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.

It Gets Better

I started off college like anybody else would. I went to my first collegiate football game as a student, stressed over finals, and made some great friends like anybody else would. At the same time, though, something was changing. I later learned that I really was dealing with depression for the first time. It can happen for so many reasons. For me, it was that I was away from my home and family for such an extended period for the first time. I was always extremely close to my family, and then suddenly here I am in a different state than all of them. To make matters worse, I lost a grandparent about halfway through the semester… that certainly doesn't help things!

Things finally came to a head in February of my freshman year. I wasn't sleeping well and was so demotivated towards doing anything that I ended up bombing a test. That’s so incredibly unlike me that I feel like it shocked me into further depression. At this point, my friends ended up noticing how differently I had started acting, and they brought it up to me. I’m so blessed to say that they did, because that was the point where I was able to start working on this very real problem that I had.

I know how hard it can be to notice these small changes in yourself, but thankfully I had others who were willing to point all of that out to me. Thanks to them, I was able to get the treatment that I needed and today couldn't be better. My advice for anybody reading this is if you’re a friend please be willing to look out for your friends and try to talk to them if you notice how differently they’re acting. Sometimes that’s a great push in the right direction.

And finally, if you’re in college and you deal with some major life stress, trust me when I say that it gets better. It may not seem like it at the time, but it really is the case! And also realize that you have so much support here at TCU from people who really do love you and want you to feel happy. College should be the most amazing four years of your life, and you owe it to yourself to not let depression get in the way.

"Win from Within"

I have been staring at my blank computer screen for a while now, trying to figure out how I could possibly write about depression in less than 500 words. Depression has held such a strong grip over my life for the past 15 or so years and to just put it all on paper could probably fill an entire book. I could write about my dad losing his job when I was ten and then him spending the next 8 years of my life clinically depressed and drunk on the couch, jobless. I could talk about my mom’s battle with depression as she watched her husband wither into an unrecognizable man unfit to raise two children, all while she worked two jobs to keep my family from sinking. I could talk about my own run in with depression, the doctors I visited, the medicine I was prescribed, and the terrible thoughts that went through my mind during high school. I could sit and write all day about how depression destroyed my family, but then again I bet everyone could write about that. There probably isn’t a single family in America who hasn’t been damaged by depression.

Instead I want to talk about the one value in my life that I needed to overcome depression, Fortitude. The word is not commonly used anymore, and I feel that its meaning and value is mistaken for something less than it is. Fortitude is “mental and emotional strength in facing adversity, danger, or temptation courageously” or “strength of mind that enables one to meet danger or bear pain or adversity with courage” It is “mental… strength” and “strength of mind.” Fortitude is not physical strength. Rather, those with fortitude can mentally withstand obstacles and challenges in their paths. Fortitude is what I needed to wake up every day with a smile and get excited about life, even in what felt like hopeless situations. Fortitude is what drove me to leave Las Vegas and my family to head to Texas Christian University. Fortitude is what drove an introverted kid like myself to the first Crew meeting at TCU, an organization I would go on to lead and ultimately jump started a very successful college career.

Depression is in no way easy to overcome, and I still slip back into it. I didn’t just have a fairy tale ending. The point is that you have to have the courage to get out of bed the next day and face the world. You can’t sugar coat what you are facing, accept that it’s a disease and own it. I truly believe fortitude is value everyone needs to take to heart and strive to achieve. I live by the quotes “Keep Moving Forward, and Win From Within” I think that if you can do that every day then you can make little steps and generate enough small wins to put a smile back on your face.

I Owe a Debt

When you tell someone that you are depressed, most people associate it with this overly dramatic idea that you live in a world constantly covered by dark and brooding storm clouds. If they see you laughing with your friends, they will say, “You can’t be depressed! You were laughing and looked happy!”

What people who have never experienced depression don’t understand is that it’s not that every single day is completely terrible – we don’t walk around with permanent frowns on our faces nor cringe at any glimmer of happiness. There can be days where I laugh and periods of time where things are going fine.

But it’s just this overarching dissatisfaction with life that makes me depressed.

I have been dealing with depression for about three years now. I have gotten to the point where I simply feel flat. I don’t really get the point of life - I think it is very pointless. When hearing those statements, naturally that raises a few red flags. And I bet you started to wonder if I were suicidal? Well you would be correct!

