If you have not read or listened to the 114th edition of The Anxious Morning, please go back and check that out, then come back and read or listen to this one. And as always, if you feel that you are truly an immediate danger to yourself or anyone else, PLEASE reach out for in-person help immediately.
Yesterday I talked about the times when I was gripped by the irrational fear that I might somehow decide to commit suicide even though I did not want to. I just want to remind you that this is a common fear in our community. You are not alone in this.
So how did I get past this fear? What convinced me that I was “safe” and would not do this horrible thing that I did not want to do? Sometimes when I talk about this, people asked me what exposures I did for this fear, and what exposures they can do for this fear. Really, I did no exposures directly for this fear.
This fear - which was among the most terrifying things I’ve ever experienced - faded away on me because I was working really hard to get better in general. In retrospect, this was not some new special form of anxiety that had to be addressed. I see now that it is incredibly common among people that suffer with panic disorder and OCD. It can come and go from time to time. It’s not its own special disorder and I did not need to “treat” it directly.
As I did the work of forming a new reaction to and relationship with scary thoughts and sensations, things changed on all fronts. I’ve talked about this before when it came to my repetitive thoughts about death and existence too. As I worked on getting better at being anxious and afraid, repeated experiences where I navigated THROUGH these things showed me that my thoughts were just thoughts. They could still be really scary sometimes for sure, and I did not like them, but as crazy as this sounds, the exposure work I was doing for my panic disorder and agoraphobia helped me put some space between me and those disturbing thoughts about suicide or existential dilemmas.
I overcame the fear that I might unintentionally commit suicide by learning a new way to relate to my thoughts. I know this might not be the answer you’re looking for, but it was the answer for me and as it turns out it’s the answer for most of us in the end. From a mechanical standpoint, I started engaging in life WHILE I was experiencing that fear. I allowed those thoughts about suicide to come, run their course, then go, while I did the best I could to not engage with them and not get dragged into a debate with them. I learned this after allowing 10,000 panic attacks to kill me without resisting. If it worked in that context, I figured it would work in this context too. Sure enough, it did.
None of this was easy. I will NEVER tell you that it is. It might be a simple idea, but it is not easy. But when someone wants to know exactly how to overcome the fear that they might harm themselves agains their will, this is the answer I will give. The fear is overcome by learning how to treat all irrational thoughts and all irrational fears this way. I know you hear me say all the time that the content of a thought or fear is irrelevant, and I know that this is hard to accept, but in the end it was true for me and accepting this and working with it changed everything on so many fronts.
I cannot teach you exactly every step to take in a morning newsletter. That was not my intention. I do my best to relay that information in the aggregate of all my social media content, my podcast episodes, the books I write, etc. But I am hopeful that by sharing the story of how I overcame this fear in general, I might make you think a little. Maybe now you may at least consider the possibility that your current terrified, frantic state is not a harbinger of doom, regardless of how disturbing it may be in the moment.
Every part of my anxious, overworked brain was once completely convinced that it was possible for me to accidentally or unintentionally commit suicide and it was LOUD in expressing that. But in the end, I learned that loud does not equal true. It only equals loud.
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
115. How I Overcame My Fear Of Unintentional Suicide