Susan's Place Transgender Resources

My doctor took me off my anti depressant and won't be replacing it with another until September. I have struggled with suicidal thoughts and depression for the past couple of days. It's mostly due to dysphoria. I refuse to go into the psychiatric ward because they usually due me more harm than good.

I don't need your sympathy but I want to know what are some positive affirmations you think when you have had suicidal thoughts in the past? How were you able to reason your way out of suicidal thinking?

There was a study once on people who survived jumping off a bridge. I think it was the Golden Gate bridge. 2/3 of the survivors decided on the way down that their problems weren't that bad. Try mantras such as, "I am okay just the way I am". Or if you're religious, "God loves me".

I dealt with depression and suicidal ideation while I delayed my transition for a few years, but I always came back to reminding myself that in a few years I'd have enough money and it'd be the right time to move forward. I thought about all the things I wouldn't get to experience. I didn't want to die as a girl, so there was that also.

For years I was able to at least abate the depression by playing video games (almost non-stop). Unfortunately, that came to dominate my life (work-game-sleep-repeat).
When I finally got so low that I was contemplating suicide, I thought about my 2 cats who don't like anybody but me, and what would happen to them when I was gone?
There's also the fact that I don't like other people to have to clean up after me, and I'd be a pretty big mess to clean up.

I still get depressed now & then. I find looking at pictures or videos of beautiful landscapes (or driving out to them, if you can!) really helps. It reminds me just how beautiful this world really is, and it would be a shame to leave such a wonderful place. I also like seeing pics & videos of space (planets, stars, galaxies, etc.). They remind me just how amazing our entire universe is, and how far humankind has progressed (and how far we still have to go!). I want to see where we go! I may not be one of those people that gets us there, but I'm along for the ride!

I said it in another thread, and I'm still not sure I actually came up with it, but 'A single moment of beauty can light the darkest day'.

Thinking about if I did commit suicide my relatives would remember me as a girl and I'd have the wrong name on my headstone; that really put me off it. Also thinking there's no painless easy way if committing suicide and if it was a failed attempt 1. I'd be put in a psychiatric ward which be a horrible situation 2. It'll delay transitioning and 3. My emotionally abusive dad would think me weirder and more unstable than he already thinks I am. And in a way he would of won and confirm to himself he was right; even more so if I was successful.

Listening to music helps and going for walks; even if it's just 20 mins around the block.

I typically don't get suicidal.

But I deal with it in general by way of my adversarial attitude toward life. Some people think about the impact their death would have on their significant others, some people are religious and think about the taboo on killing oneself most religions have - I just think about how life, nature and other people aren't going to get the satisfaction of seeing me give up and off myself. A large pair of middle fingers to all of them.

Prior to my transition I suffered from Suicidal idealisation constantly, but there were a couple of things that people told me that may sound a bit cliché but to this day I always remember them

"Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem"

"All the pain and hurt you are feeling to make you want to suicide is transferred to you loved ones should you succeed"

Very sound advice I have always thought

Self destruction was always on my mind, in one form or another. I can identify 2 things that kept me from acting on my problem. First I immersed myself in work and became very successful in a middle class sort of way. The second was pure luck or probably, something was looking out for me in a way that was hard for me to recognize. I mostly just persevered and did the best I could and things mostly just worked out one way or another.

As the song said, "Don't give up until you drink from the silver cup." It can be lonely out there, but it doesn't have to be.

The sole thing that actually kept me from offing myself years back was realizing that, if I did, my mother would finally understand this whole thing wasn't just some kool-aid that I'd drank - that she really did have a daughter, and now that daughter would be gone before she ever knew her.

It was the most catastrophically sad thing I could imagine, so I held back. Though speaking practically, I'd have probably gone through with it had I not had an orchi that summer, and full GCS the next, because my dysphoria really was that bad.

Robert Sapolsky from Stanford University has a really great video on Youtube about the etiology and biological effects of depression. Very worth watching if you need a little validation.

There is always a way to deal with this. You can do it.