How can I forgive myself? I want to offer you Hapa pono? Oh, no, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly. But it's a Hawaiian practice that I'll link in the show notes. And it's repeating for mantras to yourself that are I'm sorry, please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. I use this all the time. And I'll link some Hapa Ponoko songs. This is a forgiveness prayer. And it's really powerful, because you're acknowledging what you've been through. So like, I'm so sorry for what happened. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me self. Please forgive me. Thank you. And often the thank you is the lesson. And I know it might be hard to see the lesson in this but there's one layer somewhere. And for you, it's really could just be I think myself for taking myself off the hook. Thank you, thank you self, I take myself off the hook. This was not my fault. I forgive myself for the blame I placed upon myself. I love you. I love yourself, I love you. This is a really good practice for anyone who carries a lot of guilt. I use this self love practice all the time how proponent Oh, no, it's, it's like a meditative prayer. I really recommend sitting in meditation and just repeating these four phrases yourself over and over again, it's just let yourself off the hook. It helps us navigate our inner world, it helps free up the space. None of us deserve to live with massive amounts of guilt for no matter what it is, and especially you for this. And also if you need to hear it. I'll hop opponent over you. I'm so sorry for what you went through. I'm so sorry. So sorry that you had to embrace this tragedy. I am so sorry. Please forgive yourself. You deserve to be let off the hook for something you could not control. And that's the truth. Thank you. Thank you for being so vulnerable. And thank you for the willingness to heal. And to forgive yourself. We need more people like you in this world. We need more people who are willing to forgive themselves. We need more people who are willing to let these emotions that haunt us, move through us so we can let more self acceptance and more self loving. And I love you. I love you so much I sent you so much love. So for you, I really recommend that practice of self forgiveness. And another way through to do that is of course through therapy, talking about somebody having the mirror back to you. Because you're telling yourself some stories that are not true. So that gives you the other idea that I want you to write down the stories you're telling yourself, you're telling yourself stories that aren't true. Like there's nothing you could have done and you're telling yourself it's your fault. The stories you're telling self don't match up with reality. And all of us do that. You know, if you read any of Brene Browns work, she talks a lot about the stories we tell ourselves. And that's how the mind works. And that can be related back to suicide to a lot of people who die by suicide are suffering from the stories they tell themselves. And they get stuck in their own heads in their own thought patterns. That's why it's so important to find help and it's so important to talk to someone it's so important to find a good therapist, and I've said this before but to everyone listening. The first therapist you may find may not be the best therapist for you. You need to ask questions for this episode. I want you to ask anybody you're talking to if you've if they have dealt with suicide. If they tell you no move on. I want you to find peace People who have experience with people who have gone through this, you're going through a lot of emotions that are different than other grief. There's more emotions attached. When there's suicide, about a lot of guilt. There's so much guilt, so much confusion. So even look at the stories you're telling yourself, I want you to practice Hapa pono odo and I want you to find a therapist, and I just want you to know it's not your fault. You know, so many people who die of suicide, are just trying to end the pain they're in and I can attest to how painful rape is. It is not just painful on the body, it is painful on the mind, body and soul. I was shown this visual once in a meditation for how rape affected me and I was shown how it infected my heart and infected my mind, infected my root chakra. It infected my body infected everything. We all live with these boundaries around us and rape takes away that safety. And it's such a violent act. And it should be treated as such, this was not your fault. I love you. And the best thing you can do for yourself is to be kind with yourself throughout your healing process. And in the shownotes I will link a lot of resources for therapy and an Instagram posts about questions you should ask and all that I sent you so much love. This too shall pass.

