Written by: ME
Suicide: definition…is an act of willfully ending one’s life.
Males die much more often than females by suicide, while females attempt suicide more often.
U.S. Caucasians commit suicide more often than African Americans do.
People commit suicide more often during spring and summer.
Suicidal ideation produces the perilous side of mental illness, acting as both a friend and seducer. Even though thoughts of dying encapsulate our mind on one hand, we yearn to remain living on the other. We desire just to feel better.
Depression, best known of all the mental illnesses, is difficult to endure and treat. It renders one feeling hopeless and helpless. Experiencing a sort of wintry solitude, completely immobilized with any light of optimism dimming. It creates emotional and financial fallout, coupled with a horrible emptiness and black death-like existence. Life tastes sour.
My Journal entries (10 years ago):
Wednesday 7:30 am
I am seated in my corner by the window again. I like it here, even though it is a hospital room, it allows me to believe in the plan. Should I proceed with the plan today? I’m sort of frightened, yet energized at the same time. Each day that I plan, gets me through the darkness. This hole of depression is certainly swallowing me up and I’m drowning. Effortless tasks take major energy. Heaviness and hollow sadness are with me daily.
I feel geared up. Today is the day. I am positive that this is the answer, why question, why live one more day in this black subsistence. What did I do that was so wrong to deserve this?
Wednesday 11:00 am
My pass is approved. One bus ticket home. One to make it back? Who cares, I’m not returning to the hospital. The bus ride home is excruciating. Crowded. Countless stops. I am irritated. Finally – home.
Casey greeted me at the door, his tail wagging. I’ve missed him since my admission last month. I plopped down on the couch, left the coat on and just stared. Stared and stared for what seemed like hours.
It’s time.
Wednesday 2:30 pm
The stash was still in the closet. A whole bunch of pills & colors, mostly white. They are large, small, round, oval – all still in their bottles. I chose the white ones. Seems as if they will be the most effective. With a huge glass of water, I ingested a handful. Difficult to swallow, but they went down.
I returned to the couch and sat and waited for death to come. I feel like I accomplished something today. I’m proud. I am in somewhat of a dreamlike state now, breaking free from the demons of depression, free of the shackles around my ankles. All of a sudden I feel panicky. Perspiring. What have I done, I am not supposed to experience this. This isn’t in the plan, which was so well thought out. Oh my god, what do I do now. I do not feel sleepy, however, a bit nauseous and my brain muddled. Who should I call? Minutes pass and I am pacing the living room. Ok, 911.
The ambulance arrives. Here I lay on a stretcher. I am berating myself. You are such a loser, can’t even get this right, why did you have to call, back to square one again, you had the chance, you blew it, another disappointment, a huge loser. You planned this for weeks, how everything would be so easy, you are such a cop out, you deserve to be sick. Audrey went through with her plan, you admired her so much for being so brave, you said you wanted to be with her; well you are stuck now among the living. Loser.
Wednesday 6:00 pm
So, the plan was a failure. Ingested a huge quantity of charcoal, which felt like black paint going down. Terrible stuff, spreads between your teeth. They said this is to prevent the meds from doing damage. Most people vomit, but not I. And here I sit once again, in my corner, in the hospital, in my depressive darkness. Imagine blaming oneself for having an illness. Imagine having to apologize for having an illness. That is the cruelty of depression.
Fortunately, there are effectual prescription medications on the market to treat depression, and for me, my bipolar disorder. It took me years though to get over that longing, sometimes craving of wanting to end it all. Unless you have experienced the horrid blackness of depression, and that feeling of being swallowed up by an illness, you have not walked a mile in our shoes. Be kind to us – no one would wish to end one’s life.
A knowledgeable, attentive psychiatrist is also key in recovery.
Filed under: death, failure, not just the blues, signs and symptoms | Tagged: depression, mental illness
I am struck by so many of the details of your account. A conversation is probably the only way to capture all my thoughts. Three points are most salient–to me, if not to the healthy people. I will bring them up here, but may choose to elaborate on them in my own blog.
1. “Suicidal ideation produces the perilous side of mental illness, acting as both a friend and seducer.” I don’t think TDHP (those damn healthy people) fully appreciate the degree to which suicide is not only a real solution, but indeed a very seductive solution. I have often thought of suicide as an addiction. As with most addictions, it is a coping mechanism for hopelessness and impotence–a bad one, of course (?), but one that is there no matter the circumstance. I have been suicidal for so long that it has become my oldest “friend,” someone to whom I can turn whenever I am confronted with a stressful sitution, or indeed, a dull night. Kramer’s book “Against Depression” begins to capture the seductive side of the illness (suicidality), but I think something more accessible is needed to bring TDHP to understand this in terms that aren’t so foreign to their own experience of life.
2. “I am berating myself. You are such a loser, can’t even get this right, why did you have to call, back to square one again, you had the chance, you blew it, another disappointment, a huge loser.” I thought the same thing after each of my failed suicide attempts, not so much on the aborted or intervened attempt, but even on those occassions a certain sense of loss. A gambler must know that feeling when he says “let it ride” only to have a whole night of fortune stolen from him for one mistake. “Why did I call 911?” TDHP will invariably say, “See, that proves the ’suicide attempt’ was just a cry for help.” No, it wasn’t; it only proves that in a moment of weakness during a long night of empowerment, we failed ourselves. Alternatively, it was a last moment of clarity in a long night of despair. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.
