Unfortunately, I'm no stranger to suicidal thoughts.
That's the end of my introduction.
When I have experienced suicidal thoughts, here is what has happened in my head. I will attempt to describe it using imagery.
My mind is personified as me. I am standing somewhere, and then some amorphous object enters into my right periphery. It is flowing past me from right to left. This is the suicidal thought. Notice that it is not a thought or an idea that I manufactured; it entered on its own. It arrived in response to some triggering situation that caused me extreme emotional distress, and it presents itself as an option for me to escape my current mental and emotional state. If I want, I can reach out, grab it, latch onto it, and allow it to carry me.
How I choose to respond to this thought is critical. I can choose to remain where I am, watch it pass in front of me, and then watch it exit my left periphery. I do not give it any power over me. Sometimes only one of these thoughts floats by; other times, it is many of them with headways of a couple minutes. Each time a new one drifts past, I need to make a choice not to reach out, grab it, and latch onto it.
In at least one instance, I have turned the direction that I am facing so that I cannot see the thought pass by and be tempted by it. In this instance, what happened was the thoughts kept coming, but their direction of approach changed each time I changed the direction I was looking. No matter which way I turned, I was surrounded by these thoughts. This was an instance where I felt completely helpless, like there was no way to escape them. But I still did not reach out and grab.
And there have been a couple instances where I have chosen to grab. I see the thought approaching, and then I pull myself onto it as it crosses in front of me. In these instances, I voluntarily give up my footing, and I allow this suicidal thought to take me wherever it pleases. I give the thought complete control over my mental state. Very rarely am I able to hurl myself from the ride on my own; it is someone else who makes the thought halt by blocking its trajectory. The other person usually cannot get me off the thought, but they can stop it from moving. It takes me a long time to off-board the thought on my own, because the surrounding atmosphere is dark. I cannot see a stable place for me to stand, and I do not trust that one is there.
When I do get off in the darkness, I slowly start making my way back to the light. It takes time. On my way back, sometimes I wander in circles in the dark; sometimes another suicidal thought floats by and I reach out to touch it; sometimes I step onto an uneven surface in the dark. It might take days, it might take weeks, it might take months; but I do eventually return to a more illuminated area.
That is how I visualize what happens in my head. Other people may experience it differently.
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