(And I know it is concerning to hear me talk about suicide so nonchalantly. But as I previously mentioned, a side effect of depression is feeling flat and apathetic, so I hope you can try to see where I’m coming from. You don’t have to agree, but just try to see it from my perspective.)

So I’ve stated that I’m suicidal. But let me clarify that. I’m suicidal in the sense that I think life is kind of pointless so I really wouldn’t care if I died tomorrow. Having said that, I would never actually commit the actual act. I want to. But I never would. Why you may ask?

Well honestly I care too much about others to do that. When thinking of the effect that my death would have on my family and friends, I recognize how selfish it would be to put them through that pain. I realize that I have control over whether or not they experience pain and sorrow on my behalf, so why would I choose for them to suffer.

But the biggest thing that keeps me fighting is a quote from my favorite book, The Fault In Our Stars, which states, “I owed a debt to everybody who didn’t get to be a person anymore.” There are people in this world who die from cancer or illnesses that can’t be cured. There are people who die fighting for our country and people who die at the hands of a drunk driver. When I think about taking my own life, I think that I have a duty to the people who wanted to live but couldn’t live anymore. They didn’t have a say in the matter. But I do. And I owe it to them to keep battling.

The Illness is Not Me, and it is Not You Either

I’ve never really liked the rain, it makes me feel cold and sick. What is always worse is when you get stuck in the pouring rain, the thunder is loud, and you are without an umbrella. That’s how my brain feels, everything is loud, cold, raining, and there’s nothing that I can do about it. At least that’s what I thought.

I’ve always known that I wasn’t happy. I grew up with an addict and alcoholic of a father, who was verbally and physically abusive. He would threaten to hurt if we ever got in the way of anything he depended on. Yet, we were demanded to look like the perfect family because we lived in a town of only 300 and everyone would know if there was a crack in the portrait.

When my mother left him, that’s when things really started to go downhill. My biological father turned what used to be the vegetable and fruit drawers to his beer drawers, there was liquor in his coffee mugs in the morning, and the kids at school would tell me about how he was getting in bar fights over the weekend. I was only ten.

When I was sexually assaulted for the first time at 13, it was on a school bus full of kids and nobody helped me. Rather instead, I heard the laughs and I saw their smiles. These laughs still haunt me to this day. It took me over a year to tell someone and over three years to finally tell my mother.

I didn’t tell anyone how I was feeling, I was stuck in this dark rainstorm wanting to die, only holding on because I didn’t want to hurt my mom. I wouldn’t hug others, my personal relationships suffered, and I was a hollow body.

I was sexually assaulted again in high school, I still hear his telling me not to ever say anything but that I liked it. I was a “good girl”. My first year of college my boyfriend of only a couple weeks raped me, again called the good girl.

I became a shell again, my grades plummeted and I struggled with all of my personal relationships. My relationship with my mother deteriorated. My old insomnia came back, as did my anorexia, panic attacks, and another suicide attempt.

It wasn’t until I was taken off of my old medication that my first real feeling of recovery came to me, a combination of merely just clouding up my thoughts in the midst of the storm. I was switched to a different anti-depressant and sleep aid while going cold turkey from what I had been on.

The medication switch when it finally hit me was not the only thing that saved me. The new medication served as an umbrella for me to hold in a way. The love and support that I could finally feel once covered from a freezing rain of PTSD memories I couldn’t control warmed me from the cold I felt inside.  The words of encouragement gave me the strength to keep walking.

Sexual assault, rape, depression, panic disorder, PTSD, and mental health illness can happen to anyone. It effects Frogs around you and you may not know it because it’s not something on the outside, it’s on the in. Those who are struggling lose many friends to the fact that others just don’t understand or don’t want to be friends with someone with these kinds of issues.

But if you take anything away from what I have written, it’s that you are not alone and you are not defective. I have spent too many days in my young life thinking that there is something wrong with me. I have an illness, but the illness is not me and it’s not you either. The Counseling Center has inside and outside resources for help. Here’s to recovery, love and support, and go Frogs.

