Category Archives: Mental Illness

Scariest Time In My Life – Part II

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This is the next section of how I ended up in a state run psychiatric hospital and my experiences there.

After the crisis team and I arrived at the hospital, and the psychologist left me at the front desk, he went back and spoke to someone about me.  Very quickly, I was taken back to triage and then taken to a room in the emergency department.  At that time, no one seemed to be making a big deal about anything so, I started thinking again that a mistake had been made and it would be straightened out.  A doctor came in, asked me a few questions and then everyone’s attitude towards me changed. 

A nurse came in and told me I had been 10-13nd.  Where I live that means a doctor or a judge has declared you a danger to yourself or others and has committed you against your will to a psychiatric hospital.  Shock began to set in again.  My guess, is that the decision to commit me to a psychiatric hospital had been made before I even saw the doctor.  It had probably been made when the psychologist from the crisis team went back and talked to someone in the emergency department and had left me out front.

I was so mentally unprepared for the things that happened next.  That same nurse who told me I had been 10-13nd, handed me a hospital gown and told me I had to take EVERYTHING off and put their gown on.  I asked if this included underwear and she said it did.  I let her know immediately that I was leaving my underwear on and that was that.  She said that she would have to check with the charge nurse.  She also told me they expected me to be leaving for the psychiatric hospital within a few hours, once they found one that had room for me.  I was told that I would have to go in the hospital gown and not my regular clothes.

The nurse left my room, leaving the door open and within seconds a security guard showed up with a chair, which he stuck in the open doorway.   By this time some of the shock was wearing off and I was getting pissed off.  I really felt like I had been handed a bad deal.  In my mind, I was thinking that all I had done was realized I was in trouble, and called my counselor and some how that attempt at getting help before I took any more pills ended up with me being stuck and guarded, waiting to go to a psychiatric hospital.  In fact, that thought is all I focused on for several days.

The charge nurse came into my room.  The guard left the room and shut the door.  The thought I had was that she had come in to take my underwear away.  That is what I was prepared for.  What ended up happening was much much worse, at least as far as I was concerned.  She told me she was going to have to strip search me.  A thorough strip search.  I remember staring at her for a few seconds because my mind could not fully comprehend what she had said for a few seconds.  I then let her know I am not a drug user, nor do I carry weapons, and that I was in here because I had called for help and I felt that things had gone awry.  I also let her know that she was NOT going to strip search me.  Her response was to let me know that all the security guards in the hospital were also sheriff deputies and she would have the guard outside my door arrest me and take me to jail if I did not let her search me the way she needed to.  I promptly burst into tears.  I sobbed.  I relented and let her do what she needed to do.  It was the most humiliating thing I have ever experienced.  My only consolation was she let me keep my underwear. 

After the charge nurse left my room and the guard was back in his place, the doctor let me know they were going to have to hook me up to some heart monitors since I had taken extra of my beta blocker.  Everything looked fine with my heart, but they did leave everything hooked up so they could keep monitoring me.  At that point, I found out that my husband had been out in the waiting room for quite some time and they had not let him come back to see me.  I asked the guard if he would let my husband come back and he said that he would.  My husband came into my room, I explained to him what had happened, and how I felt that if I had not called for help I would not be in there. I did some more crying.  He was great and stayed calm and calmed me down, and then the guard told him he had to go.  

During all of this time the emergency department had been working on getting me into one of the two psychiatric hospitals in our area.  The hospital that agreed to take me, said they wanted the medical hospital to monitor me for 24 hours, because of the beta blocker, before I could go there.  I was taken to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), where they decided to start an IV and flush out my system to help get the extra beta blocker out of my system. 

I was getting angrier and angrier because I still felt that all of this was happening because I had called for help, and that things had gone awry.  I really was not pleasant to be around.  I knew I was only going to spend one night in ICU and part of the next day, and after that I was not really sure what was going to happen and when I would be going to the psychiatric hospital.  That also had me very worried. 

