Suicidal Ideation as a fuzzy, daily constant

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Sorry for my misconceptions. I hate the thought of not thinking; I've actually tried it and the inner silence creeps me out unless I am in a particularly emotional mood. I prefer to be in my own head 24/7.

Timeisdead - it's funny you should say about not wanting to stop thinking as I feel very similar, although my thinking drives me insane as well. I've tried meditation and lots of techniques to switch off thinking, but they actually frighten me and make me feel very ungrounded. I don't know if anyone else experiences this (don't want to hijack the thread though). Just struck me from reading your post that I feel the same about inner silence. It's made to be healthy and all the rest of it, but I hate it.

I guess it's a difference in our neurological wiring. When I attempt to stop my inner thoughts, this also frightens me because I prefer to be aware of my own mental consciousness. Turning off my own thoughts makes me feel akin to a zombie.

^Timeisdead........Oh...please do not apologise. was i blunt? i am told i can be terribly blunt. I enjoy reading your posts and contributions and didn't mean to dissuade you.

I love thinking too. Love it. it's wonderful.
But there are times when the brain just does not stop and i know if i had a gun in the house it would have been used. it is the incessant nature of it.

just a little break...here and there....

Yes, even when I am doing something ( drawing or painting for instance ), which switches off the ruminating/intellectual kind of thinking I am aware of all these thoughts scurrying around. Sometimes like a kind of "story", ( specially when drawing faces ), sometimes more like a commentary on what I'm doing, ( when it's an abstract painting ).

And when I exclude all food opioids from my diet ( gluten and casein ), and sugar, etc, I find the calm almost unnerving; like "What happened? Part of me has disappeared, or been switched off". My emotional life is less eventful too, as if many of my feelings are actually driven by my thoughts, and removing them puts me in an even more cool/detached state.

But I haven't had the constant suicidal ideation for years, since first changing my diet; what I have has since then, either at times of eating anything and everything, and/or post-natal depression that lasted almost 3 years, etc, was "running away" stuff, which was a daily, and agonising, thing for two years.

I had already realised/noticed years before that a cheap one-way flight to the USA which I had bought with the idea of travelling the whole american continent, had actually been a suicidal thing, ( I didn't go; I found someone even more desperately suicidal to hang out with in Europe for a while instead! ), and I think that "running away" urges have generally tended to be my version of suicidal ideation, ( usually involving reckless degrees of unplanning and risk-taking ).

But having "run away" a few times now I have begun to learn that I don't get away from the problem by doing that; I am "occupied", dealing with the challenge, for a while, and then when out of exhaustion I settle again it just comes back.

Simple, repetitive, day-long, ( but unpressured ), manual labour definitely helps to cut it down, as if it soothes my body so that my mind doesn't have to do/find things to occupy me. It's as if "thinking constantly" were a kind of stimming.

I wonder how much I got into the habit of "thinking too much" as a gifted/highly intelligent/sensitive baby stuck in a cot most of the time for the first 6- 8 months with nothing to do/hear/feel, ( except my own body ), unlike babies carried everywhere wrapped on to their mother's body, who get to use their senses and motor capacities all the time.
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Last edited by ouinon on 05 Apr 2009, 6:53 am, edited 3 times in total.

The only reason I didn't kill myself was because I didn't want the physical pain. I hate pain so much. Or maybe there was another reason. I'm not real sure. I wasn't thinking clearly. It was during my worst meltdown ever.

On a sidenote that I feel is important and there's no response needed from anyone to not hijack this topic;

you're supposed to clear your mind.

I mean, I imagine it would be frightening to kill or switch off your thoughts or to shove them away. I couldn't silence my mind like that.

That's why you're supposed to clear your mind. Nothing about force in that, because force causes pain.

I wish I could explain that better because I easily do this and I feel that it helps so much with AS/HFA and ADHD, but I can't really. It's a feeling (almost a physical one, certainly not an emotion) that guides me, tells me how to do it right but not a verbal or visual kind of instruction.

But clearing your mind is supposed to make your more aware of your environment and your inner processes, not less aware. If your awareness decreases, your doing it wrong.

You're really supposed to solve things, get a new perspective, become aware of more that is in your head, become aware of hidden emotional reactions and the impact of your emotions without getting in that consuming emotional state of tantrums, meltdowns, break-downs that you'd get into normally.

It's a state in which you're supposed to not induce force nor fight against anything. The clearness of your mind feels natural, balanced and you have to do nothing to keep it up. If you meditate and feel you have to do a lot to get into the state/keep the state then it's all totally wrong what you're doing there.

