I don’t enjoy writing about suicide. Even though I know it’s an important subject, there’s a part of me that always worries that talking about it will encourage others to consider it.

Taking your life is never the right answer. Never. With September being Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, I can’t ignore the subject completely.

The painful reality is, if you have bipolar disorder, you will think about suicide. Probably much more often than you’ll want to admit.

Another harsh truth is that sometimes the worst feelings will come on your best days. Everything will be going right, the sun shining, children laughing, birds chirping overhead, and then suddenly, like an evil Jack-in-a-box, up will jump the awful feelings you’re trying so hard to avoid.

Suicidal ideation is just one of the realities we live with every day.

You don’t need me to go through a list of things to consider when feeling suicidal. You already know you need to reach out to someone, make a promise to live, and go to a crisis help center or emergency room if things are really dark.

If you’re wondering how to help somebody else, there are great tips on the 988 website.

Instead of me covering the basics, I want to tell you what I wish someone had told me: feeling suicidal is part of bipolar disorder.

No, you’ll probably never read that in the information guides, but it’s true. I’ve talked to dozens of people with bipolar disorder and every one of them told me the same thing. They all thought about suicide.

When I started my bipolar journey, I thought the right medications and therapist would forever drive the thoughts from my head, but that’s not true. The feelings can come back, and for me still do, often every day.

Most days, I walk around with a smile on my face. Many people would never imagine I’m fighting bipolar disorder. I’m just the cheerful guy who does taxes.

But behind my smile, it’s often taking everything I have just to stay alive. I may laugh at your jokes and tell my own, but the darkness is there. It never fully goes away.

The self-destructive thoughts go back nearly as far as I can remember. I first confessed them to a friend when I was 10 years old, but she thought I was making it up. So I told no one else for years.

As a child, I didn’t realize what the feelings meant. Now I know it’s bipolar, and I know it’s a part of the beast I live with, but I also know there’s hope. I’ve made a promise to myself, to my family, and my closest friends that I would never do it.

I also know the worst feelings always pass. Those moments that feel unsurvivable will end, so you just need to hold on. The thoughts are often there, yet I know I will never act on them. I hope you feel the same way.

As we go through September, think about ways you can encourage both yourself and others who are fighting suicidal ideation. Help people know that they’re not alone, that they are not the only ones who feel that way.

Share your experiences, if you feel comfortable, or just be a listening ear. Provide a shoulder to cry on or a hand to hold. Help them feel less alone, and it will help you, too.

Suicidal thoughts may be part of bipolar disorder, but they don’t have to control you. Choose to live and use your strength to encourage others.

Featured Post

This week continues the Surviving Bipolar Series. This chapter (below) tells the story or why I fired my first therapist and how I knew it was the best choice.

Scenes from My Yard

Here’s the Crepe Myrtle picture I forgot to include in the last newsletter. The other picture is a surprise I found in my toilet yesterday morning. Yes, that’s a tree frog. No, I have no clue how it got there, but I did take it safely back outside.

Note to self: always look under the toilet seat. (At least it wasn't a spider!)

Thank you for reading, Reader. I'm always happy to see you here.

Until next time, keep fighting.

Scott Ninneman

Featured Post:

When Should You Fire Your Therapist?

For most of the last two decades, I’ve imagined Dr. Burt, the therapist I was seeing after my time in a psychiatric hospital, had failed me. All I remembered were the times he tried to drive every conversation towards alcoholism.

It’s true, I had been abusing alcohol before I went to the hospital, and I knew more than a little about addiction, but my substance abuse wasn’t my biggest problem.

The more I talked to Dr. Burt, the more frustrated I felt. He seemed to steer every conversation back to alcohol.

I knew Dr. Burt had his own story of alcoholism before I met him. I thought his past would make him more empathetic and maybe a better therapist for me. Instead, he projected his feelings towards alcohol on to his patients.

Rather than hearing what I had to say, Dr. Burt often told me how he felt. He spent much of our sessions describing how he struggled. I heard detailed stories of how he grappled to reach sobriety.

I tried to pay attention to Dr. Burt’s tales, but his words never connected with me.

Surviving Bipolar is a monthly series telling the story of the early days of my journey with bipolar disorder. Read it from the beginning here.

When a therapist fails you

In one of our first sessions, Dr. Burt told me to stop drinking, so I did. I didn’t have another drink for months, and I never missed it.

Dr. Burt kept telling me I was hiding my anxiety and craving for another drink. He accused me of lying to myself and refused to believe I had walked away from beer and never looked back.

Truth was, I could have cared less about alcohol. In the years to come, I would go nearly a decade without drinking a drop of alcohol. It never was my problem. When I finally realized Dr. Burt would never see past his own experiences, I decided to fire him.

As I’ve been writing the Surviving Bipolar Series, I’ve read through my journals and looked at events with fresh eyes.

As awful a therapist as I thought Dr. Burt was, he did help me. He taught me a few coping skills and taught me to look deep inside at the things that I wanted to keep hidden.

I’m grateful for those lessons, because they helped me later on in life. But at the time, all I could see were the endless stories about alcohol. The right choice for me was to fire him and move on.

How do you know when it’s time to fire a therapist? Here are a few questions to consider.

Are you making progress?

The first thing to do is objectively look at yourself to see if you’re making any progress.

I know now that I didn’t recognize the progress I was making. It’s taking me 25 years to accept the truth. I was making some progress, though slower than I hoped.