I have something called restless leg syndrome (RLS).  Basically, it means that my legs are very uncomfortable, especially at night, and with out my medication sleep is very difficult.  When it came time for me to take my night dose of my RLS medication, I was not given the correct dose.  I was given a much smaller dose.  I mentioned to the nurse that they should have a bag of all of my medication bottles somewhere and they could read it and see what my normal dosages are.  The doctor on call was contacted and he told them to give me the proper dose and I assumed that things had all been taken care of.

After the night medications were sorted out, I settled down for what I knew would be a sleepless night. 

To be continued…

Scariest Time In My Life – Part III

What Difference Does It Make?

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What difference does it make in my life and my family’s life that I have not had any suicidal thoughts in several weeks?  What difference does in my life and in my family’s life that my depression and anxiety do not have as strong of a hold on me as they used to? 

Not having suicidal thoughts for several weeks means, my husband can rest easier and be away from home easier.  He does not have to deal with the constant worry that I will do something to hurt myself.  He will not have to keep explaining to our daughter why Mommy is in the hospital again.  His stress levels will be reduced, his blood pressure will come down, and he will be happier again.  I can work on building up trust with him again.  I will be less cranky and argumentative.  Which means when he comes home from work, he will not have to worry about what kind of argument I am going to start.  I believe we will be closer, because there will be less tension between me and him. 

When my depression and anxiety was very bad, I quit talking to people. I  would just sit on the sidelines and watch as my husband and daughter engaged each other in conversation.  I was not a part of things, and my husband missed me.  He is enjoying it now that I will talk to him and our daughter more, and do not sit silently as much as I used to.  I do not isolate myself as  much anymore either.  I enjoy it when we go places together and they are really having fun when I go with them. 

My grandmother, who I have never seen cry, not even when my grandfather passed away, has cried about me.  She cried because she was worried, and confused about why her granddaughter would want to die.  I think it is incredibly sad that I caused her so much pain.   At least now, she can worry less and I will not reduce her to tears anymore.  She is a loving, caring grandmother and it is unfair that I have caused her to carry such a huge burden of worry for all these months.    She is 82 years old, with a few health problems, I do not need to cause her anymore worry than I already have.  I am looking forward to spending many more years with her.

My brother and sister-in-law can spend less time worrying about me, and helping my husband, and spend more time taking care of their daughter and themselves.  They have been absolutely wonderful.  They have really helped me.  They have made sure that there is always an open line of communication between me and my family, and them.  They willingly listen to me express my frustrations, worries, and concerns without forming judgments.  They have been a huge source of support to my husband as he has had to help me through things.  At least now, with me not having suicidal thoughts, they can relax a bit and not have to sacrifice as much time in taking care of me and my family.                                                                                                          
For me personally, not having suicidal thoughts for several weeks means I feel free.  I look back at how things had been going, and how I had isolated myself, and it feels like I was a prisoner during that time.  Now that the depression and anxiety are lessening, and I am not having suicidal thoughts, I feel as if I have been freed from a prison cell.  I feel lighter.  Having all those thoughts in my head, and the sadness I always had, and the anger I always had, I always felt as if I was carrying a huge load on my back.  Bits and pieces of that load are going away, so I feel lighter.  My stomach feels better.  Every single day I woke up with a huge knot in my stomach because I was so anxious and nervous all the time.  As the day went on the knot in my stomach got bigger and bigger because I would become more anxious and nervous as the day went along.  That knot is gone.  I can wake up in the morning and not start the day already feeling bad.  I feel so much better.

I realize that not every day is going to be a good day and that I could have some more medication issues, but at this point I am more hopeful than I have been in a very long time.  Hope brings on a more positive attitude and  I feel like I am moving away from that dark cloud that has surrounded me for so many years.

Attack Of The Blank Mind

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I have to admit that today it has been a struggle to come up with something to blog about.  I have managed to catch a cold that has settled into my chest.  Besides having major depression, diabetes, and an anxiety disorder, I also have adult onset asthma, so I always get a little concerned when a cold settles into my chest.  I just feel pretty crappy today.  I also have not been sleeping very well, so I have been dozing on and off during the day. 

