5 Things To Know About Passive Suicidal Ideation

if you go to bed at night and wish that you would not wake up in the morning or if when you're driving when you're in traffic if you pray that some kind of fatal accident would happen to you if you just generally don't really care if you continue to exist and live you're probably experiencing something we call passive suicidal ideation as you can guess by the name passive suicidal ideation is a form of suicidal thinking in which you are not going to do anything intentionally to end your own life but you kind of wish something would happen to you you're ready for something to put you out of your misery you're suffering and you just want to be done you're not excited about life you just want life to be over with there are a few things that I want you to know about passive suicidal ideation because it's a very common very important and unfortunately very misunderstood symptom and you might be surprised that I call it a symptom I'll get back to that in a little bit but I did a video about passive suicidal ideation a few months ago um and especially on Tick Tock it was by far the most popular piece of content I've ever created it had over 10 million views I think like 40 000 comments I mean I I completely lost track of it and that made me realize that I must have touched a nerve with that video I must have really touched on something that a lot of people are experiencing but don't know they are experiencing and probably have a lot of questions about I actually feel kind of bad that I waited this long to make a longer form piece of content about passive SI as we call it um just because it stirred up so much interest and and I really worry about how many people are out there feeling this way and dealing with these thoughts and and probably didn't even know what to call them until a few months ago and probably still don't know what to do about them so today I want to address five important pieces of information about passive SI that people usually misunderstand I also have an important question that I'm going to ask you at the end and your answer to that question will help you determine your next steps to figure out how to deal with these thoughts so the first thing I want to address about passive SI is whether or not it's normal because a lot of the comments on my initial video on this said isn't this just life like doesn't everybody just feel this way are there really people who don't feel this way a lot of people said like is this normal that that was such a big question and that's a that's a dangerous question honestly because Normal can mean more than one thing right like normal can mean statistically more than 50 percent you know it normal can mean common but sometimes we also use normal to mean like that this is just the way things are going to be we use normal to describe something that that cannot be changed that is just an inevitable part of human life and I don't know the answer to whether passive suicidal ideation is statistically normal it's not statistically unusual I mean we know that much we know we know that at minimum you know about 20 of people do experience some type of significant depression at some point in their lives now on one hand not every person who experiences depression experiences passive suicidal ideation on the other hand I think that number is dramatically low I mean I think there's way more than 20 I I would not be surprised if the number of people who experience at least one depressive episode in their life is in fact above 50 percent so if you feel this way you know if you from what I've said so far think that passive suicidal ideation is something you experience I think asking whether or not it's normal is the wrong question the second type of normal that you know is is this just inevitable is is not being excited about life or not necessarily feeling great about the fact that you probably have you know I don't know your age obviously 30 40 50 maybe 60 more years of this whatever this has been is it weird or or bad that that idea that that reality the truth of that does not excite you I don't want to come across as judgmental because it's not my place to tell you how you should feel about your life but what I will say is this I think it's a very dangerous thing to accept because I do not believe life has to feel that way and and I say this as someone who has experienced passive SI on and off for a large portion of my own life so I'm not some academic psychologist just pontificating about this you know from the Ivory Tower of my perfect life that's not me that's not what this Channel or this podcast is about um so this is something I have dealt with and and you know it's a little presumptuous I guess to assume that it's the same feeling for every person but I know what this feels like I also know what it feels like to not have it and there were reasons but I was feeling that way that we'll get to that at the end when we get to my question my question for you that I want you to answer but I don't believe that passive suicidal ideation is normal from the perspective of it's just this inevitable feeling that we're all gonna have like basically you know everyone's life kind of sucks and there's no way that's ever not going to be true and we should all just buckle up and just accept the fact that most of life is going to be miserable I think that is a complete load of crap I'm not on board with that idea but I know that it can be like that so that's my very long-winded answer to question number one is it normal question number two is it an indicator of severity because we also have of course active suicidal ideation now active suicidal ideation is when a person is actually planning or maybe even taking steps toward ending their own life now obviously that is a very different situation in general though whether a person is experiencing passive or active suicidal ideation is not a great indicator of the severity of their depression the tendency to go from passive to active like which way you lean more often has more to do with some underlying personality traits than it does with the severity of your depression and full disclosure I'm basing a lot of this information on the work of Dr Thomas Joyner at Florida State University and his interpersonal theory of suicide which if this is a topic that interests you at all he's the guy he's the guy to listen to check out his work 10 out of 10 you will learn a lot he deposits through a lot of research that he's done that people who get more into active suicidal ideation are just different types of people than the people who spend more time in passive suicidal ideation there are personality differences in these two groups of people mainly things like capacity for violence so suicide or attempted suicide is a very violent act and some people simply do not have the stomach for that type of action it doesn't mean that their depression is not as bad it's it's a line that not everybody is willing to cross personally I'm thankful for that but some people just cannot make themselves engage in acts like that and it just is this it just is this threshold that they have inside of them another big factor is whether or not a person believes that they are a burden on others in other words if you feel like your existence generally makes things worse for people around you that puts you at greater risk for being more of an active suicidal ideation thinker if you don't necessarily