Facing Shadows: My Struggles With Suicide Ideation

What happens when life's most challenging moments push you to the edge?

Join me, Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco, as I share my personal journey through the labyrinth of suicidal ideation, from the subtleties of passive thoughts to the alarming intensity of active ones. This episode of the Self-Growth Train is one of raw honesty and vulnerability, recounting how my struggles, intensified by a recent breakup, necessitated a critical conversation about mental health. I emphasize the vital importance of seeking help, fostering open dialogue, and securing professional support to navigate such dark times. Together, we'll explore how the transition from merely not wanting to live to actively wishing for an end can be understood and managed with the right resources and support system.

Hold on as we discuss pivotal moments of realization, including a life-altering hospital stay that forced me to confront my deepest fears and rekindle my desire to live. From the unwavering support of my mother to a therapeutic camping trip with a friend, these experiences fueled my journey towards recovery and rediscovery of life's beauty. This episode is a heartfelt call to action for anyone feeling overwhelmed: take a moment to assess your feelings, prioritize self-care, and reach out for help if you're struggling. Remember, dialing 988 can be the first step towards reclaiming your mental health. Your well-being is paramount, and I am here to remind you that you matter and your life is immensely valuable.

Resource used today:

What's the Difference Between Suicidal Thoughts and Ideations?

Transcript

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 0:07

Hello, my dear passengers, and welcome aboard the Self-Growth Train, a podcast that combines personal stories, opinions and research in order to better guide you through your self-growth journey. My name is Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco and I am your tour guide. First, I want to say thank you for tuning back into the podcast. Today's episode is going to be a bit different from my usual tonality style and just overall attitude, and that's because today's topic is suicidal ideation and I want to make sure that I give it the time, the tonality and the seriousness that it needs. Having said that, I think it is very important for me to mention some of the trigger warnings that you might hear on this episode. These include, but are not limited to, suicidal ideation, suicidal attempts and suicide. But what is suicidal ideation? Suicidal ideation is the same thing as suicidal thinking. However, there are two types of suicidal ideation passive and active. According to the Albany Clinic, passive suicidal ideation is when you wish you were dead. However, you have no plans of harming yourself or of ending your life. Active suicidal ideation, on the other hand, is when you wish you were dead and you had plans of self-harming or ending your life. Now, my dear passenger, I don't know about you, but I myself have struggled with suicidal ideation from a very young age and it honestly wasn't until last year that I started having active suicidal ideations and I was really struggling. you know, and for me it was interesting because the way that I perceived suicidal thinking, slash suicidal ideation was that it was only when I had thoughts that I would be better off dead or that I wanted to die, right, but the majority of the time I'm terrified of dying, so I don't even want to die. A lot of the times when I've had my suicidal ideation is actually been that I don't want to live, meaning like I don't have the energy to keep moving forward, but at the same time I don't want to die and at the same time, I just want to be numb to everything that is going on around me. and I honestly did not realize that this could also be categorized as suicidal ideation, like maybe a low level of suicidal ideation. However, it started at a low level and it kept increasing to the point that I went from passive suicidal ideation to active suicidal ideation.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 2:48

The episode today is definitely going to be a hard one to listen to, especially if you yourself have gone through suicidal ideation or suicidal attempts or even self-harm. But I need you guys to understand that the reason that I'm covering this topic today is because, after I brought it up at the conference, it started all of these conversations about how we don't openly talk about suicidal ideation and how we tend to stigmatize it to the point that we only hear, unfortunately, about the people that did not get the help that they needed and the end result was losing a life, and I don't want that to happen to any of us. I want to share my story because I genuinely think that it is a story that a lot of us have gone through, and I think that it is a story that can give you hope and that can give you maybe that push that you need to seek the help that you have been craving, or seek the help that your friends, family, even health professionals have been prescribing for you, and you've just been afraid to take that step, because one thing that I know is that when it comes to suicidal ideation, I am not alone, and I learned that this weekend when multiple people came up to me to say thank you for sharing your story. You sharing your story made me think and make me realize I need help, that I have not been giving myself because I'm scared. And listen. It is a scary process, but it's also a beautiful process of getting to love yourself and understand that you matter and that you're valuable and that you leaving this world would be leaving a hole behind for your family, your friends and, like just everyone. So I want you to understand that the purpose of this episode yes, it is to tell my story, but most of all, is to really connect with you and tell you that you're not alone and that there is hope and that there is a way for you to get better if you are struggling with the same things that I have struggled with.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 5:04