Dr. Burt was helping me to peel back some of my surface layers. As I learned to face those things, it made me stronger.

Take some time to step outside of your life and look at where you are now versus where you were just a few weeks or months ago. Look at everything as if you were an outsider, not the person in therapy.

Then ask yourself, are you making positive changes? Are you in a better place now than where you were before working with this therapist? If you are, it might be worth sticking with them a little longer.

Does your therapist listen to you?

The second question you should ask is whether your therapist is really hearing the things you say.

You know there’s a vast difference between hearing what someone says and truly listening to what they say. You can tell when a friend is not listening by the way they respond. If they say something completely off topic, they weren’t really listening. It’s painfully obvious when someone isn’t paying attention to you.

The same is true with your therapist. When your therapist makes you discuss issues you never experienced, it might be the time for a new one.

I know Dr. Burt wouldn’t have moved past his belief that I was an alcoholic. He was sure alcohol was my biggest problem, and there was nothing I could say to dissuade him.

Sadly, alcohol wasn’t the addiction I needed help with. No, that was a darker addiction, one called self-harm, but my secret addiction never came up in our conversations. Dr. Burt was stuck behind his alcohol wall and couldn’t see anything else.

When it’s clear your therapist is not listening to you, then you may need to walk away.

Do you have other options?

The third question to consider is whether you have other choices if you fire your current therapist.

I know that’s a horrible thing to think about, but sometimes you don’t have any options. In my time with Dr. Burt, I knew I could go to another therapist in the city and be just fine. I had good insurance that would pay no matter where I went.

Those were the good days. Now, I don’t have access to therapy, and I couldn’t afford to pay for it out of pocket. If I was seeing a therapist today, even a bad one, I might have to stay.

As they say, even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then. With enough time, Dr. Burt might have helped me with my bigger problems.

Before you fire your therapist, consider what options you have. If you live in a small town like me, you may not have many. It might be better to stick with your current therapist until you can find another option.

Can you trust them?

There are other things you should consider when deciding to keep a therapist.

About 2 years ago, I checked out online therapy. One company kept reaching out to me because they wanted to advertise their services on my site.

I told the company representative I’d be happy to write about their website if they wanted to give me a few weeks’ trial so I could see how their therapy services worked.

I didn’t really feel like I needed therapy, but I was excited to see how online therapy worked. Besides, my last therapist helped me in ways I never expected, so there was a chance the trial session could help me cope with today’s world.

During the intake process, the site matched me with a counselor who said she specialized in bipolar disorder. She also said she handled her sessions via web meeting.

I don’t like using my webcam, but I know from experience why a therapist needs to see you. There’s too much we say with our bodies that a skilled counselor will pick up. Sometimes the silent cues are more vital than the words a patient speaks.

My assigned therapist confirmed she conducted sessions through web meetings. So I finished the sign-up process and eagerly awaited our first session.

The next day, I got an email. The therapist explained that because of her busy schedule, she no longer had time to see patients via web meeting. Instead, she was only offering sessions by text message.

Had I been a paying customer, this email would have come after I paid for my first sessions. Not cool.

I couldn’t help but think the therapist wanted to treat several patients at the same time. Hiding behind text messages was the only way her patients wouldn’t know.

My blood boiled like the water in my silver tea kettle. I reached out to the company rep again, and they seemed uninterested in my concerns. They said many of their therapists only offer therapy by text message.

I let the company know what they could do with their free therapy and ended my relationship with them.

A therapist that lies to you or dismisses your needs is undeserving of your time. You can’t make progress with a person you can’t trust, no matter how great of a therapist they may be. Once your trust is broken, there’s a wall you’ll never be able to remove.

If a therapist lies to you at the beginning, they’re going to lie to you again.

What else should you consider?

If you have options when choosing a therapist, consider their personality, what their areas of specialty are, and if they have similar life experiences.

If you’re a mom with bipolar disorder and you’re struggling to raise three young children, your best option may not be a 25-year-old single guy.

I’m not saying a male therapist can’t help you, but a woman who has children of her own will be in a better position to understand what you’re going through. It’s the same for any other circumstances you might face.

Unfortunately, many don’t have options. Your only choice may be one therapist or an online company. It makes me angry, but it’s the reality of having a mental illness in this world. You often can’t get the help we need.

If there are no therapy options available to you, you may benefit by joining a support group either locally or online. While you won’t get the one-on-one attention, you will find some validation and understanding from people who know what you’re feeling.

Looking back, I can see how Dr. Burt helped me, but I don’t regret firing him. He was not the right therapist for me, so moving on was the right choice.

If you feel it’s time for you to stop seeing your therapist, think about the questions above and look at things objectively. Don’t run from a therapist just because you’re angry or because you have hurt feelings. You will have lots of negative emotions in therapy, even with the best therapist.

Instead, look at the situation as an outsider would. If the answers reveal a problem, then look for another option.

Therapy is one of the best things you can do for your mental health, but you’ll have better success with a therapist who gets you. Try therapy and see how it goes.

Until next time, keep fighting.

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Additional Reading:

• ​My Uncle’s Silence Taught Me to Tell My Stories Now​
• ​How to Overcome Shiny Object Syndrome​
• ​I Hate the Days | Poem about Bipolar Depression​
• ​Learn to Recognize the Things That Make Your Bipolar Worse​
• ​Archive Newsletters​