Real Talk: My Experience with Suicidal Thoughts & the Effect of Suicide in my life.

Today was a long day. I was out of the house working/taking my kid places for 14 hours today. The prompt was "Depression" which is a topic that is close to my heart. I wrote this without a timer, but it is definitely a 'freewrite' that I did whilst sitting in my car when my daughter was at a swing dance event/lesson thing for a bit tonight. I did get a video made, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. This is the only time I had to write all day.

These are my own personal thoughts and opinions and I hope it helps someone feel less alone. It is NOT intended to be an explanation for how depression affects anyone other than myself. It is not a "how to" deal with depression/suicidal thoughts. It is just my story.

So, suicide is in the news again. Unfortunately, two well known celebrities died by suicide over the last few days. I didn’t really know who either of them were before this point, so I wasn’t even second hand affected by the deaths in some personal way. However, the whole topic being brought to light of course raises… issues. It raises the subject.

Our last photo together. We got photos taken for our mom for Christmas that year.

My brother committed suicide in 1998, one month before my 4th child was born. I attended his funeral in maternity clothes. I got the call back from the doctor about a glucose test the morning after I had found out about his death. The nurse on the phone thought I was sobbing about the stupid glucose test. I was the one to call my dad to tell him that my brother Dusty’s body had been found. My husband was at work when we found out, and because I was 8 months pregnant and had a history of pretty serious emotional health issues myself, my husband broke every speed limit getting home to me.

I actually managed to hold it all together remarkably well, actually. I had to because my mom did not. I have yet to see anything as devastating as my mother’s reaction to her middle child’s unexpected death by suicide.

I could go on and talk about events leading up to that day or about our family history (let’s just say that at least one man from each generation committed suicide for I don’t even know how long in that family) or the generations of toxic skeletons in the closet, but this isn’t about that.

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At the end of last year, I was (quite ironically) taking my youngest child to her very first therapy appointment to help her deal with her anxiety and depression. We had just walked into the waiting room when I got a message from my mom telling me to call my brother. I told her where I was and that I would have to call a little later, since I needed to meet with the therapist as well, since my daughter is underage. She then told me that our half brother (my dad’s son with his second wife) had committed suicide the night before.

I wasn’t close to that brother, I barely knew him as he grew up with my dad and we weren’t close. Still, my dad and my brother were understandably devastated.

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30 years ago

All this brings me to my own suicide attempt. 30 years ago. Before either of my brothers ever thought about it. I was 17. My brothers would have been 12 and… 7. I think.

I suffered from pretty severe depression as a teen. I did not have a good childhood in many ways, but at that point in my life, I honestly didn’t remember much of any of the bad stuff. I didn’t remember anything before my ninth birthday. My memories were very sparse and spotty through the age of 13, actually.

My mother was married to an emotionally abusive man. He was physically abusive to his own sons, but he wasn’t with us… however living with that violence in any case is never a good thing. Add to that the years of abuse that I had blocked out at that time, an absent father and genetic predisposition to depression (and suicidal depression at that), it was a recipe for disaster.

I was in that stage of life where in hindsight, everything was okay. It wasn’t super amazing or anything, but I had close friends. I was ‘popular’ and very active in my youth group. I had a boyfriend. I was told repeatedly that if I just had more faith, God would take my depression away (both in sermons and in personal 'counseling' sessions).

This just made me feel like more of a failure. “If you will just give it to god, then Satan can’t have this hold on your mind anymore” “If you would just trust god with this, he’d heal you from these depressed thoughts” “There is no depression, it is just satan attacking your thoughts.” ETC. This isn't about religion in general, this isn't about Christianity in general, this is about my specific experience. I'm not going to hash out religious/Christian ideals, etc. Please Respect That.

Needless to say, that just made me try harder, feel like more of a failure and withdraw more. Instead of trying to talk to anyone, I hid my depressed thoughts. My dark thoughts. My self loathing, ‘you are so fucking stupid and worthless’ thoughts, because those weren’t thoughts that a “good” Christian should have and I wanted to be a good Christian more than anything. I wanted to have the faith that I saw other people have, because those people were always happy!