3. (Not explicitly described.) As you were leaving the hospital, you were still suicidal. I can bet TDHP have no clue just how easy it is to fool even trained professionals that we are not a danger to ourselves. A recent psych ward I was in didn’t allow my children to visit me. I can certainly understand the thinking that went into the horrendous policy, but it takes only a moment of thought more to realize that patients will be more inclined to leave before they should simply to be with or comfort their children. That’s exactly what I did. My heart was torn apart every evening that I called my kids to say goodnight only to hear them cry uncontrollably because they didn’t know what was going on. I resolved to fool my doctor so that I could ease their suffering, and just like that, I was out.
Perhaps it is in these personal accounts of the terrible episodes that TDHP will begin to understand the reality of our world, not just the facts as seen from theirs. Thanks Cherished79 for posting this very excellent insight into your world.
Thank you so very much for this comment. I have talked to very few, outside of my fellow patients in hospital, that want to even share their thoughts on this taboo word called SUICIDE.
The mesmerizing feelings attached to suidal thinking, at least for me, are the ones who got me into trouble. Life became so miserable and “suicide” was in my back pocket ready at any moment just in case. It really became a habit of such and I had to break that habit. This is not to say that I don’t think of ‘ending it’; sometimes letting my mind wander into white, fluffy clouds – no pressure of life anymore – but I can’t let “S” win.
Suicide. People perceive them as losers for carrying out this act. How selfish. I think people who have suicided are strong people; people who had made up their minds and were so at their wits end. Why must we condemn someone who is ill? People may not agree with this theory of mine, but do not judge until you have walked in someone’s shoes. Especially in someone’s who has lived with the darkeness, and the black hand that depression has dealt them.
Once again, thanks for sharing.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. One commenter made remarks about “those damn healthy people” who can’t possibly understand….no, no one can truly understand unless they’ve been there.
What made you make that 911 call? I say it was a tiny part of you, small but very strong, that wanted to stick around, stubborn enough to have hope that tomorrow might not be all that bad…..
I attempted suicide on August 29, 2000…my memories are fragmented. I remember swallowing a bottle of medication…I remember crawling up the stairs to my bedroom. I just wanted to lie down and go away. To this day I’m not sure if I really wanted to die…just to go far, far away. I do remember thinking that. Then I remember my husband dialing the number of a good friend of mine…and I remember my friend telling me I needed to go to the ER.
The rest is a blur. I think I did swallow charcoal, because I woke up in a hospital bed heaving and having a nasty coating on my teeth (I brushed my teeth constantly for days afterward.)
I was in the hospital for about 10 days afterward…I’ll spare you, but let’s just say it wasn’t much fun. Finally I’d had enough and put on my happy face and told my doc I was feeling muuuuch better, thank you…..
Ever since, I’ve still had thoughts and impulses…but something has held me back. Hope? Cowardice? Concern for my family? I don’t know, but I’m thankful for whatever it is.
That was seven years ago. I’m still here. And so are you. All told I’m glad we survived.
Take care,
beath
Beath: Thank you so much for sharing – it takes courage.
You are correct about “telling”, and I often ask myself why I always have (attempted 4 times). After the swallowing process I have either telephoned 911, told family or while in hospital with smuggled pills – told the nursing staff. All of course resulting in the charcoal treatment, but I always became afraid that if I didn’t expire I would end up comatose and then a vegetable. Strange that. Maybe I really just wanted to live.
I’m thankful now as life is treating me fairly well. Lots of heartache along the way, and lots of tenacity and strength also to get to where I am now. I guess we really are strong and I’m also glad we all survived. What a process though.
Take care also.
wow.
great job capturing feelings
very well written
Thanks for the comments and thanks for stopping by. This was both an easy and difficult article to write. Easy in the fact that I could spew out how it felt like right up to the moment of the pill swallow and the feelings that came after, yet difficult due to bringing back the memories of being in that situation. A toughie at best.
I had a breakdown that left my speech and short term memory severely impaired. After months of doing as doctors said, I became more and more convinced that their ‘words’ of hope and optimism in the medications I was prescribed to help me see through ‘rose-colored’ glasses again, were not true. I’d lost my independence and became extremely suicidal. Strong willed and independent, I’d just lost the will to keep fighting what I felt was a losing battle. This was foreign ground to me and I lacked the resources to fight it alone. After two attempts to take my own life, I concluded it would not be by my own hand that I would die. I was tired of apologizing for making everyone around me so uncomfortable with my presence. I wanted my old self again just as much as my family did. How could I get her back??? I didn’t know and no one else seemed to be able to tell me, either. Today, I am free of meds and have been restored through and astounding encounter with God’s amazing love for me. Thank you for letting me share.
I am very happy you found another way to cope and it is successful. The suicide subject is mostly hush-hush with the general public and families for that matter. No one really knows how it feels to be that low in your life to want to end it. It’s so difficult to explain to a doctor – how the heck would he know – has he ever attempted? I think not. I hoping the best for you. Take care.
I have my pills and a hose for the muffler of my car. I have the how,why & what covered, just not the when. I’m seeing a counciler who is sending me to a Dr. for antidepressants. What are they stupid? I’ve been hording the pills I already have, and now you want to send me for more. OK I’ll go and get more. Sleep and CO2 seem to go together like PB & J.
Suicide is NOT the answer, and considering my failed attempts and all of the crap I went through I am pretty much happy I’m alive. When I say ‘pretty much”, that’s to say sometimes I get close to the urge to end it even now. They are such strong urges. When I was in hospital after one of my attempts, a woman said that I was so selfish and cowardly. I quickly corrected her and in a sarcastic way “Why do you think this way” how many people come to the point in their lives when they hurt so bad, and life is so black and bleak that they want to END their life? Who would gladly choose to end their life. I think it’s brave. Maybe that was the wrong answer, but that’s just the way I feel, and it shut her up!