Admitting is the First Step

I used to be a happy guy. I was full of energy and enthusiasm. I loved to crack jokes and meet new people and be on the center stage. Depression changed me. I am just not the same person I used to be two years ago. I am not depressed anymore. However, I now realize the warning signs for depression not just for myself but also for other people. I understand the hopelessness and despair when you are depressed. I also understand the struggles people have in their attempt to reach out. If there is anyone out there that feels like nobody understands your situation and cannot help you, you might be surprised by the number of people that understand EXACTLY what you are going through.

For me, depression came with stress. Stress from school, work, friends, financial situations, health, and etc. Next thing I know, I was speaking less and became hostile towards people. If I was lively before, I started to refrain from interactions with people in general, even my best friends. When people reached out to see what was going on, I just gave them an excuse like “I’m just tired.” As the weeks went on, I became more and more reclusive. I started to realize that I wasn’t just stressed out because of my surroundings. I was FREAKING depressed.

I’m actually fortunate that one of my friends actually intervened and put back some sense into my head. He was the one that told me that I was depressed and that it is in my interest to share what was causing it. I told him the truth, and that alone helped me a lot. Instead of beating myself in my mind constantly, sharing it helped me realize that I am not alone in this fight. I realized that my friend also went through a similar phase and shared how he overcame depression. He told me about the resources available just within TCU and there are many more available in the community. He encouraged me to share my situation with my family and friends knowing that they will help me get through my situation. And I did. It didn’t solve the problem immediately. But with time and effort, I was able to get out of my depression.

I honestly didn’t want to admit it. I always thought I had a stress-free mentality. I thought depression was only for those who were weak mentally (I don’t even know what this means anymore). I was always able to see the positives in situations. During my depression, I simply could not. I held back from letting my friends know about my depression for a very long time because 1) I didn’t want to admit that I was depressed 2) I didn’t think that anybody would understand my situation and 3) I didn’t want to burden my friends with my depression. Looking back, I was pretty dumb.

People cannot understand you if you choose not to share. You may feel like you can’t share your story because nobody will understand. But I challenge you to take the first step and just share. One person may not be enough to overcome your situation. And that is why you need to utilize all of the resources that are available to you, and there might be more than you think. TCU has great resources, this blog and others that are similar are great resources, and even your friends that you think are inexperienced might be able to help you in a more profound way than you realize (my friend mentioned is two years younger than I am). There are many people in your life that are willing to help you. You just need to realize that. It took me a while, but I hope you don’t make the same mistake.

But why can't you just be happy?

“But why can’t you just be happy?” This is the question that is more frustrating than any other that gets asked of those who are battling depression. Surely it isn’t THAT hard to be happy is it? For anyone who has ever dealt with depression and mental health problems, being happy is an uphill journey that is fraught with desolation, pain, tears, and overwhelming feelings. It is a journey that requires courage and perseverance, but also a large amount of patience and understanding for your self and others around you.

I remember the day that I finally admitted to myself that I needed help; that what I was going through was not something I could handle alone. Allowing myself to admit that was one of the hardest things I have ever done, and it was my first step of many in my fight to be happy again. The first time I went to the mental health center, I cried the whole way there, the entire first session I had with the counselor, and the whole walk back to my dorm. I felt embarrassed, unsure of myself, and slightly derisive of the experience I had just had. I don’t need therapy. I’m sure I can just get over this eventually. Only crazy people have therapists, and I’m not crazy. These were some of the thoughts that bounced around in my head as I recalled my therapy session. Surely people will think I belong in the mental ward if I tell them I go to therapy, won’t they? However, I decided to give this whole process a chance and began to see a psychiatrist once a week.

All of the sudden, I began to think about mental health in a different way. What is so bad about going to therapy? I get to talk about everything that has been bothering me in my life for an hour to a compassionate counselor FOR FREE. I leave every session feeling refreshed and lightened, knowing that someone else has helped me unburden my problems. I began to reach out to my friends and family for support and found an army of people cheering me on while I fought my way towards my goal of happiness. It was then that more of my friends opened up to me about going to speak to therapists. I found a surprisingly large number of my college and high school friends had sought out help from their university counseling center. I am not alone in this. Others go through this too!