    Amanda Durocher [listener question] 31:32

    Question three, dear New View Advice. I'm 24 and found quarantining alone to be really hard, and found myself having suicidal thoughts. For months, I was isolated and didn't see anyone, and had a lot of thoughts about killing myself. I was so lonely in so much pain, but was too scared to tell anyone. I eventually moved back in with my family. I told them I was depressed living alone, but I was never honest about how bad it got. Sometimes the pain I'm in is just so overwhelming. And I just want it all to stop the thoughts, the feelings, the chaos in my head? I don't know how to turn it off. Do you have any advice on how to get rid of these thoughts? Wow, thank you for this question. This is so vulnerable. And I think this is so common and so not talked about in our society and in today's culture. And I'm so glad you felt comfortable enough to ask this. So let's dive in. I just want to acknowledge that your depression is real, your feelings are real, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You don't have to go through this all alone. So I just want you to know that what you are feeling is very common. Again, I think that we've talked a lot about COVID. We've talked about a lot about COVID deaths. And we've talked a lot about our physical health. But we have not talked enough about our mental health this year, threw a wrench and a lot of people's mental health. Mine included yours included a lot of people included this year was scary this year was terrifying this year brought up a lot of depression, being alone with our thoughts gives us the time to sit with ourselves and to heal. But if you don't know how to do that, then you don't know how to do that, as a society for us to shut down the world, ever humans to be isolating each other and have to remain six feet apart and have to wear masks. So we can't see each other smile, and not to be able to see our friends and family not to have our normal distractions. And a lot of people went from seeing 50 People at work to seeing no one that affects our mental health. Where are these conversations, I'm not seeing the real conversation about mental health. And that every single person has to deal with their mental health, just like their physical health. Just like everybody should eat healthy, and everybody needs to exercise and everybody needs to move their body if they're capable. Everybody needs to work on their mental health, we need to get rid of the stigma around mental health. Depression is like a cancer. It eats away at your mind. If undealt with we need to talk about depression, we need to stop getting uncomfortable to when people open up. So for you, you talk about how you were depressed and you were living alone. And I'm really glad that you moved in with your family. I think that sounds like it was good for you. But it sounds like you don't you haven't told anybody about your depression. So I think if you listen to my podcast, you know what my first piece of advice is gonna be. But I think you need a therapist. If you're not comfortable telling anyone in your family you need a therapist. I do think you should tell someone in your family, especially when you're going through a really hard time still happens to me it's very it's a lot more rare than it used to be, but I can still get caught in these suicidal thought patterns. The thoughts still arise and where that is coming from is the amount of pain I'm in. I find at this point if I nor my feelings as they arise, I get quick whiplash, I really am unable to ignore my feelings. You know, I recently had like a mini breakdown. And then I had a medium breakdown. And I ignored both. I never meditated on them. I never sat with my feelings. I never sat with my inner child. And then I had a third breakdown, that was a full on breakdown. And I felt like I should die because I got to my breaking point. And as somebody who does the work, I know better. But a lot of people don't know better. So I want to talk a little bit about what I do when these thoughts arise. So one, you need to sit with your feelings when they arise. And you might find that your suicidal thoughts come at certain triggers. For me as a rape survivor, my rape triggers things that relate with that would spark these thoughts for me when I was drinking, which I'm happy to talk about sobriety and addiction on another episode, but when I was drinking, there were mornings, if I blacked out, I would wake up and I'd want to die and I would have suicidal thoughts kick in. So it's like, for me, I got part of the reason I got rid of drinking was because of the shame spiral I would go on. If I drank too much, it wasn't worth this kickback I was getting. So paying attention when these thoughts arise. And if you can, in those moments, which is can be really hard trying to tell yourself, it's going to be okay, reassuring yourself. But for you, since it sounds like this has been going on for a while, I really think you need to tell somebody about what's going on. It's okay. Tell somebody you trust, tell somebody love, I think there's a lot of people you would find who would be there for you. It sounds to me, like you need to make some changes in your life, you have nothing to be ashamed of this is very common. This is something society shames us for. And this is a mental health crisis, we need to be there for each other. And we need to allow people their feelings, and we need to get over ourselves and get into being there for one another, and supporting one another and promoting vulnerability. Because that's where true authentic connection lies. As I mentioned, I can still have these thoughts. So unfortunately, I think the first step is how to have these thoughts less and how to handle these. What it is, is, instead of how to