Discussion Meditation reduce suicidal thoughts?

[KyussEatsTheSun]

As the title states... Has anyone here had success reducing their suicidal thoughts with consistent meditation?

 

[t-rex]

Hi there. I see no one responded to this thread, so I wanted to.

I have been a meditator for several years throughout my depression. Sometimes I meditate for 10 or 20 minutes a day, but I also went through periods of meditating many hours a day (2-4 hrs). Mostly mindfulness of breathing meditation. I have also been on several intensive retreats and visited Buddhist monasteries.

I wish I could tell you it squashed my depression and suicidal thoughts--but it didn't. Breath meditation can certainly calm down your anxiety, but that's not what I was struggling with--I was struggling with depression: hopelessness, lethargy, lack of drive, anhedonia, etc. Sitting and watching the breath for hours didn't seem to help me with that.

Where do you think your suicidal thoughts are coming from? People are suicidal for different reasons. If your thoughts are coming from self-hatred, maybe loving-kindness (metta) meditation would help. I practiced that a little over the years and it can make you feel pretty good. But I don't think my suicidal thoughts were coming from self-hatred; I never really hated myself, I just felt completely uninterested in life and had no plan or direction, and so I thought, "well, I guess that means I have to kill myself. And I don't like living a human life that seems to have no meaning and enjoyment." I didn't even get caught up in thoughts of worthlessness, "I'm a burden on everyone", "I don't deserve to take up space on this earth", etc. I know a lot of people do have that.

If you do, look into metta meditation! But I wouldn't expect breath meditation or body scans to give you a reason to live.

For a long time, I wanted meditation to be THE cure-all. I love that it doesn't involve chemicals in your brain, side effects, money (although a lot of time, which is money), etc. Just courage and determination. I loved that idea. But I tried it and it didn't work. At least not on its own.

In January I became more suicidal than I've ever been. I had 6 IV infusions of ketamine, and soon after my last infusion, the depression and suicidal thoughts just STOPPED. I went to some Buddhist monasteries afterward for a few months and practiced meditation, but since returning from the monasteries in May, I have really slacked on my meditation practice. And yet the suicidal thoughts have not returned. My point is, I think my brain need a bigger global reset than meditation can provide.

Perhaps meditation can be a healthy preventive skill for maintaining healthy pathways in your brain, or at least preventing a lot of intensive rumination. But if your brain already has some intensive rigid patterns after years of depression, substance abuse, unhealthy habits, isolation, etc, you probably needed a bigger intervention, like ketamine, ECT, etc. Get that big reset, then maintain the reset with healthy living habits, including meditation. I don't know about ECT, but ketamine is understood to put your brain into a more plastic state, i.e. where it's more malleable to change and make new pathways. But then it's up to you to create and maintain those new pathways with meditation, exercise, and so on. It's VERY hard if not impossible to change the rigid, depressive pathways with meditation alone.

I don't want to discourage you from meditation. I believe it can be helpful in getting you some distance from your thoughts and helping you get through difficult mental storms. It's a good coping skill. But in my experience, it does not make the heavy storms go away.

I wish you the best of luck!

 

[doublejay]

Well said, @t-rex. That pretty much echoes my meditation/mindfulness experience. For me the main "win" is that I am now sometimes able to put a pause between a compulsive suicidal thought and getting absorbed by it. Yet, most of the time the suicidal thoughts carry me away at full speed still. I guess it takes a long time to undo these thought patterns and create new pathways.

Glad to hear the ketamine worked for you!

 

[Celerity]

As the other posters said, meditation only helped me with anxiety and impulse control to an extent. I gave up on it because I found other interventions (like exercise and sleep hygiene) more efficient for me. I found meditation too difficult and time consuming to practice it for more than a few weeks.

In theory, I think it can help you to understand how fickle your moods are and to take your negative thoughts less seriously, but it just didn't have this effect for me except when under the influence of an antipsychotic. Who is to say the antipsychotic by itself was not responsible? I would be interested in trying to repeat the experience with different sedatives to see which ones might engender the same effect.

 

[KyussEatsTheSun]

Thank you for the awesome responses.