Understanding suicidal ideation in people with chronic invisible illness, 2020, Pederson

Free full text:
https://www.standinguptopots.org/si...hapter/Suicide Book Pederson Chapter 2020.pdf

In: Understanding Suicidal Ideation
ISBN: 978-1-53616-999-7
Editor: David Lester

Chapter 6

UNDERSTANDING SUICIDAL IDEATION IN PEOPLE WITH CHRONIC INVISIBLE ILLNESS

Cathy L. Pederson

ABSTRACT

Recent studies have demonstrated increased suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in the chronic illness community compared with the general population.

Suicidal ideation is common in people who have been diagnosed with a variety of chronic invisible illnesses like chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME), Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic Lyme disease, and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS).

Numerous physical and psychosocial factors can contribute to suicidal ideation in this population. Physical factors, like sleep disturbance and pain, are common in chronic illness.

Psychosocial issues, such as perceived burdensomeness (feeling like a burden to others), thwarted belongingness (lack of connection to a social group), hopelessness, and depression, may also contribute to an increased suicide risk in people with chronic invisible illness.

More research is needed to better understand the underlying risk factors for suicidal ideation in this population.

Putting suicide prevention programs in place that will target this under-represented group of physically ill patients is also necessary.

 

Possibly...we don't need people telling other people that they should be happy to be 'limited', out of work, have no money, future, etc and instead support them in practical ways?

Sounds like another line in CBT to me - putting the blame for such things on the people suffering, rather than on the society/system and illness that causes the problems.

 

With you, @Wonko. We can't get anywhere dealing with "suicidal ideation" until we recognise the grim reality that is faced by some people with chronic illness, what an extraordinarily low quality of life they have. I don't see full acknowledgement of this reality anywhere in the article, so it has entirely missed the mark.

 

With you @Wonko & @Woolie

I dont even think it should be called 'suicidal ideation', it's not. It's euthanasia ideation. I have experienced it plenty of times, & it wasnt at all that i didnt want to live, i simply sometimes dont want to live... like this.

They dont describe people who are finding their suffering intolerable & want to travel to Dignitas clinic & euthenise themselves, as having 'suicidal ideation' do they?

And the fact that they dont see the differentiation that they are making when they talk about PwME wanting to not carry on enduring it, is revealing of the problem. they dont grasp how ill many of us really are, and that they dont grasp that the people supposed to be helping - the medics & social care systems that are run from a biopsychosocial perspective - are the ones making life so unliveable, they are creating the social problem in biopsychosocial. They are creating the problem they claim to 'treat'.

If we were treated with the same validation/compassion, given the same support with the aspects of our lives that the illness makes difficult, as people with other properly-acknowledged-as-organic conditions, i feel sure that these numbers would drop through the floor.

There are (broadly speaking) 2 experiences of being ill/disabled... 1) the bodily experience of it, the physical/cognitive suffering & limitations, & 2) all the rest.

Personally speaking 1) is either made massively easier, or utterly intolerable, by 2)