How it feels to be a suicide survivor

My innocence was taken from me when I was fifteen. My first love abused me and broke my heart. He tore me to pieces. I expected my next boyfriend, my best friend, to save me, but he didn’t believe the stories. I had been sexually, physically, and emotionally tattered, and the one person I really trusted turned away.

I sunk into a deep depression, losing my worth, losing my sanity. I didn’t see value in myself. I thought of myself as no one, nothing. I thought I was insignificant. I spent days in bed sleeping or keeping my nose in a book. I lived through the novels I read. I pushed my family away, yelling at them and blaming them for what was happening to me. I once kicked a hole in the wall and screamed bloody murder. This was my downfall. I crumbled and fell apart.
I lost who I was. I was no longer the outgoing, sweet, friendly and funny girl I had once been. The girl I used to be withered and sunk to the bottom of the pit. It felt like she was gone. I didn’t see her. All I saw were tears, loneliness, sadness, darkness, and death.

When I was sixteen, I planned my suicide attempt. I told myself I would just be gone and the pain would leave me. I thought no one would miss me anyway. I didn’t feel like there was anything to live for. I saw no value in whom I was as a person and believed the world would have been a better place without me. What did I have to offer the world?

I waited until the middle of the night to go down to the kitchen to grab a knife. I pressed the knife taut to my left wrist and took a deep breath. My heart raced and pumped through my chest. But I sat still. I stared at the knife’s glare for a minute or two. Then in my disgust, I threw it across the tile floor. I hugged my knees and bowed my head as I cried like I never had before. I sat in the bathtub for a while, just crying, breathing, realizing what I had done.

After my suicide attempt, I prayed and prayed so hard to be saved. I wanted to be redeemed. I wanted to look death in the eyes and say, “I’m not worthless.” Although the days to come were rough, having been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, depression, and an anxiety disorder, I felt relieved that my feelings weren’t out of the blue and all in my head. For the past four years, I’ve been medicated on a high dose of Prozac, despite the dangers of its side effects.

I tried to get off of my medications a few different times. I was ashamed of feeling like the drug was my crutch. I thought if I could be off my medication, I would feel normal like everyone else. But that didn’t happen. And slowly I realized that I wasn’t ever going to be “normal.” I always felt different and now I knew why.

Some days I feel out of control. Some days I sit and cry for a long time. Some days I feel great and I’m happier than ever. There are many times when I don’t know if I’ll get through the day without hurting myself.

But I know that I have to fight. It’s not all about me anymore. I know now that my family would miss me. They would fall to pieces. My friends would feel a gaping hole from my passing. My boyfriend would have the space next to him in his bed never filled by me again. I wouldn’t exist anymore, only to be remembered as “that girl who killed herself.”

No, I have to fight because I don’t want anyone to feel as alone as I felt. I don’t want anyone to feel so alienated by a mental disorder like I was. The stigma attached to mental illness needs to be annihilated. It’s time for it to end. I’m here because I can see the real beauty in life through my friends and family. Because of my journey, my biggest goal in life is to inspire other people to stay strong. Being strong doesn’t have to mean never having bad days. Those days happen all the time.

Real strength is fighting back by living and breathing. Sharing stories. Inspiring people. And because of my inner strength and those that I love, I’m still fighting today. Whether you’re a suicide survivor, a cancer survivor, or a survivor of the struggles of everyday life, you can always find true hope and fight.

Fact of Life

I was diagnosed with depression during my freshman year at TCU, which isn’t that surprising considering the statistics surrounding the onset of this disease in college. I remember one night, however, on the phone with my dad and completely unable to control myself. I was crying, hyperventilating, and going into one of the darkest places I’ve ever been. I wanted to come home, I wanted to see my boyfriend (the long-distance no doubt added to my stress), and most importantly, I wanted to leave school.

After that night I finally went, under the coercion of my parents, to the TCU Counseling Center in search of help. However, those sessions took place towards the end of the school year and I soon found myself back home and still feeling miserable. Granted, it wasn’t as bad as it had been at school, but I still didn’t feel myself.

I made an appointment with my doctor, who I had known for years, and who I was sure could help me figure all of this out. After discussing my change in personality and answering a few questions, she recommended that I try a low dose of Cymbalta to control what she believed was clinical depression. A few weeks into my new prescription, however, yielded sleepless nights, loss of appetite, and my inability to stay awake during the day. I felt jittery all of the time and even more irritable than normal. The pills were affecting my relationships, my work, and my self-esteem. I felt worse than ever before.

Long story short, I went off the medicine until fall of my sophomore year, when I came to terms with the fact that nothing had changed and I still needed help. My doctor worked with me on finding a new prescription, Lexapro, which I started immediately. The change was incredible; I was happier, optimistic, and finally in control of my emotions. I don’t want to give the impression that it’s a miracle drug, but it definitely helped me. Sometimes I forget that I’m on it, it’s just a part of my nightly routine, like brushing my teeth and washing my face. However, what happens when I forget is one of the most stressful things I’ve endured in the past few years.  

Recently, I ran out of my prescription before my new bottle came in. I thought I would be fine for a few days and didn’t think much of it. However, after a few days passed and my new prescription didn’t come in, I started seeing changes in myself. I spent a lot of time in bed, had about three separate mood swings a day (more if I was busy), and spent more time than I had in years thinking about suicide. It’s an incredibly intense feeling to understand just how vulnerable your body is to medication; mine was so vulnerable that it was close to crossing the line between life and death.

Incredibly, however, right before I dealt with this shortage, I read an article about a newlywed couple who had endured something similar to this and how they had coped. It spoke to the understanding that being on antidepressants is no different than being on blood pressure medication or allergy medication. It’s a fact of life that some people suffer from and others don’t, and if there’s a way to treat it, one shouldn’t be ashamed of taking advantage of that treatment. For me, treating it with medication is the only way that I’ve found solace from the crushing feeling of depression. I’ve accepted that and if anything, am grateful for this medication to let me function as a normal human being, doing the things that actually make me happy. So, my advice to anyone considering antidepressants is, if your doctor recommends them, try them. If it doesn’t work for you after a few weeks, then move on to another treatment. But don’t be afraid to try something based on the stigma, because so many more people are helped by those medications than you would believe, and there’s no fault in that.