(Warning: Triggering for suicidal behaviors and thoughts.)
I’m not sure why but it has taken the suicide of comedian/actor Robin Williams to finally allow me to tell about my suicide attempt.
I skirted the issue when I came back from a long state of depression and suicidal ideation in my September 4, 2012, “Dropping Back Into Life” blog. I didn’t feel my readers were ready to accept that I had tried to kill myself, and I even now I realize this comes with a risk.
Despite currently being in a state of depression, I am not suicidal and hope never to be again. But mental illness is unpredictable. It took me a while to look at my attempt and not be properly horrified by it.
Back in January of 2012 I became dangerously depressed. Being turned down for disability in December, along with non-stop pain and dry mouth from my meds and another diagnosis, this one requiring a procedure, fighting for food stamps, again…I felt like I just couldn’t do it any more. Blog-wise, not realizing that this was part of my depression, I felt uninspired. The ideas had always flowed so freely and now there didn’t seem to be anything to write about.
I was at times depressed to the point of near catatonia. I also felt as though I had Alzheimer’s. I couldn’t remember how to shop for groceries or how to cook.
I became agoraphobic and had much difficulty leaving the house.
I also felt like I could not take care of Tyler, that he deserved a better mother. He was only five, he would forget me, and be better off without me. Any mother would be better than me.
Everyone around me, including my therapist, thought I needed a break. That I was too stressed out from everything going on and would benefit from having a kind of vacation in my home.
My mother-in-law flew in to help me, to be followed by my mother, but I just got worse.
The pain from my illnesses, the agoraphobia, the dry mouth, fighting for food stamps and other benefits, thinking that I had failed Tyler as a mother; I just wanted it all to end.
On January 24, 2012, at about 3 a.m., in my pajamas I took the amount of pills I thought it would take to kill me and got into bed. I felt relieved. When the 7:00 alarm rang for school I was angry that it didn’t work. I told Grant what I had done and he called 9-1-1.
I stayed angry for many months, but realized it was more difficult to kill yourself than I had thought and would not try it again, although I would think about it constantly.
I guess I am coming out now because Robin Williams was always thought by people to be so funny and happy but inside he was struggling with a very dangerous illness. His death shows that we never really know a person and hopefully this will open up honest conversations so that people in need will not feel ashamed to reach out and their friends or family will not be afraid to get involved.
It feels good to come out to my readers and the world and I realize I shouldn’t have kept this a secret for so long.
I feel blessed that I did not complete my suicide attempt and that as hard as life is, that I am still around for it.
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