understanding someone with chronic suicidal thoughts (ft. catherine humenuk, LCSW)

The popular image of someone in danger of suicide goes like this: A person has suicidal thoughts. It’s a crisis. The person gets help, and the crisis resolves within days or weeks. That’s the popular image, and thankfully it does happen for many people. But for others, suicidal thoughts do not go away. Their suicidal thoughts become chronic. The mental health care system in the United States was set up with acute (and not chronic) suicidality in mind, which means many individuals aren’t getting the kind of help they need. In today’s episode, I sit down with licensed clinical social worker Catherine Humenuk, who specializes in BPD, CPTSD, and addiction. Before practicing privately,If you or someone you know is suicidal, please, contact your physician, go to your local ER, or call the suicide prevention hotline in your country. A list of suicide hotlines for most countries can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines. Questions answered and topics discussed in this episode:• Understanding the difference between acute and chronic suicidality and how the latter is managed slightly differently• How it can be unhelpful or even escalate behavior if chronically suicidal individuals are hospitalized• How the current mental health system in the US is not set up to best help chronically suicidal individuals, leaving some mental health professionals “burnt out, hardened, and jaded”• How to identify someone who is at an immediate (acute) high risk of suicide and the best interventions to use to ensure immediate safety• Understanding why some individuals have chronic suicidal thoughts/intent• How we can learn to empathize with the suicidal wishes of our loved ones with BPD/cPTSD while simultaneously instilling hope for change• How emergency rooms assess suicidal risk with chronically suicidal clients Recommended resources:Catherine's safety plan blog post: https://bpdeducation.com/blog/f/safety-planning-and-crisis-kits Connect with Catherine at https://catherinehumenuklcsw.com/.Craving more? Become a Premium Submarine. Join an exclusive community and unlock hundreds of hours of members-only content: full-length episodes, deep-dive series, guided meditations, and more—all for the cost of a couple of coffees a month. Start exploring at backfromtheborderline.com. Disclaimer: The information contained in this podcast episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for treatment or consultation with a licensed mental health professional. acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/back-from-the-borderline. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Om Podcasten

I don’t want to talk to your personality; I want to talk to your soul. Imagine if your most painful and debilitating mental health symptoms and self-sabotaging behaviors aren’t evidence of 'disorder' or 'dysfunction', but adaptive strategies that once kept you safe. My goal is to help you shift from asking ‘What’s wrong with me?’ to ‘What happened to me?’The word ‘borderline’ in this podcast has nothing to do with psychiatric labels. It has everything to do with coming back from the inner psychological brink we all experience. Everyone has found themselves on the edge, in that liminal space where the old self falls apart and the new Self emerges. Here, we explore what it means to undergo true emotional alchemy: that ancient and primordial process of falling apart, confronting the underworld of our psyche, and falling back together into someone stronger, wiser, and more whole.Many highly sensitive people who identify with the seemingly never-ending list of diagnostic mental health labels contained within ‘the bible of psychiatry’ (the DSM) share the same underlying sense of being irreparably broken, disconnected from their intuition, and paralyzed by life’s existential questions. I believe the resulting—and perfectly understandable—chronic feelings of emptiness and spiritual starvation are the TRUE causes of our current collective ‘mental health crisis.’Together, we’ll dive into depth psychology, mythology, human consciousness, critical psychiatry, and the impact of trauma to help you begin the process of emotional alchemy. This exploration will help you get to the root cause of your suffering and free yourself from the toxic shame, limiting beliefs, and mental programming that have kept you locked in the chains of your past.In an era where mental health and spirituality are too often commercialized, I’m not here as a guru with a quick fix to sell you. I don’t believe anyone is ever truly ‘healed’ or ‘cured.’ There is no return to some mythical state of pre-trauma purity, but rather a continuous spiral of unbecoming, unlearning, and transformation. As a fellow seeker, I will be there in your ear, walking alongside you on your path toward wholeness as a sort of parasocial big sister. That, I can promise.By integrating the concepts we explore together, you’ll begin to see that anyone—even you—can come back from the borderline.CRAVING MORE? Visit backfromtheborderline.com to dive into my universe, connect with me, access my Patreon, and discover more about my journey and work. Don’t forget to follow Back from the Borderline so new episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays automatically drop into your podcast feed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.