Someone in my family committed suicide a long time ago. She struggled with schizophrenia and depression, and died by intentional overdose of her depression medication. Because of this, I associate medication with suicide and really struggle with the idea of taking meds for my OCD. I know meds aren’t completely necessary for recovery, but I’m sure they would be helpful if I could get over this very strong association. I’m always so scared I’m going to end up like her. Any advice or does anyone else also struggle with suicide trauma?

I would do the same thing and say I should just kill myself woth these pills, I even had a dream about it the other day and in my dream I took the pills and immediatly i started to try and throw them up bc i regretted it. This dream meant a lot too me bc it showed me tht death is the only permanent thing in life and if I do tht I can never take back tht decision

I have this - there have been a few suicides in the past few months that have really really affected me. I’m always extremely scared that because I deal with mental health issues, that I’m going to do the same thing - it’s an association. Correlation doesn’t mean causation though, and I remind myself that on the flip side, there are tons of people dealing with mental health issues/OCD that are doing super well with support and therapy - in your case, there are lots of people who medication has helped! It’s easy to always focus on the worst case scenario - it’s taken about half me ignoring these thoughts and just throwing them away, and half changing my perspective around. You’re not alone!

Haven’t experienced this exactly but it seems like you know that this association isn’t true. I actually struggle with associating/implying intrusive thoughts to my religion. Obviously I don’t mean these thoughts but I still struggle with them. If you know that you don’t mean these thoughts, that is what matters. I hope you keep pushing through and you get stronger with every day!

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I’m so sorry for what you went through. My long-term partner went through a period of time where he felt suicidal, and on a couple occasions exclaimed, “I want to kill myself!” This still rings in my head and is a part of my intrusive thoughts. It was a very difficult and traumatic time for me, and while he didn’t try to kill himself and is doing much better now, it’s still a traumatic memory for me that strongly contributes to my suicidal ocd and intrusive thoughts.