My wife has tried to kill herself many times

[gscam1]

I have been married for only 1 year and 10 months, but I have been with my wife for 7 years.

 

My wife suffers from OCD, but with her medication she was able to lead a normal live and even obtain a master's degree and get a job as a teacher. Four years ago a coworker died of a brain tumor, and ever since she believed she has cancer She got so bad that she was put in a mental hospital because she was having thoughts of hurting herself. After increasing her medication and getting 2 MRIs she got better.

 

Four months ago she had anoter mental breakdown which came out of nowhere, she believed se had a brain tumor again and nothing we did reassured her. Her doctor increased her medication but it did not help, bur her suicidal thoughts came back, except this time she acted on them. She has been living with her parents since her first attempt since they could watch her better there with her brothers and sister. She went to he mental hospital again but that did not help and she was realsed. She talks about killing herself all the time, she tells me that it will be better for all of us, thatwe would have normal lives after she is gone. The thing that hurst me is that she talks about it like it was nothing, just a normal thing. She has to be watched 24 hours a day, she even sleeps in the same bed with her parents so she does not try anything. They sometimes handcuff her s she does not try anything. But she is smart and has found opportunities, luckily they always get to her in time, she has triedd 6 times to kill herself. The Cognitive Theraphy and medicine are not working. Even her doctors are stumped and we are now getting second and third opinions. I have spent over $3000 in unnecessary medical testing to reassure her that she is perfectly fine, but hse does not beleive the doctors or thinks that the machienery was faulty or that the results were mixed up. She has not worked in 2 months and now all her bills are draining into our savings. I would not mind it if it was necessary, but every little pain she has is a sign of some cancer and she needs to be tested.

 

Today she had to be taken to the hospital since she tried to kill herself again and her parents thought they could not take care of her. They asked me to go but I refused. I still don't know what hospital they took her. They did not call me and neither did I. I am just getting sick of the situation, anytime I get a sliver of hope, it gets completely destroyed

 

I don't know what to do, her talking and attempts of suicide are hurting me, and she is not getting better. A part of me wants to stick it out since I still love her. But the other tells me that my wife is dead and not coming back, and that I need to leave before I myself end up hurt and next to my wife in the hospital

[Ronni_W]

Gosh, that is rough! I am sorry that Life has delivered each of you this very challenging situation.

 

You're saying that there are no physical causes, at least none that can be measured/recorded by diagnostic instruments. Which is suggesting, perhaps, that there are metaphysical causes?

 

Has anyone considered counseling (for your wife) with a faith leader/spiritual director? Or looked into non-traditional therapies -- Ayurveda, acupuncture, EFT, hypnosis, cranial sacral, body psychotherapy, Reiki, Bowen...to name a few.

The EFT website is emofree.com. Vitalitymagazine.com is the site of a general interest alternative health and wellness publication.

 

At the end of the day, yes, your wife is responsible for her own life...and death. Suicide is also a choice, even if it is not always an ego/conscious one. It's difficult on those left behind, but we do not know what is the mission of that Soul and are not accountable for the actions of others.

 

And, yes, you are responsible for taking care of your own mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health and well-being. Sometimes that does mean distancing yourself from situations that limit you from fulfilling your own mission and purpose for this lifetime.

 

I do recognize the difficulties, and the tough decisions you are faced with. Unfortunately there are no easy answers, nor one "right way".

Sending hugs, Comfort, Wisdom and Guidance.

[Thornton]

It sounds like your wife has had problems for some time, although lately they have become a lot worse. There is nothing wrong with her physically, but there is definitely something wrong with her mentally, and that's the problem that needs to be addressed.

 

Her co-worker dying is probably what set her off on this downward spiral of fear, and now she's convinced that she is also going to die. Often such a fear of death can be induced by guilt and stress, and the person feels that they deserve to die, or they want to die to end the pain. Perhaps your wife felt guilty that the co-worker died and she survived; maybe she sees how easily it could have been her and not the co-worker, and it scares her.

 

I once went through a period like this, where I was convinced I was dying of Aids and I wouldn't accept that the negative blood tests were accurate, and I would have panic attacks about being terminally ill. I was under an immense amount of stress from other sources, and this paranoia is how the stress manifested itself. I felt guilty about some bad sexual things that had happened to me because of other bad people, and although on one level I knew it wasn't my fault, on another level I blamed and hated myself, and I was terrified that I would be punished by having Aids. To fix this problem, I had to reach a point where my external stress was reduced and I myself was prepared to work on the problem and get over it - I had to want to be better. The only thing that worked for me was to keep reminding myself of the irrationality of these thoughts whenever they arose; I had to breathe deeply and try to be calm, and tell myself that I was being irrational and these feelings were caused by stress. I also had to come to terms with the worst case scenario, actually face it head-on and say "This is the worst that could happen, and it really isn't the end of the world". When I felt less afraid of the worst case scenario, I felt better about the whole problem. Occasionally the panic still arises, and I manage it by telling myself that these feelings are valid but I'm going to save them up until I actually have proof that I have this illness, and in the meantime I'm going to continue living my life as normal.

