Anxiety about leaving someone on their own

[mightybish]

Hi I'm new at this so sorry if this information is elsewhere.

My wife has been struggling and has overdosed twice now in 3 months, the latest in the last week.

She is getting really good support but i'm struggling in trusting her to be left on her own.

She's back at work and coping ok but I need to be at work tomorrow until the evening and i'm so worried.

Can anyone offer any practical advice or tips on what to do?

[rsxo]

Hey

That's a tricky situation - on the one hand, you have to go back to work, but on the other hand, you don't want to leave her alone in case she tries again. I think you know you have to go back to work, so I think having a serious discussion and setting an expectation with her is important (that you need to go back to work but afraid to leave her by herself. So, you need to be able to trust her in making sure she doesn't try again). Maybe someone else has a better way of going about this, but I think that's the clearest way to go about it x

Much love <3

[firebird123]

Hi

My partner also has suicidal tendencies, although has been much better these past 20 years... my therapist often has to remind me that if someone wants to take their own life, then there's absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop it happening.

I know that's probably not much help in a practical sense, sorry... but I think it's good to try to remember that.

x

[forestina]

I was in this exact position. It is so very very hard. Fortunately I had the suport of the crisis team. They visited every day and each time he pledged not to commit suicide for the next 24 hrs.

I was very doubtful but the technique worked. After four weeks with less intervention he went back to his own flat. It was truly terrifying but I had to trust. This was far easier said than done. So far he is managing, now ironically I am the one that is struggling as I gave up work etc and now find nyself staring into an abyss.

His suicide attempt was triggered by a situation he found himself in that he cannot alter and is likely to have severe consequences. Therefore the tgreat of a relapse is therefore constant. Ultimately the person has to want to live and you cannot truly force them to continue with a life they don't want. Unfortunately my heart is not so rational.