feel that way and you still believe that you have some value or some connection or some importance to other people that tends to put you more in passive territory that still can be a mixed bag because sometimes you hate your life you don't enjoy being alive you feel miserable but you know that other people want you here or or need you here or would be devastated if you were gone and so sometimes the only thing that keeps us in that passive mindset is the knowledge of how our passing would impact others and that's often where we get into those pray for death type mentalities because you don't want to be the one who does it because you know that that would change how other people think and feel but you just don't know how much more of this you can take um so so it's very possible relatively common even I would say for people with severe depression people who are really really miserable in life and and who are not enjoying being here to still primarily experience passive suicidal ideation um so if this is you don't think well my depression must not be that bad because I rarely if ever you know get into that active mindset or where I'm really planning or thinking about what I would do that doesn't mean your depression is is mild or moderate it very well could still be severe and don't think that about other people either don't don't take it for granted basically um and that kind of leads into my third piece of information that I want you to know about passive SI which is it can still be dangerous and it should be taken seriously I say that for many reasons one is you never know I know this might seem at first like it contradicts what I just said but but it doesn't and I'll explain why you never know when passive s i can Morpher evolve into active I've seen that happen many times um again whether this is I don't know if you're listening to this for you or you're listening to this you know thinking about somebody else right now in your life whether it's you or somebody else don't think that you know while it's passive so like I know nothing's gonna happen at least you don't know that you don't know that this is risky territory this is this is dangerous stuff and you should always take any type of suicidal thinking seriously whether it is yours or somebody else's because the other thing is sometimes passive SI gets so bad that people put themselves in situations and again they're not they're not intentionally doing something to end their own life but they're not avoiding it either um you know they're they're not engaging in behaviors that are congruent with self-preservation sometimes you see things like reckless driving or heavy substance use recklessness with medications and and not to the point where it's like I'm making an attempt on my own life but there are levels of not caring about what happens to you and those high levels of not caring they can be very very dangerous so please please please please please please like if there's one thing you get from today always take it seriously even if it's you even if it's you and I know that that might sound hypocritical because always take seriously the thing that you think might be the way out of your suffering like I I know how that sounds and I know that you can't just stay here for other people forever I know at some point this life would have to not feel the way it currently feels to you in order for you to see any value in sticking around I believe that it can I know that it can I'm not gonna bang that drum too hard today but I've been there okay and I know that it can change unless something permanent happens and then it won't and who knows what the next step is after that so please please please please please please please take it seriously the fourth thing I want you to know is that there is a difference between passive suicidal ideation and intrusive thoughts about death let me explain that because it may not sound different an intrusive thought is an idea or an image or a concept that will pop into your mind somewhat frequently and and you're not intentionally thinking about this thing like you're just going about your day taking care of your business and all of a sudden your brain just boom death right or it could be anything in this example it's death so if you're I'll go back to the driving example if you're driving and and you're like on a on a heightened on Earth am I trying to say if you're driving up high you know what I mean right like like on a on and on ramp or an off-ramp or something and you you know you kind of look out your side window and you're like that's a good 30 feet down there you know if I if I slipped off this road right now I'd be in for a bit of an adventure and that could that could end very badly for me if if in like a flash of you like driving off that Cliff just pops in your mind and it freaks you out and you're like oh my gosh and you grip the wheel Tighter and you pay really close attention to what you're doing that's not passive suicidal ideation that's an intrusive thought the difference is intrusive thoughts are not urges they're not impulses in fact the vast majority of intrusive thoughts that we experience are things that we explicitly do not want to happen there are things that disturb us or freak us out and they're things that we're trying to stay away from and our brains kind of latch onto that and they remind us hey this could happen so like be really careful whereas with passive suicidal ideation there is desire behind it there is some level of a wish that it would happen or or a desire to have it happen so if you have thoughts or images of your own death and they they terrify you and they disturb you and and they make you want to pay attention to what's going on or like work very hard to make sure that thing doesn't happen that's not passive SI that's an intrusive thought about death so it is important to know the difference the last thing that I want you to know about passive SI and this will lead into the question that I've been teasing this whole time is that in most cases it is treatable now it's not directly treatable there's not like a therapeutic protocol or a medication for Passive SI but the vast majority of passive SI comes from depression or some type of mood disorder comes from depressive episodes I should say we can have depressive episodes for many reasons of course major depressive disorder bipolar disorder schizoaffective disorder just to name a few but most experiences of passive Si take place within the context of a depressive episode and depressive episodes can be treated they are typically treated by either therapy psychiatric medication or a combination of the two so if you are experiencing some of what I've described today and you are not currently seeking treatment or receiving treatment for a mood disorder I would highly highly recommend that today be the day you start to figure out what you want to do and but by what you want to do I mean do you want start with therapy do you want to start with meds do you want to start with both do you want to see a doctor or a psychiatrist for meds what kind of therapist you want to see start the process of finding help now because this is miserable and I don't want you to have to live this way any longer than is necessary it's probably already been going on for too long I do not want you to have to deal with this alone anymore and there are people out there who want to help that being said here's my question to you