In January I was put back on a mood stabilizer (just lamotrigine 100mg), and my moods have felt a lot more stable which is nice. I don’t feel great but I’m not depressed either. Just kind of blah. (I felt really good at first but have come down a bit lately). However I’ve been having violent, graphic suicidal thoughts and urges that just won’t go away. This is not something new since I’ve been on the new medication, so that hasn’t caused it or anything. It’s just troubling me more right now because I’m not depressed and it feels wrong to still be having these thoughts, especially for them to be so strong and persistent. 

They’re like intrusive thoughts, thoughts that feel like they are coming from someone else and not me. I don’t want to explain them right now because it’s too triggering for me but if you want context I’ve posted in regards to this before. This started in the fall of 2020 and continued on until I started hearing actual voices telling me the same things as these thoughts and tried to act on what they were telling me multiple times until I was hospitalized. The voices went away with new medications, but then these horrible thoughts came back pretty quickly and won’t go away. 

I finally told my psychiatrist about it and how I’m worried that I’m going to act on them. She said it’s either a psychotic thought or an obsessive thought, and that for now I just need to ignore it. But the thing is, I can’t ignore it. It won’t get out of my head and is in the back of my mind ALL the time. I do not want to die but I feel like I have to. I feel so STUPID because I know it’s irrational but the urges are SO strong and the thoughts so relentless that it’s getting harder and harder to feel like I even SHOULD resist it. I keep thinking of ways to “satisfy” the thoughts and urges without actually hurting myself but nothing helps. 

I honestly just don’t know what to do. Does anyone else experience this? How do you cope? How do you keep yourself safe?