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On Suicidality as a Therapist - a thread for #WorldSuicidePreventionDay 
#TherapistsConnect
I think most if not all of the therapists I've met, are to some degree comfortable with the idea of themselves as a wounded healer. But are some wounds too much to bring to the table? 1/
#TherapistsConnectI think most if not all of the therapists I've met, are to some degree comfortable with the idea of themselves as a wounded healer. But are some wounds too much to bring to the table? 1/
I'm a (finally!) qualified therapist, I'm also a suicide attempt survivor. The only reason I feel able to disclose that second fact next to the first one, is because my name is easily googleable, and my activism around suicidality is easily found and too difficult to remove...2/
Why should this be the case? Whilst I don't make a habit of disclosure (inside or outside the therapy room), I often feel that being open on suicidality is frowned upon in the therapy community. It can feel like an asterisk next to my name - a question mark...3/
It feels like a risk of being seen as certain things, unstable, unsuitable to work with clients, oversharing or underboundaried - even though so much of me is findable from my pre-therapy life...4/
I've sat in front of therapists who've flat out panicked when I disclosed suicidality. I've been dragged through safety plans that I knew were entirely for the therapist's benefit not mine, I've seen therapists say that they "don't work with suicidal clients"...5/
I detest the word 'stigma' in the context of suicide prevention because it's got to a point where it feels like a corporate buzzword, but the therapy world is one where I feel comfortable still using that particular 'S' word...6/
I often feel that my various writings and work in suicide prevention/activism will put future opportunities in jeopardy. It's almost as if suicidality is the one area where we expect MH professionals to achieve full, failsafe, flameproof closure.../7
The world is slowly opening up to the idea that being more open insofar as you're comfortable, can help people in mental distress. Yet suicide survivors too often are given the opposite message, as if we'll suddenly fall off some kind of wagon...8/
In the therapy world this manifests in what I'll call the safeguarding reflex. People immediately jump to safeguarding, apparently without bothering to hear a suicidal person's story, mindset, context...the reflex kicks in - and for many people - gives a message...9/
That many therapists aren't OK with suicidality being discussed. To be clear, I'm talking about with both clients and peers. It seems to be acceptable for therapists to own almost any complicated personal history - except for suicidality.../10
Well, on #WorldSuicidePreventionDay I'm going to own not just a history but my present. I've been suicidal for much of the recent past. I've not been working, as I couldn't do so ethically, and I know that I'm able to tell when this changes. My history isn't an impairment 11/
I'm going to own not just a history but my present. I've been suicidal for much of the recent past. I've not been working, as I couldn't do so ethically, and I know that I'm able to tell when this changes. My history isn't an impairment 11/
My history is a help, it is lived experience. It is expertise. Both in getting myself to a better place, and eventually maybe to bring a touch more empathy to a client. My suicidality does not and will not lessen me as a therapist. It's a shame to have to say that...12/
I'm a suicide attempt survivor, a therapist, and currently working very hard to stay alive - even if at times it's hard to know why. I say this because it feels important to own it. I hope one day, I'll be able to say it without feeling any professional risk.
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Postscript: This thread got some attention that I really didn't expect! If you like it - please RT it - I've had a lot of messages saying it expresses privately held views...maybe in sharing these thoughts, I can help put these things a little more into the open...