All of these revelations made me realize that having depression, or anxiety, or any other mental illness is not something you should hide away in your life. You would never expect someone who had diabetes or the flu to be ashamed of the way their body is acting, so why should you? Talking about mental health normalizes it; it makes it easier for people to comprehend what it means when you say, “I have been diagnosed with clinical depression.” I have people of all ages ask me about my journey from my dark beginning to my shining future. All of the questions they asked stemmed from a sense of curiosity and a need to understand and empathize. Never have I been treated with contempt, disgust, or disappointment from anyone who I have told about my struggles with depression.

So it’s okay to have depression and it’s okay to have to take medication for it. It’s okay to smile and look at your progress, and it’s okay to have bad days too. You are a young, wonderful person who has a world of opportunities at your feet. I want you to know that you don’t have to face this alone, and you’re not the only one who has ever gone through this. Help is always there for those who seek it out. I know this journey can be tough, and you’ll face a lot of obstacles that seem insurmountable, but I truly believe that one day we can be happy again.

Reaching Out

For me, depression wasn’t something I immediately woke up with. What seemed to happen was that an occasional, normal, “it happens” bad morning slowly started to become more regular. I quickly went from ready to seize the day at TCU from not wanting to even get out of bed. When it’s like that, and it happens so slowly, it can be hard to realize just what exactly is happening. I hate to the use the classic analogy of putting a frog in water and slowly turning it to a boil, but… that really does seem to best explain what happened here.

What made things more difficult was that I seemed to be able to hide it easily enough. I’m fairly quiet as-is, so me speaking up less frequently in class or talking less to my roommates wasn't some alarming cause for concern. It could easily be explained away by thinking of the college course load stress, or not getting enough sleep, or some other easy way to rationalize it (mostly for myself). It is surprisingly easy to trick oneself into thinking that things aren't really a problem right now. And apparently I was an actor or something in my past life, because other people seemed to not notice anything either.

Thankfully, I finally got a wake-up call one day that things should not be how they were on such a regular basis. I read a book that seemed to be a perfect parallel to my life. Maybe I just picked up on it more quickly because of how introspective I get when I read books, but something in those pages forced me to take a hard look at myself and realize that I was in a funk. In a way, the realization and acknowledgement that I was depressed was itself a huge step towards overcoming all of that.

I began jumping into social situations more (something that my introverted self doesn’t exactly do easily normally!). I started to get back into a workout routine. And most importantly, I finally started to be honest with myself about what I needed to do to make sure that I stayed happy and healthy. And I think I did quite an okay job of that- or else I wouldn’t be here right now writing about all of this.

So what can I leave to you, the reader, as some sort of advice for the future? If you think you are depressed: Be honest with yourself and with others. There isn’t some shame in being like that. It happens all the time to people everywhere, including our perfect little campus. If you’re somebody who talks more easily to people, let them know what you’re going through. Building up support like that can help you get through so many things in life. And finally, please go to the Counseling Center. You aren’t weird for doing so. In fact, it just shows that you may just have more guts than a ton of others.

And if you’re a friend trying to look out for other friends: Try to stay aware of how their lives are going. Even if somebody is as quiet as I can be, you can still tell if suddenly they’re grumpier, or shying away from socializing more regularly, or quieter in general. And be honest with what you’re seeing from them. That can be a jumpstart moment to help them out. Having gone through that depression life, I know I’m definitely more in tune with what that looks like, and I want to help people in any way I can. After all, you always want to get that frog out of the boiling water before it gets too hot to handle.

Losing My Best Friend

My best friend died by suicide sophomore year. Not only did I not know she was even battling depression, but I could barely even grasp the fact that I would no longer see her. I wish I had known the signs so that I could have asked the questions that would allow her to talk and me to listen. I was devastated when I found out, and I didn’t even know how to react. I’ll admit there were some very low points for me in the weeks and months following her death. I leaned on my friends and family, particularly my sister. I began to talk about her more openly, and realized that the more I reached out, the more positivity and support I received. I started running and becoming more active, maybe in part because I knew she liked being active, and in part to give myself time to reflect. I became more involved on campus and pushed myself into new groups and situations. Although I wish she was still here, I know I cannot change what happened. I wish I had talked to her that day, and at times I've felt guilty for not seeing her that day. But the more I talk about her and remember who she was, the more strength I gain. Even though she is gone, I sometimes see her in others. Oftentimes I see her in myself.