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Suicide and Obsessions

NAS77038

I don't really know why I am posting this. I guess just in the hope for validation and I'm struggling to tell/explain to my fiance.

Recently I have been feeling like I have come to the end of my road. Everything is just too much (family, friends, money, work, uni, you name it and it's too much currently). I am overwhelmed and wanting to end it all. 

I planned to take my life on New year's Eve. Researched what it means to my life insurance, planned my funeral, decided what I wanted doing with my estate, and wrote letters to my fiance and my parents. Then on the day I went to see my younger brother and got home distraught that I couldn't leave him to navigate this world alone. He is also autistic and less functioning than myself, partially due to his deafness. Our parents love us but just don't understand us and I worry that him not having me to help him navigate things that there will be a huge fallout and just disasterous for him. I know that makes me sound bigheaded but I don't mean it that way, we help each other immensely I just don't think he has awareness of that.

So when I got home I went for a nap and when I woke I spontaneously told my fiance to look in the place I put the letters. Long story short, he read them all and we talked a lot and I decided not to act on it. He tried making me feel guilty for wanting to leave him and as much as I know how much it would hurt him, and absolutely do not want that, I am struggling to see that as a reason to stay alive.

In all of this the suicide has become an obsession that I just cannot let go. I can't separate the feeling of wanting to do it and the obsession. When I get an idea I have to follow through no matter what. Obviously this is a bit different to needing to replace the car because I got an obsession over something.

I don't know how to talk to him about this. Or even if I should.

When we have 'deep' conversations he shows an understanding of my difficulties (such as miss reading his feelings) but that only ever seems to be during the conversation, it doesn't carry through to afterwards. So for example after the conversation on New year's Eve he acknowledged he needs to be blunter with me and specific and not leave me with too many unknown things (such as if he is planning to do a placement year at uni which would have an astronomical impact to improve our lives). But since then (yes I know it's only a day) he hasn't been any different and I am still wide awake wondering what next week will bring with our financials etc nevermind our wedding next year.

I am sorry for the huge rant! I could write none stop for the next week with all the things on my mind. I guess the current thing is separating the suicidal ideation with the suicidal obsession and getting him to understand me in a way that means he wants to try adapt to help me more. I know asking a NT to remove their filter is a big thing but just a little would help a lot.

  • I’m stuck in this naughty cycle too. I’m happy I seen your post near the top of the forum, how we feel is not good, but I’m glad I think I’ve found the right forum to use.  

  • in reply to NAS77038

    Keep away from negativity you are not broken but unique and undiscovered wonder

  • in reply to DaveAsperg

    Thanks so much for everyone's replies. As much as it's awful that it isn't a unique experience, it is comforting to know other people struggle with this too.

    I am usually quite good at satisfying or redirecting my obsessions but I'm finding this one a little more tricky and not as comfortable enlisting my fiance to help as it's obviously quite an emotional area and I don't want to just make things worse for either of us.

    I will definitely look up the Cambridge Autistic Research Centre. I'm currently attempting to become a learning disabilities nurse and definitely being drawn towards neuro divergence and mental health.

    Its not overly helping my current overwhelming that I am still awaiting assessment for Autism so I still have that mental seed that maybe I'm just broken.

  • Yes I also have suicidal ideation obsession. As a doctor I have focussed on trying to find a solution , way of helping others. The thoughts are always there and I see how horrible it is for my family to understand and realise. In my quest to find soukltions I was arrested for playing around on fake websites to try and throw away my thoughts as an experiment.

    I have now set uo a group of academics to try and set up a website for autistic suicide prevention as I know ho dreadful a problem it is.

    I do not want to die but I feel a miserable failure with various things that have happened / I do.

    I feel finding a focus and getting a good routine would help as I went 60 years without ever being suicidal.

    I am working with the Cambridge Autistic Research Centre . Perhaps you could have a look at the website and volunteer for research??  Links don't work on here, so just google it.

    Maybe we won't find an answer for this obsession and we have to live with feeling a failure , but looking for something we can do well and then pursuing that. It sounds like your fiancé and parents love you and so maybe this is a focus, although feeling you rare failing them with having suicidal ideation is a paradoxical enigma!

    The recent suicide assessment tool for autistics has a question about how much of the waking day/ week is spent thinking about suicide. I am up at 90% and been there for years, obsessed about it all. Surely we can find a way of improving. things with Lived Experience Research??

  • Hi, **possible trigger**

    I know how you feel. Alot of the time I feel like I'm in a game and I just don't want to play anymore. I tried to commit suicide twice whilst in hospital two weeks ago and again when discharged, was only due to someone on my safe list calling ambulance that I was found. But fir me it's become quite a rational thought now.... I see animals and think how long will it live for, where was it born, where were it's parents born, what does it do during the day.... And I've got 80 years.. I feel like I don't need it, give it to someone else now. I wrote letters to everyone saying it was a choice and that noone did/didn't do anything wrong.

    I've kept going but literally one hour at a time. If want to discuss, please do 

  • I don’t think NTs process tragedy and loss the same way we do. When you experience tragedy, something that leaves a hole, deficiency, in your life they say stupid things like you need to get over it, just need to adjust.

    In my experience the most successful autistic people are those who find places where they don’t need to adapt. Or find ways to adapt the place they are to them.

    I lost a pen once. It wasn’t any pen. I was just starting my second semester at uni and my parents bought me a special nasa space pen for Christmas. And I left it on my desk at the lecture theatre. I did everything I could to find it once I realised I’d left it and as the options ran out and I realised it was gone and wasn’t coming back I started to panic. So something snapped in my brain and I marched immediately into town and bought a new identical nasa space pen. Cost about 50£ as I recall. It was the only way at that point to stop me completely falling apart.

    When life throws us curve balls NTs tell us get over it, what we need is someone to help us find a new pen.

    But what if I didn’t have 50£? What if it’s not a pen you’ve lost? What if it’s your friend or a family member or even your health? What if there are things you can’t do any more because of your body, or at least not enjoy as much as you used to? And all people can tell you to do is get over it, Move on?

    It doesn’t work that way for us. When something leaves a hole in our lives we need to fill it to move on. So you feel like you’ve no control, and when people tell you there is nothing you can do, move on, it just reenforces that lack of control. I understand how suicide could seem tempting. It might seem like a way to take back control, end things on your own terms.

    My life often feels like sisyphus pushing a rock up a hill only to have it roll down again. And the people by you keep saying stop pushing the rock, just get over it. It’s like hell. But it occurs to me that even if they never help me, even if I never get that rock over that hill it’s not nessacerally all in vain. The things I do today may pave the way for others like me, who one day stand in my stead, to have and achieve what I never could. A man once said civilisation only exists where old men plant trees they know they will never sit under. It’s small comfort but at least with that thought in your mind there is still some point to it all.