As I mentioned earlier, I have been struggling with these thoughts or these ideations since I was very young. However, it wasn't until last year, after my breakup, that they really started to pop up and be super loud, super loud in my head of just insecurities and also just this feeling that maybe I didn't deserve to live just because I had loved someone so intently, with every single ounce of my being, and it hadn't worked out right and at the time, like I said, it was very passive. Um, I will get thoughts of maybe you will be better off dead, um, maybe he would care more about you if you were, um, and even things like well, doesn't really matter if I'm here, like it's not, like anybody's gonna miss me, you know. And at the time I recognized that these thoughts were not good and at the time I also was trying to maintain a friendship with my ex while at the same time still kind of being with him. It's kind of like a blur, because we weren't together but we kind of still were together and it was all very confusing and it was all very hurtful and it was all very convoluted really, and I decided I'm going to go get the help that I need, right.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 6:45

So I applied for this outpatient psychiatry slash psychology program and I got accepted and during that time I was getting therapy and I was put on my ADHD meds, because I refused to get depression meds just because I'd had them in the past and they were not good for me at all and I was scared and I was terrified. And you know, with the ADHD medicine some of my symptoms got better, yeah, but my situation as a whole didn't get better because in therapy I was being told hey, the reason that you're having all of these thoughts is because you are going after someone that truly does not want to be with you and you're just holding on to this hope. And by holding on to this hope, you are creating this negative view of yourself Because, again, I'm going after somebody that is unattainable. And when you're going after somebody that is unattainable and you're having these suicidal ideation, what is happening is is you are confirming for your brain right, I'm not saying this is true, because this is not true, but I'm saying, in a way, you're confirming for your brain that you don't matter because you're going after someone that doesn't see you the same way that you see them.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 8:12

So for a couple of months I was in the program and I was still doing this thing with my ex, and then he finally moved to another state and things got better. They did, they did get better. and I was still taking my meds and everything was okay. Well, not everything, because all of a sudden I was going to the hospital and it was like going to the hospital again and then going to the hospital again, and that caused me to lose my job right. So over a span of eight months it became this thing of I felt that I had something going for me and then something would happen and I would be 10 steps behind. It wasn't just one step, it was all suddenly 10 steps behind of what I had just accomplished, and it was just nonstop. It will be that I thought I was getting over my ex and then all of a sudden he will pop back into my life and I was right back on square one. Or I got a job and I love my job, and then all of a sudden I have to quit because I keep going to the hospital and I love my job and then all of a sudden I have to quit because I keep going to the hospital and, quite frankly, like the job itself is not good for my health. Or I'm in college and I'm having to argue with my professors over and over again about assignments, or arguing with the counselor because she doesn't want me to take as many classes as I'm taking. But I want to end my semester by December.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 9:45

It was a very intense eight months and again it was this up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down of my ex popping in and out, my job situation just being on the line, and then my school situation as well. And then I live with my mom and we both usually pay rent, but it became this thing of becoming totally dependent on her. So now I'm having this idea that I am a burden. I am a burden on my mom, I am a burden on society. I am a burden on my ex because I'm still holding on to him and like I should be over him, because he's over me and he has already moved thousands of miles away. He's doing his life, and why can't I get over him?

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 10:33

And maybe I deserve to be feeling all of this stuff. Maybe I am just a pathetic person that deserves to be going through all of this, because I just don't get it. I just don't understand that it will not get better for me and it's honestly crazy because and I might get emotional, but everybody that knows me knows how much I love life, how much I enjoy experiencing and like meeting people and talking to people and just making memories. So to go from someone who was full of life and full of joy to someone that could literally care less if she died the next day, that was hard and I know that it was hard for me, but I also know it was super hard for my mom because she was there the whole time. And listen, I have to thank God for my mom, because my mom has been a complete angel and I don't tell her that all the time, but it's the truth.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 11:43