Right before I was diagnosed with depression and an anxiety disorder, I was hardly ever sleeping.  I had the typical early waking that many people with depression experience.  This lack of sleep is a bit different.  I am just not sleeping more than a couple of hours at a time when I do sleep, and I got at least three nights during the week without getting any sleep at all.  I am starting to think that it is the Effexor causing it.  That can be one of the side effects.  When I mentioned my lack of sleep to my psychiatrist he told me to take extra of my anti-anxiety medication, vistaril, since it is nonaddictive and makes you sleepy.  It is not having the desired results.  I do not want to stop taking the Effexor, since it seems to be working for the depression.  The next time I see my psychiatrist, I will tell him that I am still not sleeping and get him to prescribe something to help me sleep.  He said he would if the extra vistaril did not work. 

Part of me really enjoys being the only one awake at night, part of me does wish I could sleep a little more.  Before I started getting help with my depression most of my time at night was spent crying for hours, researching how to kill myself, and trying to decide if that night was the night to go through with it.  Now, I spend it enjoying the quiet alone time, watching what I want on TV, spending time with my dogs, reading, and just generally enjoying myself.  Hey!  I just now realized that I have not had any suicidal or self destructive thoughts in several weeks.  That is wonderful! I  had not even been aware that I had not had those thoughts until I started recalling how I used to spend my  nights.

That is exactly how my counselor said it would happen too.  She said I would just quit having those thoughts, and would not really notice until sometime later.  Even when  I was taking the other medications and they seemed to be working, I still had almost daily suicidal thoughts, I was just not as obsessed with them as I had been before treatment.  I feel like I have reached a huge milestone in my recovery.  No suicidal thoughts for about three weeks.  I never really believed that there would come a time when I would go so long without wanting to kill myself.

My dogs are my constant night time companions.  Well, they sort of are.  They tend to fall asleep too.  Buster is my boxer, and Minnie is my chihuahua/shitzu mix.  Minnie is younger and smaller but she is the dog that is in charge.  This is what the dogs are doing now, while I am still awake and blogging.

I Am Going to Draw A Line In The Sand

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Today I had my weekly appointment with my counselor. I went with a topic in mind. How do I deal with my resentments, most particularly held against my mother, so that I do not get consumed by my resentments? When I am consumed by my resentments I become very angry and spiral down into a “rabid dog” type of mentality, I am sad, and I know that it contributes to my depression.

As usual, my counselor had a very simple solution, that is going to be super hard to implement. Basically, she said that if I would start being very clear with my mother about what my boundaries were and stuck with the consequences if she chose to cross a boundary, I would feel empowered. She believes that much of my resentment is born out of frustration, because I am not very good at making clear what is acceptable behavior towards myself and what is unacceptable behavior, especially where my mother is concerned. She feels that if I can accomplish this with my mother, that everyone else will be easy.

Let me just put it this way, my mother is a very manipulative woman, who tends to behave in a very passive aggressive/childish way when she does not get her own way. She knows what all my buttons are and knows exactly how to push each and everyone of them, and I always get sucked into whatever game/manipulation she has going on at the time. At times she can be so wonderful and be exactly the mother I have always wanted, and then when I start depending on her and really need her support, it is as if she snatches that away and I am left once again with the mother that makes me feel inferior, unintelligent, abandoned, not worthy, frustrated, disappointed and sad.

My challenge then, is when she is acting appropriate and loving to take it for what it is and remember that it will not last. That when she has has gotten whatever emotional need filled by me, she will revert back to her usual manipulative, passive aggressive self. Most importantly, I cannot change her. I can only change how I react to her. That means I will have to be assertive and set up boundaries to protect myself from her manipulations and behavior. Only when I can accomplish all of that will I be able to let go of my resentments towards her. For my peace of mind and sanity, I really need to start working on this immediately.

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Check this news article out.

Study: Over 8 Million Americans Consider Suicide Each Year – Health News | Current Health News | Medical News – FOXNews.com

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A closed mouth gathers no feet

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Today was one of those days.  Just one of those yucky days where resentment rules my day. When I get that way, no matter what, I am going to prove how right I am, and I WILL have the last word.  At least that is how it usually goes.  I call it my “rabid dog behavior”  It is not pretty, it makes me feels stressed, sad, and angry all at the same time. 