and this this is a simple question but it's a hard question and I know it's a hard question I you might have an answer right away you might not either one is okay when we experience depression and anhedonia and passive suicidal ideation there's this feeling that goes along with it I call it the whole and if you felt it you'll instantly know what I mean it there's this feeling of an absence inside of you it's just that something something is missing there there is a there's a black hole or like an empty spot or a vacuum inside of you where there should be feelings and those that might be feelings like excitement or or love or peace or contentment and you just can't feel them in the spot like there's a I think this will make sense to you there's a spot inside where those feelings should be and it for me I guess it must be here because I'm pointing I'm probably off I think that part of me is off camera but I'm pointing to like right where my heart is probably sometimes you just can't feel those things I believe that there are two reasons for the whole there's two reasons that we feel empty inside sometimes reason number one is you're experiencing a depressive episode or some type of Mental Health crisis reason number two is something is wrong with your life and they're not mutually exclusive either so it's possible to have both reasons but the question is am I feeling this whole in my life am I is is the reason that I am not excited to wake up tomorrow morning because there's something wrong with my mental health or is it because my life shouldn't reasonably make me feel that way in other words like do you look at your life if you kind of zoom out of your own head for a minute no we can't really do that just pretend if you take a bird's eye view of your life you look at it as an outsider as a person who who's never met you before do you look at your own life and say that person probably should be like fairly happy that person looks to have a pretty good life and if that person is kind of wanting to die half the time there's probably something going on something's not working quite right in their mind their neurotransmitters aren't communicating as efficiently as they should be or something's blocking all this influx of positivity in their life because sometimes that's the reason or is there something missing because sometimes that hole is a lie sometimes that hole is a symptom sometimes things are good sometimes things are fine and they just feel like they're terrible but they aren't they're they're they're good they're all right and sometimes they aren't sometimes the whole is real sometimes there is something that should be present in your life that is not there maybe you have a gift a special talent or or ability that nothing in your life is allowing you to use and that can create a whole maybe you are missing something in your life that you've always known you needed you were meant to have like a partner or or children or some certain career there there might be something missing maybe you don't have a sense of purpose maybe you don't have a spirituality or a religious connection to something that you need maybe you do need something maybe something is missing it's important to ask this question and try your best to answer it because it's going to take you in two very different Pathways your answer is going to lead you down one or two roads and you have to ask and answer this question because here's the I hate this part I hate that I'm about to say this but it's it's true so I'm going to tell you I have felt both so like I I've had periods of life when I knew life is good like I know that I'm all right right now and I know that this feeling inside of me right now is a problem is a symptom I know everything's all right I just can't feel it right now I've also felt the whole because something was missing because something was wrong because my life wasn't going the way it was supposed to be and that feeling wasn't fake it was a genuine authentic reaction to my legitimate life circumstances this is the part that I hate they feel identical at least for me I guess that's presumptuous of me to assume that that's true for all people but at least for me they feel identical I cannot tell the difference just by how I feel if I'm actually experiencing a real hole in my life if something is really like have I gone astray on my life course or am I just unable to enjoy what I already have right now and again I'm making this an either or question it's very possible to have a bit of both too but I want you to be thinking about this because if you feel that it's more of a symptom then that's going to put us back more on that treatment route right like you have a life you've worked very very hard to build and assemble this life that should be capable of making you feel good and it's not doing it probably because something something isn't quite working right inside of you we can help with that but if it's the other it if something is truly missing in your life that you need to be content or happy medication definitely can't help with that and really like you wouldn't want it to anyway probably right like making you feel fake good about a life that isn't actually right for you that's a scary I don't know if I'd want that that's a scary thought therapy can help in the sense that it gives you a place to help figure that out like to help work through like well then what is it you know what is it that I'm missing what do I need therapy can help with that it can't solve the problem for you but it can give you a person to bounce ideas off of it gives you this dedicated period of your day where you explore what's going on inside because we get busy right we get caught up in our day-to-day we don't we don't spend a lot of time on these kinds of questions and that's part of how our lives can spiral so out of control so easily so I want to make sure that you really think about this because if you feel strongly it's one or the other then that tells you a little bit about where you need to go from here now unfortunately you know if you do realize I think something actually is missing from my life obviously I cannot tell you what that is the only person who's ever going to be able to figure that out for sure is you and I do want you to have help in that process I do still recommend that you go to therapy in that scenario as well but please know that ultimately the only person who's going to be capable of unraveling that web is you but there's nothing wrong with getting some help in doing so some support some structure et cetera et cetera et cetera so I hope you know more now about passive SI than you did heading into this video or this podcast episode however you're choosing to listen to um it I left the word it out of that sentence important important word there if you did get some good value out of this all I ask is that you show me some support in some way or another you can do that by subscribing you can do it by leaving a review you can do this by sharing it with somebody who you think would benefit from this message all I want is for this to get out to people who need it so if you can help me do that you have more than paid me back for the time and effort I put into this thank you so much for being here and I will see you next time take care

Channel: Dr. Scott Eilers

Views: 1,301,908

Keywords:

Id: wHi726FuClM

Length: 24min 18sec (1458 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 24 2023