Dear Reader/Member.
I am displaying the Trigger Warning sign on this post as this post deals with matters of both suicide and self-harming.
Members and readers are therefore encouraged to use discretion and consider very carefully whether they wish to continue reading.
Hi all,
I received an email this morning to which the following article/post was attached. In the e-mail I was asked if I would consider posting the attached article/post.
Having considered it very carefully I have indeed decided to publish the article as it is in my opinion, well written, informative, honest and in many ways very raw.
I also feel that not only will it help others to understand what suicidal ideation can be like but that it will open up comments to the author.
In truth I do not know which member sent the post to me as I do not recognize the email address, but I am grateful to them and hope that our members – having considered the warning displayed above – will read the following post/article and respond as their harts lead them. (I have not edited the following post/article in anyway)…
Suicidal Suffering
I think this blog post will be the hardest one I`ve ever written, normally my writing is upbeat and entertaining to say the least. However this post is different and like my disorder it changes because it`s simply not a topic I can easily talk about with ease. My moods even on medication shift and I`ve now begun my journey to Lake Depression, something I feared all this time. Wanting to kill yourself is not something you`d bring up with friends at a party or any other location. For me I`ve always told people when I`m suicidal and I don`t know why. People have said that I`m only seeking attention when I utter attempts to kill myself, in a way they are correct. I want the world to know that at the exact moment of when I tell them, I have the pills and a water bottle in my hands deciding whether to end my life. This is the part of being bipolar that isn`t fun but where it`s downright scary. The nagging urge to kill yourself on a daily basis fills your mind and all your thoughts and dreams are about death or killing yourself. I first started daydreaming about death when I was ten or fourteen which later progressed to dreams of me tying bed sheets together and hanging myself.
That year my parents had divorced and like any normal kid depression would follow. Your entire life is disappearing and there`s nothing you can do to stop it however in a sense I was relieved that my father was no longer living with us, his physical abuse would now end forever. But the depression got worse to the extent were I had prayed to God why my father just didn`t kill me, why did I have to do this? My mind constantly told me I was at fault for my parents marriage to break up and the only solution would be to kill myself. It took two weeks for me to finally get the courage to get the pills and water and I sat up late one night on the computer crying my eyes out. Crushed the ten Tylenol and mixed it in the water and I debated again whether I should literally do this. My mind told me I deserved to die I was not a person who deserved to live, people would no longer care or remember me and all the times my father ever hit me or degraded me I had deserved it all because I didn`t deserve to live. Eventually I didn`t do it and the suicidal depression lasted another week until it ceased. Throughout all my life my depressive episodes start intense really fast and always have a suicidal attempt and half the time no one knows I`ve even tried to kill myself. The least I can say is that I`ve tried or planned to kill myself at least fourteen times most of those have been planned.
The one time I was hospitalized for depression I was admitted because I had wanted to cut my jugular with a butcher`s knife one week after the end of the Christmas holidays. I had already picked a time and a date and had even practiced each night after everyone had went to bed how to cut my neck so I wouldn`t feel the pain or die slowly. The abnormal guilt that I had for my father`s abuse and any other minor problem had pushed me so close to the edge that I was completely done. A positive thing would occur from my death and everyone would be happy. Tyler the trouble boy, Tyler the overdramatic, Tyler the attention seeker would now be dead. They would mourn and cry for a couple weeks to play the show and just like that the world would forget me. It ironic that while manic I always thought that I needed the world to know me if I ever died but at this time I wanted my history that had haunted me for so long to disappear. Over the countless years my depression continues to get worse to a point it gets so severe that even push people away in the fear that I`d get them hurt. However I have had two friends that have caused me to become suicidal, looking back at it know it seems so foolish that I let friends push me to the edge of suicide but it happens. With the first friend I knew her for three years and so close and unfortunately I got depressed one summer.