And, yeah, screw texts. Texts teach you nothing because it's all unique for your and all about knowing, not about following instructions or guessing what it's supposed to be like. If you need instructions then just get on your balcony/in your quiet garden/get under your (clean) window in a quiet room, make sure you have endless time, lie on your back and stare into the sky every day. That's a perfect starting point.

Wish I could explain that better.

I'm different, I guess. I know how I am is the cause of most of the my problems, impairments and fallings. I can spontaneously think of several deficits and impairments that have nothing to do with other people.

I understand what you mean - I have this to a lesser severity I think. I do have thoughts of suicide daily, but they are more like vague daydreams of 'ending it' and not being in the constant mental pressure sort of thing, but I've never considered actually acting on them.

They're more along the lines of; wouldn't it be nice if I won the lottery, that sort of thing. Hard to explain.

I think maybe I don't consider acting on them because I am too in love with life, or nature to be precise. I think my special interest is sort of the nature around me interspersed with my imagination and emotions, which I express through art and poetry, and because my special interest is so tied in with the universe and life, suicide would be like the opposite of my special interest - like taking it away sort of. I think.

Hey Millie,

I occasionally have thoughts of suicide - and I've seen what it does in a family because my paternal grandmother and maternal first cousin were in so much mental pain that they ended their lives.

Although I don't have constant thoughts of suicide, I do experience dysthymia - that is a low-grade depression that usually begins in childhood and can last for decades without interruption. You don't have high highs or low lows, you just have a constant low, and it goes on for such a long time that you forget what it was like not being depressed. For most of my life I've told myself to keep trying, and I work on improving my situation where I am able.

Z

The idea is always there at the back of my mind. At least once every couple of weeks, it moves to the front of my mind. I'm so used to it that it hardly bothers me any more.

Hi Millie

Until my discovery of AS I had constant thoughts of hanging myself, by constant I mean at least hourly. As you so eloquently put it "as a kind of white noise constant in my life" this sums it up beautifully.

I have been very fortunate that since my DX this 'white noise' has almost been turned off. I only get the occasional thought (maybe once or twice a week).

I suspect that once or twice a week would not be considered 'occasional' in conventional circles

i would never kill myself. i can not imagine in the slightest, the mind set of anyone who wanted to die permanently.
it scares me to think that it is a possible way to think.

i have only 1 life and i am living it now. i waited for eternity for my life to start (not consciously obviously), and even if i get a bad ticket (cargo class?) for my ride through life, then i will still take that ride.

i would prefer to be conscious of what it is like to be very very sad rather than to not experience anything ever again.

i just think that "anything" is better than "nothing".

sorry if i offend people who do not see things my way.

Last edited by b9 on 05 Apr 2009, 7:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

hey back. good to see you here Zonder.
my suicidal ideation is fairly intense. I;ve been reading the threads and it doesn;t equate with what Sunshower says about the lottery. I am used to it, and it flows in and out most of the time, so much so that it is part of the fabric of my thinking processes...but it is a real crackle. the white noise crackles and hisses.

the thing is i do all i can do look after myself. I don't drink alcohol, don't smoke, don;t take drugs, exercise, eat well, stay off dairy and wheat and gluten because of food intolerances. i even do diaphragmatic breathing for my anxiety.
This is the thing about autism...you can do all that - which makes MOST PEOPLE feel like they are sparkle-arkle winners in life --For me, all the keeps me functional to some degree. this is why i get fed up at times. It keeps me functional - able to go to the shops, cook a meal here and there, do my painting, stick to my routines, reduce stimming and maintain a general apperance akin to some ageing freak with tattoos and a pacey little stride, rather than a fruitloop who needs certifying.

I completely relate to the idea of doing what you need to do to function on some level, and in cultivating a persona. I cultivate smart, shy, and slightly eccentric.

I've not been here in a while and it's nice to virtually chat, Millie.

Z

What if you lived with someone who was horrible to you, barked orders at you was their only form of communication and didn't try to understand you, while your sister was defending this person and telling you to deal with living with something that she will never experience. Then you started to have meltdowns daily. Your body was sore after thrashing around like a child, knocking things over and hitting yourself because you had so much pent up rage. You'd want to kill yourself.
That was my situation a month ago.

^ chuckle.
yes. good to chat.

thanks everyone who has posted.
Oh, and dentarthurdent - your post made me laugh. once or twice a week would be reason of a careering ride to the shrink for most!!