All in my head – suicidal thoughts

Posted on by healthyntu8

Written by Paul NTU Alumni

I remember when I first started getting dark thoughts. Thoughts I had no control over. They would pop in my head to deal with.  When they popped in my head, I would always get a horrible sinking feeling of guilt, why were there horrible thoughts filling my head.

I did not tell anyone to start with and tried to understand what was happening to me. I started to get worse, the thoughts where debilitating. I felt I did not have control of them, and they were causing me pain and I just wanted rid of them.

I firstly chatted about it to friends. This took lots of courage as I’d grown up dealing with my own issues, so it was a little alien to me. A few friends did not know what to say, but it still helped me get it out there. One friend, who also had anxiety, suggested I go to the docs. So off I went scared of what the outcome would be, will I get sectioned, what if I never see my son again. I started to catastrophise my situation. The GP was good and diagnosed me with Anxiety and intrusive thoughts.

I started to be kinder to myself and accessed some counselling which helped me challenge my thoughts. As I am a visual person I started to make a cartoon out of my thoughts. If a thought popped in my head to stab myself, I turned the knife into a carrot that would fly around the room. If I had a thought to kill myself, I just thought ‘there’s too much in life to look forwards too’  I started to block the thoughts and slowly they drifted away….winner.  Yoga & exercise really helped too.  I did find that being consistent with my self-care and challenging the thoughts really did help. After all they are just thoughts.

On reflection it’s ok to not be ok but have a plan in place. No one should suffer in silence, chatting about how you are feeling really does make a difference it put a rainbow in my clouds (a problem shared is a problem halved). Have a think who would be the people you could turn to? Surrounding yourself with good friends that make you happy is something I could not be without.  Going to see your GP will help too. They are there to help so the sooner you can act the quicker the recovery. I also ended up on medication which has really helped my mood. If you are experiencing anything similar to me, please remember it’s only temporary. Dark thoughts do not define who you are as a person. You are never alone, suicidal thoughts are very common, in fact 1 in 5 of us will have a suicidal thought.  Support is never far away. I accessed counselling via work, I have accessed support a few times since.  Other things I have found to work is Mindfulness I do 10 minutes every morning as well as 20 minutes Yoga. My go to is Charlie Follows on YouTube. I also journal by dumping all my thoughts whenever I feel the need. For sleep I play forest sounds throughout the night.

I’m quite grateful for my experience, maybe not at the time, as it’s made me more mindful of looking after myself better. I call it my kit bag of support which I use daily.

Support for struggling with suicidal thoughts:

For help, advice and resources whilst studying at NTU, take a look at the following for sources of support.
Support from NTU
Self-Care books in NTU’s libraries
Silvercloud: SilverCloud is our online system designed to help with a range of mental health issues.
Health and Wellbeing resources
NTSU Information and Advice service
Wellness in Mind: Advice and support for anyone in Nottingham experiencing issues with their mental wellbeing
Student Minds or Student Space
10 Keys to happiness
Mind
Papyrus
CALM

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