“I wake up every morning feeling like I want to die.”
A Reader writes:
I read your Tip about the woman who said, “What if I don’t want to die?” For me, it’s the opposite. I wake up every morning feeling like I do want to die. It’s OK, I’m not going to do anything. But I wonder what you would tell me.
Dear Reader:
My friend and creative partner Barbara McGavin wrote an amazing article on this subject. It’s called “The Victim, the Critic, and the Inner Relationship: Focusing with the Part that Wants to Die.”
I asked Barbara if she had something to say to you about wanting to die. This is what she wrote:
This is not something that happens for me very often anymore, though it did happen again quite recently. When something in me wants to die, I first need to find a way to be with that. I imagine a big space where it can be just the way it is, and I assume that it has some good reason to feel that way – from its point of view. It helps me (the big me) to remember that dying is a strategy that a part of me is contemplating. It wants to die because it doesn’t want something about what is here now to continue indefinitely, and it doesn’t know a good way of changing that.
Perhaps as you lie in bed you can pause and just acknowledge that something in you wants to die. To be able to acknowledge that something feels like it wants to die without falling into simply wanting to die is a big thing already. If it feels right, you might even say to it, “I can sense that you want to die.” No fighting with it or trying to talk it out of how it is. Just a gentle acknowledgement of how it is right now for it.
Perhaps you can be curious about how it actually feels. Is it wanting to run from something? From a situation? From a person? From a feeling? Is it hoping that death will bring a relief of some kind? Whatever it lets you know, just hear that. Again, not trying to get it to change its mind. You become its empathic listener. Your goal is for it to feel completely understood by you (that doesn’t mean simply agreeing with what it says). You get what its concerns and its dreams for you are.
What I have always found is that when I really listen to a part that wants to die, something really shifts at a very deep level. When something in me wants to die, something in my life is awry. That’s what was happening when I felt that just a few months ago. I had been ignoring something important, and I had to listen carefully to the one that wanted to die in order to connect with how it wants me to live. It is such a good indicator of when my life is getting away from being authentically aligned with my inner compass.
Ann here. What Barbara is saying also applies to depression and other negative feelings. Turning toward the painful feeling, as Barbara describes here, is at the heart of our jointly created work called Untangling™.
Neil, I’m so glad to hear that you were drawn to our non-judgmental, “inner relationship” approach. I too hope it helps! Do write again if we can support you further.
This is one of the more interesting and truly empathetic perspectives I’ve read. Usually, at some level, it’s ‘my own fault’ that I feel this way – like a sighted person being frustrated with a blind man for not understanding ‘purple.’ The truth is, as you point out, I do not want to die – I just do not want to live with A, B, C, D …. Thank you for publishing this way of thinking about the issue. I’m going to try it and hope it helps.
Zerda, good to hear from you. I am really glad you wrote. I am really glad you have somewhere to start, to be with the part of you that wants to die and what it might really be about. My heart is with you.
I woke up this morning really feeling this. I am happy that I stumbled across this page today. I feel like I have somewhere to start. A place to grasp on to. Thanks.