{"id":147,"date":"2013-05-10T00:55:45","date_gmt":"2013-05-10T07:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/2008\/04\/11\/bipolar-disorder-and-suicidal-thoughts\/"},"modified":"2018-05-15T09:58:15","modified_gmt":"2018-05-15T16:58:15","slug":"bipolar-disorder-and-suicide-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/bipolar-disorder-and-suicide-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Bipolar Disorder and Suicide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/suicide-hotline.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-7672\" style=\"margin: 25px;\" alt=\"suicide hotline\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/suicide-hotline.gif\" width=\"252\" height=\"288\" \/><\/a>Suicidal thoughts are normal when you have bipolar disorder.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I remember driving one day when I was very stressed and unhappy. I was on a busy road and saw a red light up ahead. My mind said, &#8220;Julie, you can just run that red light and a car will hit you and all will be taken care of!&#8221; These thoughts used to scare me a lot. I now know they&#8217;re a response to stress. When I told my friend Laney this story she said, &#8220;Well, your brain <em>thought<\/em> is was helping!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So true. These thoughts are not real. They are manufactured by a bipolar brain. Don&#8217;t believe them.<\/p>\n<p>If you are suicidal right now, you have options other than killing yourself.<\/p>\n<p>#1 Say to yourself: \u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><strong>I have bipolar disorder and suicidal thoughts are normal.<\/strong><\/span> Say it over and over again until you get help.<\/p>\n<p>#2 Call anyone and do anything to get help and be honest when you talk to someone. &#8220;I&#8217;m suicidal and I need help.&#8221; You can walk directly to an ER and do this. Crisis lines are there to help. They know what they are doing. Call a friend. Do ANYTHING. This is a health problem and not a personal problem. If you were hit by a car- you would call someone!<\/p>\n<p>#3 If you have to, stay in the \u00a0hosptial to protect yourself from bipolar disorder. It&#8217;s a safe place.\u00a0 You&#8217;re a strong person if you go to the hospital. Bipolar disorder is the problem- not you.<\/p>\n<p>#4 Don\u2019t worry if you\u2019re embarrassed. Better embarrassed than no longer on the planet.\u00a0 Bipolar disorder has embarrassed me a million times. And will probable do it many more times in the future.<\/p>\n<p>When I&#8217;m suicidal, it&#8217;s always a sign that my meds are not working or that an event has happened to send me over the edge. I try to focus on fixing those things instead of listening to the suicidal thoughts. These suicidal thoughts are often the result of something\u00a0I can\u00a0definitely change. Once it is changed,\u00a0I can get back to baseline.<\/p>\n<p>If you kill yourself over an event, it&#8217;s not effective. It&#8217;s more effective to deal with the situation or leave it completely.<\/p>\n<p>There are definitely situations where the bipolar is 100% responsible for the suicidal thoughts. This is when nothing has happened and there is no reason you should be so miserable. These suicidal thoughts have to be taken very seriously as your brain is really malfunctioning. This is when medications can be life saving.<\/p>\n<p>Keeping yourself alive is all that matters when you&#8217;re suicidal. If you can&#8217;t do this yourself-turn yourself over to someone who can.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">Remember: No one stays suicidal all of the time. It ends.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you had brain cancer you would ask for help with ease. Asking for help with suicidal bipolar thoughts is no different.<\/p>\n<p>Julie<\/p>\n<p>PS: I had my first suicidal episode at 19. I am now 49. It can be managed.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/suicide-hotline.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-7672\" style=\"margin: 25px;\" alt=\"suicide hotline\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/suicide-hotline.gif\" width=\"252\" height=\"288\" \/><\/a>Suicidal thoughts are normal when you have bipolar disorder.<\/p>\n<p>I remember driving one day when I was very stressed and unhappy. I was on a busy road and saw a red light up ahead. My mind said, &#8220;Julie, you can just run that red light and a car will hit you and all will be taken care of!&#8221; These thoughts used to scare me a lot. I now know they&#8217;re a response to stress. When I told my friend Laney this story she said, &#8220;Well, your brain thought is was helping!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So true. These thoughts are not real. They are manufactured by a bipolar brain. Don&#8217;t believe them.<\/p>\n<p>If you are suicidal right now, you have options other than killing yourself.<\/p>\n<p>#1 Say to yourself: I have bipolar disorder and suicidal thoughts are normal. Say it over and over again until you <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/bipolar-disorder-and-suicide-5\/\">[ Read More ]<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11382,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions\/11382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}