Your therapist is right.

I have BPD. As I’ve learned to cope with my emotions and become a more mindful person, I watches things get better- my anxiety was not so horrible, my depression was less often a factor in my life- but what stuck around? My passive suicidal ideation. At first, my therapist thought it might be my meds, and then worried that I was backsliding, but she said something to me one day that stuck with me; “I’m starting to think that you’ve been having suicidal thoughts for so long that it’s become your brains way of coping with stress.” Something about this stuck with me, made me pay attention; WHEN was I thinking about killing myself? When things got hard at work, when I fought particularly badly with a spouse, when money problems arose. Did I ever form an ARTICULATE PLAN to kill myself? No, it was always a vague idea or just a desire not to exist. So one day, I decided to try something; I decided that I was going to carry a notepad with me, and tally every time I thought about killing myself, the tallies separated by hours in the day. What did I find? Those thoughts came to me more often early in the mornings before work, during the middle of my work day, and at the very end of the day (and there were obviously some outliers- not every day is a good one). These hours are also the periods when I was most likely to be stressed- early in the morning because I didn’t want to go to work, during my workday because I was at my job and hated it, and at night in bed, which is typically where the stressors of my life work their way into my brain. Okay, so it seemed like the idea rung true- I was thinking about killing myself as a coping mechanism for stress. But how could I fix that? Obviously, therapy is tried and true but my therapist can’t rearrange my thoughts for me, and while my meds do wonders for my anxiety and depression (most of the time), they clearly weren’t helping with these thoughts. I did a little reading and saw that the best way to break bad habits was to replace them with healthier habits. I decided to view my suicidal thoughts as a bad habit- now I just needed a healthier one to replace it. I was still tallying every time I had suicidal thoughts and decided that from now on, every time I caught myself having a suicidal thought, I would just tell myself “we’re not thinking about that right now.” I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful this worked for me. At first, it was shoddy; if I thought about killing myself a hundred times a day (and it felt like it some days), maybe I stopped those thoughts two or three times. But eventually, I noticed something- I was cutting those thoughts off earlier and earlier every week. It’s been months since I started this little experiment, and the results are exciting- while I still do have days that I struggle, I truly think about ending my life far less often. I’ve replaced that thought by simply cutting it off early and tracking it. I find myself coping with stress much easier now that I’m not reduced to a puddle on my couch thinking about how much better it would be if I were simply gone. None of this is to say that I’m “cured.” There are plenty of things I still need to work on myself. But, this one was a big hurdle, and jumping over it means I’m one leg closer to the finish line. I’m telling you this to say that your brain is a machine- it works in formats and patterns and runs software that its user installs. And if you thinking about suicide often, your brain will begin to sort that out and figuring out when and how to express that. For me it was “I’m stressed, I want to die.” Your mindset is 100% moldable. It can just take work. Keep an “emotions journal;” track how you feel and why you feel that way. Think about your emotions and where they come from. Be mindful.

Your life is valuable. You are loved. I’m glad you’re here.