Holistic & Integrative Approaches to Depression.
Depression Treatment in Emergency Rooms & Hospitals.Depression, Medication & Treatment Choices.
Getting Professional Help for Depression.Depression & Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).Young Adults’ Views About What Causes Depression.Depression & Feeling Different When Young.We are stronger than we give ourselves credit for, and we are stronger than suicide. So let’s make a promise, you and I, that we will fight and we will survive. What I do know for sure is that the only way I’ll ever find out is if I continue to live. I’ve thought of that often since, wondering whether she genuinely meant it, if she was right or if it was just a platitude meant to cheer up a depressed kid. The night I tried to kill myself, a nurse told me that I seemed like someone who was meant to do great things. I also plan on asking to be referred to a psychiatrist. I stopped taking them for foolish reasons: they were a bit expensive and I had forgot what I was like off of them so I mistakenly assumed I’d be OK without them. I am going to inquire about being put back on the antidepressants that I was on about a year or so ago. If you are hurting the way I am hurting, you are in my heart and I want you to hold on. You are valued and important, regardless of how much your demons tell you otherwise.
Please don’t fall into the same mind trap I have. I urge you to reach out, no matter how much it feels like you can’t. The truth is: if you’re having any suicidal thoughts at all, it’s serious. But the thought keeps returning: If things don’t improve in X amount of time, I’m going to do it. Currently, there’s no desperation to these thoughts - no sense of immediacy - and so I’ve just been brushing it off instead of reaching out for support. I’m so accustomed to suicidal ideation that it feels like a personality trait. I want to reach out to people but I keep feeling like it’s just not serious enough. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been having fairly frequent suicidal thoughts. Most of the time, it feels like the harder I try to recover from this illness, the worse my life (that is, the external events outside my control) becomes. I feel so scared that I’ll never live a life I’m happy with, that things will never work out. I read all these stories from suicide survivors who are so glad they didn’t die, some even as early as a year after their attempt, and I keep wondering why can’t that be me? I’ve worked so hard on my mental health, and I’m still suicidal. I’ve even felt regret for the decision I made that night, but not the decision I should regret.Īnd it’s frustrating. It has been a decade since the night I tried to kill myself, and I have considered trying again much more frequently than I’ve been happy I lived. I genuinely want to talk about how I’m sitting here now thankful that I survived - that I changed my mind and saved myself - because I feel a satisfaction in living that I never dreamt I’d feel.īut that would be a lie, and I’m not going to lie to you because, if you’re anything like me, I want you to know that you aren’t alone in this feeling. I want so badly to say I didn’t think of suicide again, that I had stopped self-harming, that I had emerged from my cocoon of sorrows and emerged beautiful and anew. I wish I could tell you that was the turning point of my life. It didn’t even really occur to me how fatal what I had done was until I had to wear a monitor through the night because there was still a risk of my heart stopping. I got her to take me to the hospital, where I had to drink activated charcoal and remain for a couple of nights while they monitored my vitals and evaluated my symptoms. So the night I tried to kill myself was also the night I tried to save myself. Knowing the depths of pain she had already endured in her life, I simply couldn’t do that to her. Five minutes after sitting on that coach, I imagined my mother finding me in the morning, and it suddenly clicked that she would, no doubt, be devastated by the discovery. I was truly content with my decision.īut the night I tried to kill myself was also the first time it occurred to me that someone might actually care about my death. Optimism and hope swelled inside me as I thought about how I would never feel this desperation, this desolation, this isolation, this alienation ever again. The night I tried to kill myself, I sat on the coach feeling completely at peace for what felt like the first time ever. I felt that I was nothing but a burden, a nuisance and a catalyst for pain for anyone who had the misfortune of coming into contact with me. I wholeheartedly believed it was what the people in my life wanted. The night I tried to kill myself, I thought I was doing what was in everyone’s best interest.