robin-christine
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robin-christine · 4 years ago
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The Day My Life Began
On June 27, 2018, I tried to commit suicide. This is my story.
I’m thankful that I’m here to tell it.
There was no one specific reason that caused me try to kill myself, rather it was a combination of factors; I was experiencing a major depressive episode at the time, the red flags exhibited by my fiancé who was living with me suddenly surfaced from my subconscious all at once, and I had just begun taking a new anti-depressant I had never taken before. The side effects anti-depressants are ironic; they can actually INCREASE thoughts of depression and suicide, and for the first time in almost 20 years of taking various anti-depressants, I experienced this potentially fatal side effect from the new anti-depressant I had recently begun taking.
Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your reasoning almost three years later my memories of that day are still few, fragmented and incomplete; I can only remember bits and pieces, and I’m sure those memories didn’t occur in the correct order in reality.
I remember having a screaming match with my (ex)-fiancé, I remember him using my mental illness to insult me, and I remember taking a hammer and destroying my laptop.
I remember going up to my mother’s apartment (at the time we were living in the same building) and screaming at her, likely nothing nice or loving.
I remember emptying an entire month’s worth of medication into a big pile on my bed, swallowing pills by the handful, and then casually thinking ‘what did I just do?’. I remember contemplating vomiting up the pills and then discarding the idea.
I remember going down to the lobby and waiting outside for the ambulance.
I remember yelling at my mother, who had come downstairs and was sitting silently on a bench in the lobby staring at the floor, ignoring my repeated screams of, “What the f*ck is wrong with you? You obviously don’t care I tried to kill myself since you’re sitting there, not saying a f*cking word! You won’t even look at me!”.
I remember getting into the ambulance and talking to the paramedics, but I must have lost consciousness, because the next thing I remember was being in restraints in the ER, screaming and cursing at everyone, and
struggling frantically to break free. All I accomplished was cause severe bruising on both my wrists that took months to heal properly.
I remember overhearing one of the doctors who had helped save my life in the ER say to another doctor as they walked away from my bed, “I hate treating personality disorders. They’re the fucking worst”.
That’s all I remember about June 27, 2018 before I once again lost consciousness, and even after having my stomach pumped with charcoal, I remained that way for the following three days. It didn’t take long before I needed the help of a ventilator to breathe, and at one point the doctors weren’t sure I would make it. My mother told me that she had sat by my bed for those three days, crying silently while stroking my hair, telling me how much she loved me.
On June 30, 2018 I finally regained consciousness.
Again, almost three years later my memories of that day are still few, fragmented and incomplete; I can only remember bits and pieces, and I’m sure what I do remember isn’t in the right order.
I remember seeing my mother and sister sitting next to each other, holding each other’s hands when I opened my eyes. When they realized I was waking up, they both jumped up, my sister ran out the room to get a doctor, and my mother sat down next to me on the bed to hug me as tightly as she could and whisper how much she loved me, crying.
In what could have seconds, minutes, or hours my sister returned, accompanied by a doctor introduced as Dr. Richards, who checked my vitals and conducted the first of numerous psychiatric assessments I would undergo over the next few days.
I spent a total of seven days in the hospital, including the three days that I was unconscious. Once I regained consciousness, I was assessed physically, psychiatrically and psychologically daily during the remaining four days I was hospitalized. I had blood taken so often that the nurses ran out of veins from which they could get blood; my veins are very small, difficult to find, and collapse easily, so as a result I had numerous bruises all over my hands and arms. Combined with the bruises on my wrists I gave myself trying to free myself from the restraints when I was in the ER, they served as a reminder of what I had done for months as they slowly healed.
During those four days I was forbidden by the doctors from being alone, and had caregivers watching me 24/7. When my mother and sister would visit the caregiver would leave the room so we could talk privately, but as soon as they left, the caregiver returned. Originally I wasn’t even allowed to close the door to the bathroom in my private room, but after my first psychiatric assessment by Dr. Richards, he gave the caregivers permission to allow me to close the door, but not to lock it.
The psychiatrists who assessed me ended up re-diagnosing me almost completely; for years I had been diagnosed as Bipolar and had been prescribed medications that I didn’t need and shouldn’t have been taking. I was weaned off the majority of the medication I had been taking, and left the hospital with a prescription for only one anti-depressant I had taken before without any fatal side effects, one anti-anxiety medication, and a new diagnosis of Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDNOS). After I left the hospital, I continued working with my psychiatrist on finally properly diagnosing my mental illnesses because very often people suffer from more than one, and e many mental illnesses have overlapping symptoms, making a proper diagnosis sometimes very difficult..
