I’m Just Reflecting

There are a lot of long term consequences that I’ve dealt with in the 6.5 years since I attempted suicide. Most of them have faded away with time but one has stuck around. I have realized that the worst consequence has been my lack of regard for the future. 

Once I decided I was glad to be alive, I became a very live in the moment person. It became very clear to me that life doesn’t go how you plan it. I hadn’t planned to live past June 23, 2011 but here I am. So I stopped planning. Sure, I applied to colleges and made the moves but my daily decisions did not take my future into account. I failed classes because it didn’t feel like it mattered. I had shallow friendships because it didn’t feel like it mattered. I was alive. Each day I was alive is what I planned for. 

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to live in the moment. But the future matters. Sometimes I sincerely wish that me three years ago would have been thinking about me today. Everything has worked out just fine. I’m not where I want to be but I’m more content than I’ve ever been. But I still find myself sometimes either completely focused on the future to compensate for the years where I forgot, or forgetting that it is something to consider at all.

I’m not 100% sure why I’m writing this. I think that sometimes I find healing in sharing my thoughts. Even when they aren’t pretty and happy. Even when I didn’t know I needed to heal. Or maybe I wish someone would have told me that you can live too much in the moment. Or maybe because I know that even if someone told me I wouldn’t have listened. Maybe I like documenting the moments where I grow. Even if it’s just a little. Maybe I have found a sense of peace in realizing that the years of making the wrong choices were (at least partly) a consequence of one very wrong choice. Maybe I’m just thinking about the people around me who have gone through the same thing and might need to know that they are not alone. Whatever it is, it’s out in the world now. And for some reason that feels so much better. 

There Are No Words (But I’ll Give it a Shot)

Hey friends and family. The last time I posted was in January of this year so here we sit around nine/ten months later but somehow there is a lifetime and a world of difference between the me who wrote my last post and the me who is sitting at my laptop right now. My last post was pretty positive. I focused on the good changes that I had made in my life and yet somehow I sit here feeling like I lost a lot of progress for months after I wrote that post. 2016 has been a challenge but it has been a vacation in comparison to some years in my past.

In January I started attending U of M Flint with a major in psychology. I registered to vote. I met a guy and fell way too hard way too fast. I started lifting and eating right and focusing on my physical health.

In February I saw my favorite band with my sisters in Detroit. I experienced the death of a co-worker who was a constant source of positivity. I met and started to love the women from Phi Sigma Sigma Theta Iota. I lost a lot of weight. I sprained my knee trying to lift way too much on leg day.

In March I signed my bid and became a new member of Phi Sigma Sigma. I started to experience life in a stable place between hypomania and depression. I voted for the first time. I started skipping classes to spend more time with my boyfriend and my grades suffered immensely for it.

In April I became close with one of my now best friends. I got my big (mentor in a sorority), Hannah, who is an absolute blessing to my life. I was initiated into Phi Sigma Sigma. I left my job at Texas Roadhouse. I started working at a vision center.

In May I became a kittens stand in mother for the summer when my sister left for Morocco. I found out that I failed most of my classes from the winter semester. I broke up with the man that I was completely in love with. I found myself heartbroken but surviving. I started preparing my family’s new house for our move.

In June I moved with my parents to a new and beautiful home. I said goodbye to the only church I have ever really known. I got to watch my dad return to better health than I have seen since I was a preteen. ….I got back together with the ex-boyfriend. I crushed my toenail lifting at the gym. I tried to help take care of my oldest sister when she get into a pretty serious car accident. I celebrated 5 years of being a suicide survivor.

In July I quit my job at the vision center and started working at Biggby Coffee again. I got my seventh tattoo. I went on best friend vacation. I really truly fell in love with my greek organization and all of the women in it. I changed my major back to political science. I broke up with the boy again (and still). I handed Linus (the cat) back over to my sister who finally returned from Africa.

