If the distress is unbearable and getting in the way of seeing clients, that's a major ethical problem. If someone is having SI and can compartmentalize it and create some objective distance from it, then it is not by default means to pull yourself out of practicing.When a therapist, while sitting with a patient and offering them treatment during a psychotherapy session, is actively thinking about their own suicide, that is a scenario where distress has gotten in the way of providing care. OP has said that this is what they're experiencing now, and that is what prompted me to say that OP needs to take a break from seeing patients at this time.