After my overdose, I called off my wedding since it was one of the reasons I had tried to commit suicide. I finally acknowledged all the red flags that my fiancé had exhibited but I had subconsciously repressed; he had anger management problems, was extremely controlling and had absolutely no understanding of mental illness, even though he thought he did. He thought he knew everything. He would make comments like ‘stop exaggerating’, ‘you don’t need medication’, and my favourite, ‘it’s all in your head’. No kidding! I suffer from mental illness; where else would it be? My arm? My leg? But I’m ashamed to admit that I allowed him to treat him with ignorance and arrogance, that I allowed him to use me as a figurative mental punching bag for his anger, and that I allowed him to control my every move, much in the same way that my abusive late father had; unfortunately I’m proof that the expression “women tend to be attracted to men like their fathers” is true.
My overdose drastically changed our family dynamics. Immediately afterwards, me, my mother and my sister became closer as a family, and for the first time ever, my sister and I got along and actually had serious talks. Unfortunately, the joy that had come with my survival only lasted a few months before my depression returned, and my mother and sister
both blamed me for causing our’s mother’s anxiety to become worse, and for our mother having to move out of her apartment our building and into an “Assisted Living” apartment. My sister, my cousins both in Toronto and in Israel, and my mother’s few friends saw how depressed and anxious she had become after her had mother passed away, and how my suicide attempt had made her depression and anxiety worse.
Six months before she moved, my relatives were in town from Israel and my sister was in town from Toronto, and the three of them helped my mother visit and decide into which building to move; I was only told less than two weeks before she moved. Before my overdose, my mother was one of my best friends to whom I could talk to about absolutely anything. After my overdose, she avoided talking to me as much as she could. So although I didn’t cause my mother’s depression and anxiety, I did make them both worse for her.
I have to accept to consequences of my actions, but I didn’t expect my mother and sister to hate me as much as they do for attempting to commit suicide, for relapsing into a severe depression within a few months that from which, two years later, I’m still struggling to recover, and for causing them so much pain.
My sister eventually decided she’d had enough of my depression which manifested as anger and bitchiness, decided that she didn’t want or need me in her life, and didn’t want or need to deal with me any longer because my of anger, jealousy and resentment towards her, and blocked every possible method of communication to prevent me from contacting her.
When she had emergency gallbladder surgery a few months ago, I sent her a ‘Get Well’ card with what I thought was a nice message, but she never acknowledged receiving it. She’s made it clear that she has cut me out of her life completely, and I doubt I’ll ever see or speak to her again. I don’t know if it was easy or painful for her to cut all ties with me, but we haven’t spoken in at least 18 months.
My suicide attempt also changed my perspective about life, both positively and negatively. I finally forgave my father for what he did to me and the resulting negative psychiatric consequences he caused, 15 years after he had passed away. I believe that he, and the rest of my family and friends who have already passed helped save my life.
I started believing in G-D again; I regained my faith in a religion I felt had abandoned me years ago, but had been wrong. I should have died three times; in a car that flipped numerous times on the Trans-Canada highway into a ditch separating westbound from eastbound traffic lanes, in a grease fire in one of my apartments and by overdosing.
Obviously I’m here for a reason, and will gladly remain here until I’ve accomplished what I was put on this earth to do.
Finally at age 44, I have been properly diagnosed with numerous mental illnesses: Depression, Severe Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDNOS) with traits of Borderline (BPD), Avoidant (AvPD) and Narcissistic (NPD) Personality Disorders, Adjustment Disorder (AjD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Unfortunately, Personality Disorders can’t be treated with medication but they can be managed with specialized therapy. So I take medication and have done Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) which has helped tremendously.
Now I take pleasure in the smallest of things; a good cup of coffee, a sunny day, a good book, losing half a pound, having clean socks and underwear, a good movie, sleeping late, among other things.
I know that medication and therapy will never completely obliterate my illnesses, I’ll have relapses of depressive episodes and I’ll have thoughts of suicide, but I know I won’t act on them. I’ve learned to enjoy life.
I will never again attempt to commit suicide.
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robin-christine · 4 years ago
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Describes my situation perfectly!
Learn to be done with people, not mad, not bothered just done.
Unknown.
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