I have a family member that I follow on twitter and they follow me.  That person believes I made the wrong decision about something and so has spent the last week tweeting some passive aggressive stuff on a daily basis.  They did this either to make me feel bad about my decision and make the one they wanted me to, or they were trying to have the last word about the situation.  It has been irritating because for me twitter is mostly about tweeting the most random and odd stuff I can think of.  That family member was putting up stuff that was taking away some of my tweeting fun.  Today, I felt like I had enough.  So my “rabid dog” mentality kicked in.  I started finding all sorts of quotes, to back up my side of things, and tweeting them.  For every passive aggressive thing they tweeted about I had ten quotes to back me up.  Not only was I going to be right and have the last word, I was going to win and I was damn proud of myself. 

That is until my brother slammed me back into reality.  In a private message he said “Getting revenge is like picking up a hot coal to throw at someone.  You both get burned.”  That definitely sucked the fun out of my twitter war.  Then he told me that he did not “want me to be consumed with resentment”

I have spent the day thinking about what he said.  Seeing as this was not the first time that I have engaged in the obsessive behavior of having to be right and having to have the last word, or being so consumed with resentment about how someone acted, I decided that I needed to examine this “rabid dog” behavior. 

I realized that every single time that I have behaved this way, I have always been left with a yucky feeling in the pit of my stomach.  The situation never turns out how I think it should.  Things usually get out of hand and either I or the other person or both of us, will eventually say more than one thing that would have been better left unsaid, resulting in hurt feelings on both sides and even more resentment.  I am always embarrassed when the situation is over.  Acting this way leaves me emotionally and physically exhausted, often in a bad mood, and the person I am trying to prove a point to actually takes away nothing because they are often too busy trying to respond to me to actually think about anything I have said.  I also realized that the negative emotions I have at the time, (being consumed with resentment, and obsessed with being right and having the last word) actually make my depression worse.  Sometimes it is only worse for a few hours but sometimes it can last for days. 

I had what I call an AHA! moment.  I suddenly realized that anytime I gave into the “rabid dog” mentality I was allowing someone else to have control of me, instead of me being in control of myself.  I also realized I was getting in the way of my own recovery from depression by putting myself in situation where I know that outcome will involve the worsening of my depression symptoms.

I took the time to look up the words obsessed and consumed in the thesaurus.  What I found was very interesting, especially given how things turn out when I am obsessed with being right and am consumed with resentment.  Some words that mean consumed are ruin, destroy, eat up, devour and waste.  Words for obsessed are preoccupied, and haunted.   Hmm.  What comes to mind is that I seriously need to figure out how to get over being consumed with resentments and stop being obsessed with being right and having the last word, or I will be eaten up by the obsession, I will continue to ruin relationships and my own mental health, and be haunted by the consequences of my actions. 

I am very thankful my brother had the guts to give me an honest opinion about how I was behaving.

My Mind Powers Can Turn You Into A Frog

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During the last few years there is a special someone who had the ability to make me smile no matter how much my depression and anxiety were affecting me.  That person was my little, four year old niece.  She was the one person in my family that I felt had no expectations of me, and just accepted me as I was, good days and bad.  Most of the time she thinks I am pretty funny, but likes to tell me all the time how silly I am.

I was very fortunate when my niece was born.  After her mother had to go back to work, my brother and sister-in-law trusted me enough to babysit her during the day sometimes.  It has always meant so much to me that I had the opportunity to play such an important role in her life when she was so young.  I will always appreciate my brother and sister-in-law for allowing me to do that. 

My niece calls me MeMe.  My family calls me Missy and when she was younger she could not say it properly and it came out MeMe.  I thought it was a great aunt name and asked if they would let her keep calling me that so I could be the aunt with the cool nickname. 

Over time my brother and sister-in-law moved to another house a bit further away and my health started to decline a bit so I could not babysit anymore.  Plus with the depression and anxiety, I could not really get out like I used to.  However, I had opportunities to let her come to my house and spend the  night, or hang out with her a bit.  I loved those times.  She was so much fun to play with.