It got so bad I burnt myself to try and relive the pain that I felt. At this point I was begging her to visit me because I was so suicidal that I was scared and I wanted to say goodbye to her. Every day I would send a her a text message until it got to a point where she ended our friendship. I didn`t eat for five days , didn`t shower and didn`t bother to come out of my room and when I did it was only to find a way to kill myself. For weeks I planned ways to die it was just no use to in living when I had no one else willing to at least listen or talk to me. That was the hard put in understanding that I could possibly die alone with this disease. This year alone I`ve had three depressive episodes that have all resulted into suicidal attempts. This year I lost another close friend and got arrested as well, needless to say all of it pushed me to the edge. I remember one time where I was driving with my mom to my lawyer`s office when I just wanted to open the car door and jump into incoming traffic on the highway . It became a recurrent daydream whether I was in a car or on a bus.
I remember when I just couldn`t take it anymore when I decided I wanted to end it all and just feel peaceful. Got off the bus and waited for a car to come down the street and when I did see one I jumped in front just wishing not to get injured and live but to just die. The driver missed me and drove off after getting out and constantly asking if I was okay. The fact is I wasn`t okay and I don`t think I`m okay right now either. It`s been a week and a half and I`ve just been thinking do I deserve to live? Most of the time it`s a yes of course but now I get no sometimes. I’ve lost so many friends , a lot of them won`t even speak to me. I`ve lost my dignity and self-respect and worst of all I`ve lost what it truly feels to be normal for a change. I`m in a phase of my life where I should be enjoying life to the full extent however I`m now entering the phase of a severe depressive episode. I long for the day when I no longer have thoughts about death or daydreaming about my funeral or even hanging myself. I just wish sometimes I could be happy for once , just one minute of normality. I always cry when I see my friends live a normal life because I can never have that, that simple reflection of what life could be like is something I have always longed for and will continue to search for.
Mental Health Writers' Guild 
Great description of suicidal depression.
Unfortunately our continued depression, especially suicidal depression, will drive a lot of people away because they do not understand, cannot help, cannot cope and after a while of hearing the same thing over and over do not want to be around someone who is stuck in this frame of mind. No one considers the fact that the sufferer doesn’t want to be stuck in this frame of mind, but we cannot run away from ourselves.
I always feel a great need to help someone like this, yet I know that when we reach the point of suicidal depression it boils down to the fact that it is the individual alone with God, whether they believe in God or not, who ultimately has to make the decision to live or to die. No one, in my opinion and in my experiences, can help them make that decision. One can help to postpone the decision or can give surcease to the pain, but if someone is determined to die there is nothing anyone can say or do to stop them. If that individual is just wanting the pain to go away so they can live again, that’s when I believe they can seek and receive help. I think this help has to come from professionals who know what resources to use or from someone who has survived and conquered suicidal depression.
Again unfortunately, if we who have continuous depression try to help we risk becoming entangled in the same suicidal ideation and therefore will be of no help to anyone for now two people will be stuck in that awful pit of darkness we all know too well.
I wish I had more to offer this person. Prayers are what I can give, so I will.
It’s good you posted this. I think a lot of us go thru things similar to this and it’s important to share our stories. This is very raw and totally real. I feel this way often and I’m lucky to still be alive myself. I just lost a cousin to Bipolar and this is almost too close to me right now. But I’m glad it’s out there and people can read it.
peace,
Steve
Incredibly powerful…..and sad. Thank you for sharing. I hope someone can help Tyler.
Tyler, you are not alone. I can tell that I am old enough to be your mother and wish I knew a way to ensure your safety. I hope my words will be enough (and the support of other readers) to cut through your pain, isolation, self-hatred, self-doubt guilt and confusion to help you find someone to help you – NOW..
You are in a great deal of pain. But what strikes me as well is your strength. I have never had the courage to write when I was in the depths of despair as you are now. Only my husband and children and one friend have seen me at my lowest point and even then, like you, I felt alone, because they had no idea how much pain I was in. Right before my first hospitalization, I told my husband (and I really believed this) that he could find a much better wife and more importantly, a much better mother for our toddler and first grader because I was doing such a shitty job and was so depressed I could barely walk down the street. I was so ashamed of my depression and like you, blamed myself.
It has taken more than 20 years for me to see hospitalization not as a defeat, but a relief and a new start. A relief that yes, that as much as I hated it and didn’t want to o be hospitalized and seen as a mentally ill person, I was finally being honest and no longer denying the truth about how sick I really was.
