Q. About this time last year I was hospitalized against my will because of a suicide attempt. It was a very traumatic and humbling experience. Only a few family members know about the ordeal, my parents, husband and one sister. How do I get over the guilt of doing what I did especially to my parents? They do not talk about it and are pretty nice to me. I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder by my therapist but my psychiatrist really thinks I have a mood disorder. I am currently on Prozac and Tegretol and it is like I am a new person. My mother attempted suicide when I as was 9 in front of me and we never talked about it but I had a lot of anger for many years about it and she never seemed to feel that guilty or ashamed about it but why do I feel so guilty and ashamed for my actions from a year ago?

A. I have a couple of thoughts on the matter.

First, you described having a great deal of guilt about how your suicidal feelings/actions have affected others. Guilt about past actions or behaviors is relatively common. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY guilt can be a powerful and HEALTHY emotion if it allows you to reflect on your behavior and make changes that benefit you and others around you. Therefore, guilt in and of itself is helpful in bringing about positive change. Chronic guilt often serves little purpose other than to beat yourself up. That's where self-forgiveness needs to come in.

Secondly, you talked about being diagnosed with a mood disorder. Feelings of suicide and acts of suicide are symptoms of a mood disorder. Suicidal feelings/acts are very commonly a part of mood disorders. Just as variable blood sugars, deteriorating eyesight, and frequent urination are part of diabetes. Would you blame a person diagnosed with diabetes for his/her urination problems or high glucose levels? Probably not. Likely, we would understand that those symptoms are just part of what we call diabetes and not brow-beat or blame the patient. Your family may already understand that suicidal feelings are part of the mood disorder and there is little gained by blaming you.

It sounds from your description that you are doing well now on the medication and most of the symptoms are under good control. That's great. Hopefully you can look back at that time and understand your feelings of suicide to be in the context of a mood disorder. Thus, it may be time to put away the feelings of excessive guilt and embarrassment.

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