I'm like one of those comic strips that have regular recaps under the heading "for those who came in late..." Only came across this last night. 🙂 May I "backcomment" on a few of the previous day's talking points, once I've done a catch up read through?
Re. suicide...
We're (self and Hubby) in a position where there's an atypical pattern of "attempts". Our Older Daughter frequently (habitiually) self harms, almost always requiring medical care. She has also had a pattern of suicidal ideation for years. There have been some definite suicide attempts, but there have also been a lot of grey-area incidents that are possibly more correctly defined as "self harm with suicidal ideation". Problem is, all of these have happened so frequently that we've reached a point where our reaction is "ah no, not again", followed by mutual silence... and then we try to get on with our "day as normal". It's just not possible to react "all stops pulled out" when it's a frequently repeated situation. We have no idea if she'll survive long term, we have times when the possibility of imminent disaster is higher than usual, but the threat is always there, and somehow "life otherwise" has to keep ticking over in the meantime.
We see a psychologist ourseves regularly, but there too we have the problem that we can't keep re-covering the same things, even though it's a constant blur of ongoing trauma. It's not a case of "the attempt" is in the past, we need to deal with the resultant post-traumatic stress and somehow move on. The trauma never reaches the point of "post". Our latest appointment, I basically gave a recap of the stresses of the past few weeks, then desribed what we'd done to get ourselves back on our feet afterwards. For me, that was forcing myself to go out and do stuff in the garden, even though I felt flattened, because I knew from past experience that doing something productive and outdoorsy would help lift my mood. For Hubby, it was similar, but his "something productive" tends to involve tools. 🙂 And we're Christians, we pray, we've got a supportive church community, some of whom have personal experience in caring for a mentally ill family member, and some who have a medical background. Over time, more and more people in the church have learned about our daughter's mental illness, so, with some caution for her privacy (she goes to the same church) and also care that we don't go into "TMI" and cause trauma to others... we've found we're able to be more open about what happens, and we don't need to spend as much time and energy explaining why we're exhausted/not working etc. To some extent, similar has happened in our small town community too.
Our local area actually has a very proactive "end of life care" hub, where people can access specific counselling and therapy around death and dying. We've wondered about enquiring about whether they've got any relevant support for us, but are a bit uncertain about doing so. The concern that someone you love may die as a result of suicide is different to the certainty that someone you love is dying from a terminal illness. Some of their therapy sessions are focussed around things like celebrating memories of the person's life, how to spend positive time with someone in palliative care, and things like finding positive ways to commemorate and celebrate the life they had via their funeral, but suicide attempts don't really mesh in with such an approach. There's an extra level of horror at someone losing their life by their own deliberate act. To the point where funerals for someone who has died in such a way are surrounded with euthemisms and guessing games. With good reason in some senses, given that a suicide often triggers attempts within the person's family and friends. But it all adds to the stigma around suicide, and makes it hard to talk about the hovering threat of such a thing happening.
Being a bit blunter than usual here @Former-Member, since it's the specific topic of the day. Hoping I'm not breaching any guidelines....