. I had let my first depression deepen to a point where I was practically inert because I refused to take medication and instead became an expert on herbs much to the despair of my doctor and therapist. I didn’t want to be a person with a mental illness, I wanted to be active, productive and “normal” like all my friends. I wrote up pages of exercise and nutrition regimens which did not work nor did the herbal remedies all because I couldn’t bear the shame of being someone with a mental illness – with major depression and an anxiety disorder. So much more was expected of me, I felt and this was letting everyone down and even worse, asking too much of them.
Four years ago, a depression that set in three years earlier was deemed treatment-resistant and I had an additional diagnosis of trauma – mostly because I couldn’t imagine breaking the silence that my siblings and father had maintained for more than forty years about my mother’s terrible behavior. One day, in mid-November, in despair over the upcoming holidays and in so much pain, I decided for one day (my daughter and husband were at work and school,) I just wanted to sleep the day away so I wouldn’t have to feel it. I took at least eight or nine of my Adivan (sp?) and washed it down with some cooking sherry. I blacked out, fell and somehow (I don’t remember) called my therapist. I had no idea how lethal a combination it was. The ambulance arrived and my kind neighbor (who also has a mental illness) sat beside me on the porch and asked the ambulance paramedics to take me away quickly so my teenage daughter would not see me in this condition. I barely remember my husband beside me as a doctor stitched up my knee.
MY husband and children were furious at me and along with the resident psychiatrist, wouldn’t believe that I hadn’t tried to kill myself. I was so ashamed and in pain, I couldn’t see how reckless I had been with my own precious life. I had overdosed and was in the hospital again, for the third time. I wouldn’t allow anyone to see me and was a model patient – I am always a model patient. What I wasn’t was an honest one..
I spent three weeks in the in-patient unit and another week in a partial hospital program. I was thrown out of a research program on treatment-resistant depression (was a model patient there too – everyone thought I was doing so well), the resident psychiatrist ordered the psychologist who had correctly diagnosed the trauma off my case – thank God (or whatever) as the guy didn’t know what he was doing and I started over with a new psychiatrist and a new therapist. It has been a long journey back.
It was messy but I got the treatment I needed. I still fall prey to blaming myself for my depressions and like you, wish I could be working full-time and living “normal” lives like my friends. As my father was dying two years ago this month, i feared as we cared for him at home (about four hours from where I live) with hospice that I had been a major disappointment to him – that I hadn’t become the great newspaper reporter working for the New York Times I had dreamed of being and had been a terrible mother to boot. My brother found me weeping downstairs and took me in his arms for the first time in my life and held me and told me that simply wasn’t the case.
Over the past year, I have come out of the closet and have disclosed my secret mental illness to people I couldn’t have imagined ever telling. We are at very different stages in life. Right now, your friends are the people you turn to. I was fortunate, when I was your age, I had two much older friends who saw that I needed help and persuaded me to go into therapy. My sister-in-law is a therapist and has been in therapy since her twenties. (she is now in her 60’s.) I used to be amazed by that but know I know the wisdom of it.
The are no quick remedies for your illness or mine. Your friends can’t be your therapist. And only a good, well-trained therapist knows how to guide your toward recovery. Find a good therapist and a good psychiatrist and cultivate a long-standing relationship with them. Therapy is the one place it can be all about you – which is what you need right now. Friends and family don’t the training to be there for you in this way. And they don’t have the words to tell you this – instead they leave which leaves you hurting even more and I am so sorry.
This morning my daughter, now a senior in college, called and asked if I could help her best friend whose mother died a year and a half and who is in my daughter’s words “insanely depressed” and doing a lot of suicidal ideation like you. I think my daughter hopes I can mother her back to health which I can’t. What I can do is use my connections to locate a good therapist and psychiatrist for her where she lives and reassure her that her depression is not her fault and maybe inevitable given the loss she has experienced. My daughter has been a really good friend but there are times when her friend’s grief and depression have been too much for her to handle and has had to come home to recuperate.