One time I was bringing her to my house, she saw some cows in the cow pastures around us.  There were a few brown cows.  I told her the brown cows made chocolate milk, and the black and white cows made white milk.  To this day she still talks about brown cows making chocolate milk.  She has such a great sense of humor for a four year old. A few of months ago we had gathered at my grandmothers to cook out and spend some time together.  My mother had bought some bubble guns.  With no prompting from me, she would fill her gun up with the bubble mixture and go shoot her father with the bubbles and then she would always tell him “MeMe told me to do it!” 

She was a life saver when my family had gathered at a restaurant.  Between the depression and my anxiety, being in a crowded restaurant was a nightmare.  I could hardly stand it.  I had brought my niece some toys and a package of punch balls and some bubbles, she really wanted to play with them.  So every so often she would ask me to take her outside on the front porch of the restaurant. Once we got out there, she and I would punch each other with the punch balls (she always declared herself the winner), or we would blow bubbles, or we would just sit there and talk about Disney Princesses.  She and I both like Cinderella the best.  The thing is she accepted me on whatever level I could give her at the moment and if I was quiet for a bit she would play by herself, she made no stressing demands on me.  I know a few adults who could learn a thing or two from her. 

A couple of weeks ago we went to my brother and sister-in-law’s house to hang out, and have pizza.  My niece was just great!  When she saw us pull into the driveway she came running out to welcome us.  She showed me a few of her wrestling moves, and in a discussion that involved me trying to convince her that she should share a stuffed animal with me I learned that she could not because “they were all her favorites”  By the time the pizza arrived she was dressed in a Tinkerbell outfit, carrying two wands, trying to impress me with the “power” that was in her wands.  Again, there was a sharing discussion between me and her about the wands and she let me know that I could not handle the “power” her wands contained and then promptly turned me into a pepperoni pizza.  Then told me that because I was a pizza I could not talk. 

When I was released from her pepperoni pizza spell, I let her know about my mind powers, which I could use to turn her into a frog.  Then I turned her into a frog.  We went back and forth turning each other into frogs and pizza over and over again.  Her wand was waving all over the place, my mind was working very hard with all those frog spells.  We had a lot of fun! 

Once again, that cute little kid brought me out of my own depression and anxiety better than anyone else could do and had me concentrating on other things and had me laughing.  One of the things I am going to do when I have a bad day or days again, is remember “My mind power can turn you into a frog” and think about the good times I have had with my niece.  What a little blessing she is!

Did You Say Pineapple?!

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A few weeks ago, my counselor and I were discussing ways that I could let my family know I was feeling anxious or upset without having to give them a long explanation.  She suggested using a code word.  She said one couple she had counseled used the word pineapple.  So I decided to go home and think of my own code word. 

The day after that counseling session my family and I went Walmart.  At that time I still had not told my family about the code word idea, because I had not found one yet.    As we entered the parking lot of Walmart, my husband and daughter started bickering.  They had raised their voices a little bit, and it was getting on my nerves.  Raised voices in a small area really makes me anxious and we were all crammed into the front seat of our pick up.  I had asked them a couple of times to stop and they had not listened, so desperate for anything to make them stop I suddenly remembered the code word idea.  The only word that came to mind was pineapple, the one my counselor said that someone else used.  So suddenly, with no warning I yelled “Pineapple” as loud as I could. 

The result was an instantaneous silence.  Then my husband, out of shock I believe, started asking me if I “wanted a pineapple milkshake” or did I want to get a pineapple while we were at the store.  I explained to them that pineapple was my new code word for when something was going on that was making anxious or that things were going horribly awry.  My husband and daughter thought this was hilarious and kept telling me what a pineappled up idea that was.  Despite their laughter and making fun of me they did agree to listen for me saying the word pineapple and know that things were not going well.  Little did any of us suspect that something being “pineappled up” would become a regular part of our language around here.   

For example, while I was spending some time in the psychiatric hospital, my husband decided that my daughter was in desperate need of some new bras, so he was a brave man and took her bra shopping.  Things did not go well.  After they got home, my daughter called me and was telling me how it was so hard to go bra shopping with her father, that he pineappled everything up.  Then she said there was pineapple over the whole shopping experience.  In fact she spent about five minutes telling me exactly how her father pineappled up bra shopping and how she was never going to go pineapple bra shopping with her father again. 