get rid of these thoughts, what I think you need to ask yourself is how do I handle these thoughts when they arise? What are my go to practices when I get overwhelmed inside my head. And I want you to start paying attention to the warning signs. Because as somebody who suffers from suicidal thoughts, I have warning signs, when my mind starts to race when I start to get into a negative self talk pattern that happens. But before I jump straight to wanting to die, the opposite of suicidal thoughts is self love. And implementing self love practices, and being kind to yourself and learning to enjoy yourself. So if you don't even know where to start listening to podcasts, listening to books, reading books, all can be really helpful. That really helped me reading books just changed my life because it showed me how the thoughts I was having wasn't just me, we get so in our heads like I'm the only one who's ever felt this way. And books really showed me that that wasn't true. I don't know if your thought patterns started before quarantined so I don't know if it was triggered just by being alone. Or I don't know if you had a trauma in your past or what but you could read books about other people have experienced what you've been through or had similar childhoods or just reading self help books. A great person to start with is Brene Brown, all of Brene Browns work. It talks about shame and vulnerability where I think behind suicidal thoughts is a lot of shame. A lot of people feel a lot of shame around having the thoughts and feel too shameful to tell anyone. Because you were saying you were too scared to tell someone. And I bet you also felt too much shame to tell anyone. So you're scared to tell somebody because my guess is you're scared because of their reaction to you saying it. And my guess is you're already being so mean to yourself. And the thought patterns are already so cruel that you can't handle anybody's else's judgment on top of that. You can't handle somebody looking at you differently. You can't handle somebody judging you for it. Somebody's not understanding somebody telling you to get over it. You can't handle it because the pain. I just want to tell you the pain you're feeling is very real. Again, this is why we need to talk about mental health. It's like so bonkers to me that we don't talk about the inner dialogues we tell ourselves and if you're ever feeling really lost, I do recommend calling the Suicide Prevention Lifeline. I've never Hold up myself, but I know a woman who works there. And she's absolutely lovely. And she talks about what they do. If you need somebody to validate you, if you need somebody to hear you and see you, it's a great resource. Okay, so I think you need some self love practices. So, as I've mentioned in previous episodes, self love practices practiced as a practice doesn't happen overnight. But practice daily will make a difference. Either meditating, journaling, doing yoga, listening to new content, I don't know what type of TV shows you watch movies. But if you're watching things with negative storylines, or like a lot of horror movies, I recommend switching to something lighter switch to calm and get your head more in that space more in those worlds. We are we're really affected by the people we surround ourselves with, and the media we intake. So if you're feeling this way, turn the news off, there's never any good news on the news, I recommend that picking up a happy book, picking up comedy, movies, comedy TV shows, allow yourself a break, you know, allow yourself the joy, allow yourself to laugh. There's so much negative content out there. There's so much depressing content out there. I used to listen to True Crime podcasts all the time. And I'm fascinated by true crime. But I found that it wasn't helping Mike, my headspace. It was like I was always living in these dark worlds with these dark stuff going on. So I just had to take a break from that for a while. Instead, I switched over to self help podcasts and self help books and happy music. And I even watch the type of music I put in my head, right? So there's a lot of breakup songs or angry songs. So I have playlists for my mood. So I have an anger playlist, but the mood music, I mostly listen to his happy music, you know, I want to just constantly keep my thoughts and my vibration happier. Because it's so easy for me as somebody who's struggled with depression my whole life, to fall into those depressing patterns. So I have to be really intentional within my environment. And that's okay, I used to judge myself for that, too, you know, like people would be like, Oh, have you seen this show or that show and they'd have a really depressing plot or a triggering plot for me. And I was like, oh, like, I should suck it up and watch it like everybody's saying it's so good. And then afterwards, I wouldn't feel good. And it's like, No, I shouldn't. So I just want to give you permission to shut off things that leave you feeling blocked afterwards. If it's affecting your mental health, and don't do it, don't do it till your mental health is better. Say you broke your foot. And it's really important to walk into move. But if you broke your foot, you wouldn't try to run every day, you wouldn't try to go for a five mile run. It's the same thing with our minds. If we're having trouble with mental health, we shouldn't be turning on the news and hearing about the devastating things going on in the world. It's okay to shut it off. If you have the mental capacity for that great. But if you don't, which many people don't, right now, it's okay to shut it off. And it's okay to take care of you and do what you need. So I think you need to tell somebody how you're feeling a loved one or a therapist, I definitely think you should get a therapist. And I think you