Um, but yeah, those eight months were hell and I could feel it. I could feel myself just slowly giving up on every single thing that I had going on for myself and I just didn't have it in me anymore to keep fighting. I just didn't have it in me anymore to keep fighting. I just didn't. And I remember one day I just I just became numb and I was like this is it? Like at this point, I don't care what happens, I don't care if I sleep the whole day, I don't care if I wake up tomorrow, I don't care if I wake up tomorrow, I don't care. But I'm actively not going to try to get better, because at this point nothing feels like it's going to get better and I stayed like that for about three more months and then I had to go to the hospital again for a bleeding episode, and during the bleeding episode I noticed that a nurse was doing something wrong. But you know, in that moment I didn't care. I didn't care because I was like, well, what's the point? I don't feel like advocating for myself, I don't feel like advocating for myself, I don't feel like fighting for myself. So, whatever happens happens.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 13:06

And, to make the long story short, that error ended up causing my arm to become super swollen and black and I couldn't move it, and it was a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of pain. And then I was worried that they were going to amputate my arm. And then, all of a sudden, like it dawned on me I don't want to die. I don't want to die, I want to live. I'm just in a lot of pain and I needed, in a way, that reminder of no, you're letting your life go to waste because you're having all these emotions that you're not addressing. You got tired of addressing them because nothing felt better. So you started giving up. But hey, listen, if you give up, give up, you're going to lose your life, and that's something that we don't want to give up on. And so I remember grabbing my phone and typing with my other hand to the coordinator of the program that I had been in and I was like listen, I know I graduated this program, but I'm honestly not okay. I'm honestly not okay. And she said go to the hospital. I'm like I'm already here, but it's a hospital that is an hour and a half away from home. I'm going to wait until I get back home. And I did. I waited until I got back home. And then I was like I don't want to go, I'm fine, I feel better now. I feel so much better now.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 14:41

And my graduation from college happened, and that day was horrible. It was as if all the progress that I had made that week suddenly came tumbling down and all the thoughts that I had had of, oh you know what, like I graduated, I'm going to get a better job and I'm going to be able to help my family, I'm going to be able to help my mom, I'm going to contribute to society, I'm just going to be good. All of a sudden, all of those thoughts turned completely sour and I was like this is not good, this is not good, this is not good. And one of my friends, I told her I was like I want to go camping, I want to spend a day out in the world with nature and just kind of ground myself. And I went camping with her and it was amazing, even though I cried every single second of it and I kept apologizing to her and I was like I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, but I'm in so much pain and I really need to talk about this. And she was like it's okay, like just let it out, just let it out. And at one point she told me she's like Frances, I really think you should get more help. And was like you know what you're right.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 16:01

So the next day, when she took me home, which was Mother's Day, my sister took me to the hospital and I told him I was like listen, I don't want to die, but I don't want to live. I don't have any active thoughts of committing suicide or self-harming, but I also, at the same time, feel like I wouldn't care if something happened to me and I ended up going impatient and I know a lot of people are scared of the stigma that comes with being impatient, but I gotta say I needed that. I don't think that I would be here today without having gone there, and that's such a scary thing to say, but it's also. I'm just so glad that I got the hope that I needed, because, like I love life and I might have already said this, but I'm going to say it again Like I want to live, I want to experience life, I want to create memories, I want to meet people, I want to tell stories, I want to create memories, I want to meet people, I want to tell stories, I want to do podcasts, I want to do film, I want to act, I want to do all this stuff that if I were to leave tomorrow or leave today, I wouldn't get a chance to. And so that's why I think it's so important for each one of us to recognize when we need help and what type of help we need.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 17:42

Well, my dear passenger, as I always say, self-growth is an endless journey towards self-improvement. However, you don't ever have to do it alone. As your tour guide, my goal is to guide you with the best intentions and the best research available. Today, I want to tell you, my dear passenger, that you're not alone. You're not alone in your suicidal ideation. You're not alone in your thoughts of not feeling enough, in your thoughts of feeling worthless, in your thoughts of feeling like a burden. I, too, have felt all of these thoughts and more, and I'm here to tell the tale because I decided to get the help that I needed.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 18:20

And I want to make sure that you guys get the help that you need because, at the end of the day, I want to celebrate you. I want to go to your award ceremony, I want to go to your graduation, I want to go to your baby's baptism. I want to be there when you make a speech about how great life has gone ever since you got the help that you needed and, my dear passenger, only you really know what's going on inside you. So, please, please, please. I ask that you take a moment today to do an inventory of how you're feeling and if there's anything that feels not right, or if you have already dealt with suicidal ideation, please dial 988. Please take the time to give yourself the opportunity of getting better and if you ever want to reach out to me, you know where to find me. Well, my dear passengers, until the next stop. Safe travels, bye!