Funny how a simple thing like the word pineapple can change how you look at a situation and put some humor in it. 

How Did I Get That Lonely?

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When I was looking for topic ideas for today’s blog, I came across a song, sung by Blaine Larsen, that was about suicide.  This part of the song really caught my attention.

“How do you get that lonely, how do you hurt that bad
To make you make the call, that havin’ no life at all
Is better than the life that you had
How do you feel so empty, you want to let it all go
How do you get that lonely… and nobody know”

Those lyrics get right to the heart of what my family was thinking and asking when I tried to commit suicide.  They get right to the heart of what I think as well.  How did I get that lonely and full of pain and no one really knew?  Were they not paying attention?  Or was I that good at hiding things?  Or did they just pretend not to see?  Or did it just never cross anyone’s mind that I would attempt suicide?

My personal opinion is that there is not just one answer.  I kept all my pain and suffering inside of me.  I did not know how to ask for help.  I did not know how to tell anyone that I was obsessed with my own death and was so full of pain.  I always felt that if someone had just asked me I would have told them everything.  I even tried to get people to ask me.  When I would go to a new doctor and I would fill out those forms they give new patients, there is always the question “Do you feel depressed?”  I always answered yes, and not one doctor ever asked me about it.  I think that they do not really read those papers, even though you are told how important they are. 

In some ways it was so very easy for me to hide what was going on.  Since I have other illnesses, it was easy to blame the fact that I had spent all day in bed on not feeling well.  Or to use the excuse of, “I do not feel good” to stay home when the rest of the family went somewhere.  It even came in handy when I had no choice but to go somewhere, I could use it to leave early.  The more I used my illnesses to isolate myself, the more sad and lonely I became. 

My husband knew better than anyone that something was really wrong with me.  He saw me everyday, he saw my in-ability to cope with normal, everyday tasks.  He saw me start crying for no reason, or saw my face after I had been crying for no reason.  He withstood the brunt of my anger for months.  I think though, it just never crossed his mind that I would try suicide.  I remember him telling me, after I tried, before I told anyone the truth about what happened, that the nurses in ICU told him that I had tried to commit suicide.  He said that he did not believe them and told them I was “too intelligent” to do something like that.  

Why didn’t I tell the love of my life that I was hurting so much?  Why didn’t I go to him and ask him to help me?  Even now I am still not really sure.  Embarrassment, maybe? Not wanting to worry him?  Lacking the ability to explain it to him, since I did not really understand it either?  I think that is close to why I did not, but not a complete answer yet.

Why didn’t I go to another family member and let them know what was going on?  That is a painful question and one that is fairly easy to answer.  I did not trust them.  Those lonely, sad, depressed feelings and thoughts are some heavy stuff.  I just did not feel  I could share those with people whose motives and/or actions I could not completely trust.  To be quite frank about it, I believe the poor state of my relationship with some of those other family members contributed to my feelings of loneliness, sadness and abandonment.

As I became more and more focused on suicide being my only choice, I realized I could not tell anyone anything.  If I did, they would have found a way to stop me.  By that point I was determined in my course of action.  I did not want anyone to get in the way of that. 

I was surrounded by people who loved me and I still felt an unbearable loneliness, and sadness.  I carried it alone, for months, years even.  I get sad now when I think about how heavy that burden was and how I felt like I could not share it with anyone. 

Things are different now.  My husband is very good about asking how I am doing.  How I am feeling.  I learned that there are some family members that I can trust with anything.  I learned that there are family members I can trust with nothing.  Now I know who I can go to when the thoughts in my head start pointing toward a dark direction.  I know now that I do not have to carry such a heavy burden alone every again.