need to start doing some self love practices, journaling, meditating, gratitude lists, listening to self help books, reading self help books, and I think you need to pay attention to what you're putting in one ear and out the other. So I think you need to pay attention to your environments, and what you're watching. And also, if you're somebody who gets really jealous, stay off of social media, social media can be really, really, really harmful. So if that's upsetting you, or you notice that you're spending a lot of time on that, I recommend a social media break as well. So those are just some tips about the self love and trying to get more into a positive environment, because I hate to say it, but getting rid of the thoughts isn't as easy as I personally will just speak to I haven't found a way to get rid of the thoughts altogether. But I have found ways to handle the thoughts, and not to become overwhelmed by the thoughts, and most importantly, how not to become consumed by the thoughts. And this is through the self love practices. And by doing these practices, I am now able to when I start to have a meltdown, talk myself through it, and just repeatedly tell myself, I love myself and repeatedly tell myself, it's going to be okay. And I'm able to be there for myself. But that took practice and that took years. So be kinder to yourself, be gentle with yourself, and I recommend getting professional help. I also just wanted to say that I think that with suicidal thoughts, a lot of us judge ourselves for having them at all and feel a lot of shame about having them. So I just want to let you know and I just want you to know it's not shameful. There's no reason to judge yourself. You're not alone. These are very common. This is a very common thing in the world we're living in and 2021 So I just think that sometimes when we get into a really bad thought pattern we can we judge ourselves and through a new thoughts. And I just want to debunk the belief that we're the only ones who suffer from suicidal thoughts. It's, unfortunately very common. And that's why I want to talk about it. That's why I'm trying to bring awareness to it. And I just want you to know that I see you. And I feel you. And I know what it's like to feel lonely, alone, and even feel lonely when people are around and just feel like you're the only one suffering and I just want you to know you're not alone. So I love you so much. And I really hope something in that answer helped. Thank you for that question.

    Amanda Durocher 45:38

    For today's free resource corner, I really struggled with finding something that I thought would help. Because the truth is, with death by suicide, especially, there's just so much pain at the beginning, there's just so much pain. And there's not much anyone can do or say or any advice that can fix it. The truth is, it's just so painful. And then for suffering with suicidal thoughts, it's really painful as well, I did want to offer a resource that just helps me when I'm feeling down, helps you when I'm depressed. So this is for those moments when you just kind of want to escape. But this is a healthy way I use to kind of connect with my inner child and lighten up my day. So when I'm depressed a lot of times, or a lot of times after like a really heavy therapy session, I color. I don't know how many people do adult coloring, or how many people I know it was a fad a few years ago, but I find a coloring page based off of how I'm feeling and I color I put on some happy music or I put on a happy movie. And it can be really hard when we're depressed to even take that step. But just throw on a happy movie and grab a coloring book, grab some color pencils, and some markers. And there's plenty of free resources for coloring pages that I'll link. You can also buy a coloring book. They're super cheap. You can buy one for like $5, at Walmart, or on Amazon. But sit down in color and just allow yourself to just be it's really meditative. Because if you're having trouble shutting off that loop, the coloring helps with the thought patterns, it helps you get out of your head because you're focused on something. So if you throw on a happy movie, you get a coloring page, your mind is busy enough that you that you'll get out of the thought pattern. It will help you to stop the incessant thoughts. I really recommend it please let me know if it works for you. I know that that doesn't fix any of these questions, but it is a resource I've used when my suicidal thoughts arise to get me in a different headspace quickly, and I found it really helps me. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of newView advice. This was a hard Episode This was heavy topic and be kind to yourself. Thank you for listening. I just want to repeat that if if you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Please take care of yourself. Thank you for listening. I would love to hear from you. If you have any questions about suicide or suicidal thoughts, please reach out please ask questions. I want to help to take away the shame from suicide and suicidal thoughts. I want you to know you're not alone. I want you to know how common this is. I want you to feel connected to people and I want you to feel comfortable asking your question so please, please, please write me if you have any questions. You can write me an email at newviewadvice@gmail.com. Or you can fill out the form on my website to ask a question at newviewadvice.com. Thank you again for joining me Amanda Durocher for another episode of New View Advice. As always, I'm so grateful to be here with you and to offer a new view on whatever you may be going through. sending you all my love. See you next time.

    Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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