 

In your wife's case, she needs to feel less afraid of actually having cancer - she has to remind herself that many people survive cancer, and even if she did have it, it wouldn't be the end of the world. Then when she panics about having cancer, she will panic less because she will see that actually having cancer isn't such a bad thing. Perhaps if she could meet or read about cancer survivors, it might help her come to terms with the worst case scenario - even people who have actually been diagnosed with cancer don't behave like she is doing, they come to terms with it and bravely battle the disease, and often they win. Negating her fears does not help because she just thinks you're wrong and she feels ignored and invalidated - what you need to say is "Okay, let's assume you have cancer... what now?" She will see that the world does not end,and there are successful treatments for cancer, and brave strong people do survive it - people who she has to emulate if she is going to survive this and get her life back.

 

If you really feel that you can't handle the situation, obviously you're within your rights to end the relationship, but it would have a very negative effect on your wife. Honestly, I think the only way to counter this fear is to validate her feelings and come to terms with the worst case scenario; she needs to realise that even if her fears were real then she is still highly likely to survive, and there are many people who were much braver than she is being right now, who fought cancer and survived. Then you need to work on whatever feelings and fears are causing her to feel that she deserves to die of cancer, and ultimately realise that she's no more likely to have it than anyone else, she doesn't deserve it, and feeling like this is simply a symptom of some deeper issues.

 

Anyway, I don't know if any of this helped, I'm only speaking from my experience of having had similar feelings. I hope it might have done some good anyway

[Ronni_W]

Good post, Thornton. It is admirable and inspiring how you faced your challenge head-on, and came out victorious! Congratulations

 

Do you mind sharing what is was that ultimately empowered you to make the decision and take the steps that you did? A strong support network, a good therapist, "tough love" from those who cared about you?

 

I'm thinking that such info may be helpful for gscam1 and his wife's family -- sometimes we can "over protect" those who are suffering to the point where they don't feel strong/powerful enough to be able to help themselves when, as you say, it is ultimately up to them to decide to heal and then to do what it takes.

[Thornton]

Ultimately what pressured me into dealing with my problem was necessity. Part of my job at the time involved teaching, and the kids in my class needed me to be able to function normally; I could see them suffering because I was unable to turn up on time, prepare properly for the class, make myself available for study sessions, etc. They needed me to be better, but I was so stressed that I couldn't function normally; I was constantly calling in sick to work, and when I was there I didn't accomplish much. My boss called me into the office a few times to tell me off, and eventually initiated a disciplinary meeting because I was simply not performing. I was terrified of losing my job and being unable to pay my rent etc, and I could see that my mother and my partner were distressed by my behaviour. So I suppose I was jolted out of my selfish outlook in which I was only worrying about ME; I saw the effect my behaviour was having on other people and I wanted to fix it for them. I hated myself so much, I didn't want to fix the problem for myself, but I didn't want other people to suffer any more. Making some future plans for myself also helped a lot in finding the motivation to solve my problems, because I had something I wanted to move forward to... I didn't want to sit there and wallow in misery forever, I had plans!

 

I remember when I used to go to the doctor with every niggling pain, I wanted him to FIX me, to make it all go away, and he couldn't because he said there was nothing wrong with me. I refused to believe it - I wanted to be fixed! With hindsight, I was hypersensitive to every little twinge, and it was my response that was the problem. A normal person would think "Oh I cut my finger, no big deal" and put a dressing on it, but I would think "Omg I'm bleeding! What if I bleed to death? What if I infect other people with this open wound? What if I get gangrene and my finger has to be amputated? Omg omg omg!" I was essentially overreacting to everything because I was in a stressed and nervous state, and I was convinced that the worst possible thing was always going to happen. I dealt with this by recognising that I was prone to overreacting, and I learned to stay calm and reserve judgement until I knew what the situation was... the worst case scenario NEVER happened. Going to meditation class and learning to calm myself, and breathe, and control my emotional reaction really helped. I learned that an emotional reaction is a choice, and that I was capable of calming myself and dealing with things rationally rather than being carried away by my emotions.