Unrealistic Expectations

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Early on in my recovery process I  started forming expectations for what I wanted out of my medications, my counselor, my psychiatrist, my family and myself.  My family and friends started forming expectations as well.  I would go to counseling once a week, take my medications and I would “get over” the depression and anxiety really fast.  My husband expected the woman he married to come back.  My daughter expected me to be the mother she missed.   Other family members expected me to have no set backs and be back to my “normal” self in no time flat. After all I am an intelligent woman, it should be “easy” for me to do.  I would get back to my “old self” and take on the world.  The reality is that most of those expectations were unrealistic 

I fully expected the medications to work like a magic bullet and go to work immediately to take care of my depression and anxiety.  I was very disappointed to discover that they just did not work that way. Instead, what happened is that after only two weeks on the first set of medications, I had some problems and had to start on a different set.  Those lasted for less than a week, and I had to start taking something else.  The end result of those is after almost two months they quit working and I ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Talk about a harsh reality check. 

With going to a counselor once a week, I expected to be able to better utilize the tools she is teaching me and have better control over my depression and anxiety by now.  Instead, there are days where I feel overwhelmed by anxiety or depression or both and no matter how hard I try I just cannot put into practice the things I have learned from her.  In fact, I fully expected to not have any more bad days by now.  I have been so disappointed.  Once again the reality did not meet my expectations.  I was not happy when I figured out that recovering from depression is not easy, and it does not happen overnight, or in a few weeks or months and that there was no magic pill to make me better immediately. 

I am sure I have disappointed some of my family members.  I know that they all had such high hopes for me to go back to being the person I was before the depression took such a firm hold of my life.  That person is gone forever, some where inside me is a new person who is a combination of who I used to be and who I am now.  Some were very disappointed when I was admitted into the psychiatric hospital.  I believe that they felt that at this point in my recovery that I should have better control over myself, actions, and my emotions.   It really hurt me that because of the unrealistic expectations they had, they were disappointed in me. 

What I have learned from this, is that unrealistic expectations can leave me disappointed, sad, frustrated and angry.  They set me or someone else up for failure sooner or later.  They are impossible to obtain.  I discovered that I apply unrealistic expectations to many more situations than just my recovery.  I also discovered that I form unrealistic expectations  about other people. 

That saying, “Just take one day at a time” is a good one.  If I can put it into practice and only deal with the things in front of me at the time, I believe I can put an end to creating unrealistic expectations.  If I can put an end to creating unrealistic expectations, there will be less opportunities for me to experience, disappointment, sadness, anger, and frustration.  That in itself should help with my depression and anxiety. 

Why Die?

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I have been asked, why is it that I thought suicide was a viable option for me.  There is no easy or quick answer for that question. From my perspective though, my choice of suicide was not a random or pointless decision. By the time I finally attempted suicide my thinking was so skewed, that unless a person has experienced similar thoughts, it is difficult to explain just how all consuming my suicidal thoughts were and why.

The last few months have been the lowest I have ever experienced.  Let’s face it, when a person gets to a point where they can see suicide as a logical, problem solving choice, it implies that, in their mind at least, they have reached a point where their life has very little meaning.   I felt abandoned, alone, unloved, afraid, sad, angry and unworthy.  I felt as if my back was against the wall and there was no other way out.  For months, it seemed as though every thought I had involved suicide.

I think I became obsessed with the thought of suicide.  If I encountered a difficult problem, my first thought was of suicide.  If my husband and I had an argument, my first thought was of suicide.  If I became sad about something going on in my life, my first thought was suicide.  I am sure you get the picture by now, I was applying the “solution” of suicide to every difficulty I faced. 

To me suicide represented an end of consciousness.  An end to the horrible thoughts of feeling like I had been abandoned, that I was unloved, alone, afraid, sad, angry and unworthy.  An end to a deep, searing psychological pain, that just would not go away.  I had no hope and I believed that there was no one or nothing that could help me.  Suicide was the ultimate way that I could escape. 

Fortunately, when it finally came time to enact my suicide plan, there was some small part of me, deep inside, that was not absolutely, convinced that suicide was the right choice.  That part, that little tiny voice, is the one that ended up calling for an ambulance.  Since that time I have learned that I am loved, that I am not alone, my sadness is not as deep, my anger is slowing going away, I am becoming less afraid and I am learning that I am worthy.  I no longer see suicide as my only choice.