Keep Talking

A brand new dude talked recently about having suicidal thoughts and runaway anxiety attacks.  This kind of thinking, although common in new people, is not normal and it is definitely not healthy.  This is not the kind of thinking one should keep to oneself.  I'm struck at how often people who have the courage to bring this stuff up are quick to brush it off by saying that they didn't have any serious thoughts about actually carrying it out, but I don't buy that.  I think it's a self-justification to try to gloss over the abnormal behavior.  Healthy people - reasonably healthy people - don't linger on these thoughts.  This isn't the same thing as a teenaged boy getting rejected by a teenaged girl and throwing himself on his bed, certain that life isn't worth living.  That's okay.  An adult man battling anxiety is not in a good space if he is thinking this through past the overly dramatic phase.  Planning on taking your own life is the first step in taking your own life and this is not a goal of our recovery program.  

The first thing is to talk about this with someone else.  Anyone else.  These thoughts, unspoken, can take on a life of their own and gain terrible power.  It's not hard to find someone in recovery who'll identify with anxiety and the occasional suicidal flight of fancy, as morbid a flight as it is - just touch the person to your left and to your right and you'll probably be two for two.  And just as importantly, go get some professional help.  I would never take medical or psychiatric advice from people in a meeting.  There were fifty people at this meeting and I know almost all of them and I am certain there weren't any doctors or counselors in there.  See a professional!  Our book talks about how much help is available from pastors, doctors, psychiatrists, and how rarely we ask for this help.  It also reminds us that these are controversial issues.