In hindsight, of COURSE they weren’t always happy. I’m sure some of them were just like me. Hiding their real feelings so that they could appear to fit in.

At any rate, at some point, the perfect storm of depression, severe insomnia, horrible constant nightmares and feeling more isolated than a person should feel when they’re surrounded by so many people… I hit rock bottom. I had a bad time at church. Something during youth group triggered a massive depressive episode. I refused to talk to anyone about it, because everyone else was so happy, having fun, loving life. I didn’t want anyone to know that I was failing. Again. I went home and was already dreading the night of tossing and turning, sleeplessness and having to get up in the morning to go to school. I laid in my bed and it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I didn’t want to DIE. I wasn’t thinking DEATH.

I just thought, “I would do anything not to wake up tomorrow. Like, I just want to not wake up for a month, or a year. I want to start again when I’m older and can do things “right”… THEN I will wake up and be okay.” It was as if I thought (and I carried this delusion for decades) that once I hit X age, then my mind would be healthy and mature and I would be like all of the ‘normal’ people.

I obviously wasn’t thinking rationally, but I just knew that I could not bare to be this person anymore. The teenage years seemed endless to me. The stresses, the home life, the drama of teenaged life, getting up every morning for work or for school after years of never sleeping well… it all dragged out before me in this neverending loop that was just absolutely not tolerable anymore. I could not do it one more day.

I went in the house and found all of the pain relievers I could find. I took hundreds of pills. My mom had just bought ibuprophen in bulk, because I very vividly remember the two empty bottles by my bed.

Then I laid down, ready to sleep for a good long while.

Soon thereafter, it struck me that this was a permanent choice to an impermanent solution. My brain warred with itself. I vacillated between “I can’t do this anymore, take it all away” to “Wait! I made a mistake!”

I called my boyfriend.

He told his parents, who called my parents and they came over to help take me to the hospital.

My mom sat with me in the backseat, while I zoned out. My step dad and my boyfriend’s dad sat in the front talking about farming like it was any other trip to town in the middle of the night. My brain was screaming at me, “SEE? You DON’T MATTER! You SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME and ENDED IT.”

We arrived at the hospital ER and they gave me charcoal to drink. The Dr eventually came over and said, “You aren’t going to die from taking too much ibuprofen. You’ll only ruin your kidneys and have to be on dialysis for the rest of your life. You can only die from overdosing on prescription medicine.”

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I left the hospital with a prescription for Prozac. Which I was terrified to take, because I was afraid I’d kill myself. I did take it later, after another severe bout with postpartum depression and the Prozac actually had a very negative effect on my and I ended up in the mental hospital, feeling suicidal again… but that’s another story.

I left the hospital with the requirement to go to therapy.

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I suppose this is where you get the happy ending, but in reality:

Therapy at that stage in my life did not fix anything. I wasn’t ready to deal yet.

My path since then has not been linear. I have had many struggles, many ups and downs. But the important thing is, that I AM GLAD I DIDN’T DIE.

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My brothers don’t get to look back and say, “Wow, I’m glad I survived.” They don’t get the chance, just like many others who succumb. That is so fucking sad.

If I had died at that point, I never would have met Patrick, my husband with whom I will celebrate 24 years of marriage this month.

If I had died, I would have not had my five kids, who are all amazing grown human beings that I think make the world a better place.

I feel guilty sometimes that I had kids, because some of them did inherit my depression, my anxiety and who knows what other issues, BUT I also know (as do they) that they can talk to me about ANYTHING. They know that I will do what I can to help them or just listen. I've taught them from a very young age that I am a safe person to talk to. They can trust me with their struggles. They also know our family history of depression (amongst other things) because I not only see no reason to hide it like it's shameful, but I think that doing so is harmful.

That's all the time I have for today, but I imagine that this is a topic that I'm going to talk about again in the future.

I am not writing any of this to judge anyone at all. I wish my brothers had been able to fight another day, but I've been through enough that I also understand how they got to the point of feeling that they couldn't.

That's all I've got. It's late and I'm exhausted.

BTW: Sometimes Depression looks like this:

Reach out to those you care about and let them know.