I have written a lot – maybe too much – but I have turned off my inner critic. I hope it helps. It is one big “ME TOO,” and it totally sucks. I suspect you will have the strength and courage to find good, professional treatment RIGHT NOW even if you have to park yourself in an emergency room and tell someone how incredibly awful you feel and maybe have to put up with (endure is probably a better word) being put in a room with a security guard to keep you safe until they find a hospital bed for you. You need help and validation. Take this first step, you are not alone and with persistance and courage and a determination to live fully, you will find the right people to help you on this journey and also, along people will turn up unbidden by you, and walk with you if you let them. I know you can do it. I KNOW you can do it because you sat down and wrote to the world how you felt and in doing so asked for help. I am going to say good bye for now. If i have left out words (always do that) or misspelled words – always do that too, I apologize. You are in the heart and prayers of a middle-aged woman and mom who has heard your pain and cry for help and knows you deserve the best of care. Now get going love, and take care of yourself.
I would like to thanks each one of you for your comments. Reading them mean a lot to me, a lot of friends contacted me about this after reading and were very supportive. Overall I`m still in that mixed state/bording depressive phase right now and I see my pdoc in three weeks while a councillor next week but overall I`m pretty okay for now.
Tyler, I am so glad you wrote back as I have been thinking about you since you wrote. I wish you were seeing someone sooner. That said, write again if find yourself in over your head in “Lake Depression,” before you see your therapist. I am glad your friends came through but remember they cannot help you like a trained lifeguard (I was one of those in college). You will remain in thoughts, Mary
To the author: You’re not alone in your journey.
Wow…Tyler, you could be describing me when I was in high school. Friends all distanced themselves, got dropped from school sports ’cause I was “weird,” isolation, anorexia, constantly writing poems about death. Instead of suicide I ran away from home and endured years on the streets. It sucks. The only thing that saved me is my one dearly held wish in life: to become a doctor. That wish seemed smashed when I quit high school and ran away, but it turned out that with a lot of hard work I managed to get (finally!) to med school, where I had my first breakdown. That’s when I first got on meds, and managed to make it through many more (mostly) wonderful years. Ups and downs, yes, and sometimes crashing, but I hung onto that dream and although I had to retire early due to messing up by going off meds (never, never, never do that!!!), I can look back fondly on the good years that I had.
Having said this, I must add that there has never been even ONE day in my life that I have not obsessed about suicide. It’s just always there, and sometimes it overwhelms me and I just have to do battle with it till it passes. I am fortunate to have a child (who is an adult now, having somehow survived his childhood
), and when the drive to kill myself gets too strong I think about him and how it would destroy his life if I killed myself.
I send you blessings for strength to get through this time. It’s so hard. I’ve found that “advice” drives me nuts, infuriates me in fact, so I won’t offer any, except for this: Don’t try to kill yourself with Tylenol. It won’t kill you, but it may injure your liver to the point where you are really sick and miserable and have to stay in the hospital for a long time with tubes everywhere. I’m not saying you should try suicide with ANYTHING, but so many people think they can just take a handful of Tylenol or Advil or any of that stuff and they will just die, but that is NOT true. You just end up worse off, is all. That is true of most suicide attempts. The best thing is to hang on for dear life when those waves of intense suicidality raise their ugly heads. Call your local suicide prevention hotline and talk and cry it out. If you feel like you’re really going to kill yourself, call your psychiatrist or family doc and go to the hospital for a few days. Believe me, I’ve been dealing with this illness for at least 50 years, and I want to see the end of the movie I’m living! We are all living in our own movie. Do you want to see the end, or do you really want to cut it off at the beginning? The Bible says “And you shall choose life” and I think about that when I am at the end of my rope. What have we got to lose by soldiering on? We lose the opportunity to see what we can become if we keep on putting one foot in front of the other. If I may suggest a book that has helped me a lot, it’s Kay Redmond Jamison’s book “Touched With Fire.” It’s about the fine line between genius and madness. Her middle name might be Redford but anyway, look on Amazon for “Touched With Fire.” Guaranteed it will give you some food for thought!
Be well, take care, and if you want to be in touch with me just hop on my blog and leave me a comment on my “About” page.