 

I have to admit the root cause was that I felt stressed and unhappy and lost, and it manifested itself as this nervous tension... once I recognised that I was able to control the symptoms and work on figuring out the root cause of my unhappiness. I wanted the doctor to fix me, but it was my mental state that was the problem, not my physical state. I thought my body needed fixing, when really it was my mind that needed fixing. Recognising that was the first step toward feeling better.

[theBrokenMuse]

When you say 'mental hospital' are you talking about a psych ward? Those are usually short term treatment plans and will release a patient after awhile if they see progress or will recommend long term treatment at a different facility. I find it very hard to believe that any hospital would release a person that can't be alone for five minutes without trying to take their own life. She very obviously needs long term inpatient care as she would more than qualify for it given what you've stated here and besides, her parents can not keep this up forever. It will suck the life out of them sooner or later.

 

It's also true that people who want to die badly enough will find a way. They will swallow their own tongue if needs be. The fact that she has failed so many times may actually be a good thing that indicates that perhaps even on just a subconscious level, maybe death isn't the real objective.

[LucreziaBorgia]

She needs to be involuntarily committed to long term care. There is no reason that you and your family should be trying to take this on.

[gscam1]

Thanks for the advice and I appreciate the help.

 

My wife is an extremely religious person, so is her family. Her mom even works at a church, so she has spiritual help when she needs it. But that still does nothing, even though she knows that is she commits suicide she will go to hell. Ronnie we have not tried any alternative therapies, but once she gets out of the hospital we may since at this point we are willing to try anything to help her

 

Thornton your situation reminds me of my wifes. When she was in high school, she also belived she had AIDS. That was her first onset of OCD, they took her to doctors and she got the help she needed. With the medicine she got better quickly, her parents tod me that the problems just went away as quickly as they came. As for the cancer part we know people who have or have had cancer and they have productive lives know. We tell her that it is not the end and that if she does have it we can fight it together. Her cousin is a perfect example, she had a brain tumor and know she is well and doing fine, she still has seizures but she got on with her life. She talks to my wife and tells her about it how she fought it, but still nothing. Right now she is going to a Psychologist in order to help her, but unfortunately he can't do anything until she calms down and stop trying to kill herself. Her OCD we can deal with it is just the suicide thoughts that are hurting us and also impeding her therapy. It also makes me a little hopeful that you came out stronger from this situation and can lead a normal life. That's all I want for me an my wife.

 

As for her suicide attempts, the fact that she does not succeed tells me that maybe she does not want to end her life since she failed all the time. She may be doing it for some attention or something. I don't know.

[Thornton]

As for her suicide attempts, the fact that she does not succeed tells me that maybe she does not want to end her life since she failed all the time. She may be doing it for some attention or something. I don't know.

 

I also went through a period during which I self-harmed and on one occasion almost committed suicide. It was mostly a cry for attention - I wanted people to realise how badly I was hurting. I doubt if your wife truly believes you would all be better off without her - that's your cue to tell her she's being silly and you all love and need her. I went through a phase of saying similar things because I wanted people to tell me they loved me, not because I really meant it. People who are suicidal are typically thinking very selfishly, so a good way to change their perspective is to try to get them to think about how it would impact other people - I didn't do it because I knew it would destroy my mother, I didn't care about myself but I cared about her.

 

I doubt that fear of cancer is your wife's main problem, it's simply a symptom of some deeper problem which the psychologist will no doubt uncover eventually. My problem was guilt and self-hatred over the bad things that happened to me. I had no self control, no control over my feelings, and they would simply run away with me. I started feeling a lot better after I went to meditation class and learned to control my mind and emotions - I still felt the same feelings (and still do sometimes) but I'm in control of them now, I can say No and push them away from me instead of being swept along by them. It was a Buddhist meditation class, but they welcomed people of all religions who felt it might be a good addition to their existing spiritual practice.

[530 Guy]

She needs to be involuntarily committed to long term care. There is no reason that you and your family should be trying to take this on.

Ditto. Either that or you need to let her go. You can't make her want to live. I also think this is a big attention ploy so you might want to stop giving her attention when she acts out like a little child. Sounds like you and her parents are trapped in a never-ending cyle, the only way to break it is to make changes in your behavior towards her. Same goes for her parents too, if you can get through to them.

[theBrokenMuse]

'Right now she is going to a Psychologist in order to help her, but unfortunately he can't do anything until she calms down and stop trying to kill herself. Her OCD we can deal with it is just the suicide thoughts that are hurting us and also impeding her therapy.' If this is what the therapist is telling you - that he can't help her until she stops trying to kill herself then you need to find someone else IMMEDIATELY although, I really don't understand why she hasn't been placed in a long term facility at this point. That is where she would be the safest and they would have the best chance of treating her effectively. Are you or her parents against this course of treatment or what exactly has prevented this from having occurred?