In August I reconnected with a friend from Texas Roadhouse. I found out that I could not afford tuition. I started working overdrive to be able to make payments. I job hunted and job hunted and job hunted. I went through a traumatic experience and survived. I attended my first Phired Up Recruitment and fell in love with sorority recruitment. I celebrated my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary with our family and friends at a beautiful vow renewal.

In September I returned to school with a new action plan on how to be successful with college for the first time ever. I fell in love with my classes. I started spending four hours a week in the library. I attended my first formal chapter meeting with Phi Sigma Sigma Theta Iota as an active member. I was hired and started working at a restaurant. I worked several 19 hours day. I made enough money to make my first tuition payment and pay my dues.

Now it’s October. I survived my first formal recruitment.

I am in a small depression right now but I am still in a better place in life than I have ever pictured myself being in. I am driven and passionate and I have clear goals set and plans to execute them. I work hard every single day. I am more honest than I have ever been. I have more friends (real friends) than I have ever had. I am more content than I have ever been. I spend less time watching Netflix and more time working on school work and spending time with people who build me up and support my goals. Unless you have known me for the last ten years, you do not understand how significant these things are. It is as if I woke up one day and just decided to stop making crappy decisions and now here I am. I am still going to do stupid crap sometimes but wow it is amazing to see how your life changes when you embrace honesty and positivity and people of character.

I have dark moments still but there is something amazingly powerful about feeling like you have reached the other side. I know that I will always struggle with my mental health because bipolar II disorder cannot be magically willed away but I feel like I am on the other side of the gigantic hill that is learning how to live with my condition. I am no longer just surviving. I am thriving in the way that one can when they are a twenty year old broke college student living with their parents and in crippling debt. I am in a depression but I am not miserable. I do not feel like there is no possible positive outcome. I have learned to ask for help. I have learned to be honest. I have learned how to budget my time. I have learned to love deeply but to put myself first.

There are no words to express the changes I’ve seen in myself in the last 9 months. Big ups and low downs. To sum up where I am right now, I would just say I have learned.

The Road So Far…

Let’s take a walk down memory lane, shall we?

Dad recently asked me how I changed in the last few months but I thought why stop there. Let’s go all the way back to the beginning of this mess and review. Let’s actually look at the way my life has changed because of mental illness.

April 5, 2008 my Grandma Susie died from congestive heart failure. I was 11  years old. Up until this death I was one of the happiest kids you had ever met. Then death happened to me. I think that this was what triggered the emotional problems that have affected me since then. April 12, 2008 was the funeral and April 13, 2008 was the first time I self-injured. The idea of an 11 year old hurting themselves now makes me want to throw up. I don’t remember why I did it. I remember feeling completely overwhelmed with sadness. The pain was so intense and I had never experienced emotional pain before. I think that I probably wanted to turn the pain into something I was familiar with and that was physical pain. Something I could handle and something I could control. My first cut was a little chunk of skin that I scratched out of my arm using my finger nail. I still have the scar. I remember breathing a sigh of relief. It was the beginning of a huge mess.

The self-injury became my coping mechanism for everything. From the very first cut I was hooked. The addiction continued until I could not go one day without hurting myself. By high school it was bad enough that I would leave class to self injure in the bathroom. At thirteen years old I decided that the only way out of the depression and the self injury would be suicide. I wanted to do that within the year. I was too ashamed of how  I was feeling and did not want to be the freak who self injured and was depressed even though my life was fine. I aimed for perfection even though I was completely broken. By this time I was self injuring on my hips to prevent any attention. I had to wear pantyliner over my wounds because they would bleed through my jeans during school. My entire life revolved around self injury and keeping my problems a secret. I was in therapy because by this time I had told my parents that I thought I might struggle with depression and that I had self injured for a while. I never revealed to them how severe the problem was or that I was suicidal.

I consistently lied to my therapist about how severe my problems were. I even feared judgement from a trained professional and could not stand the thought of my parents knowing about it. I did not want to disappoint them.

On June 14, 2011 I set the date. I was 14 years old and decided which day I was going to die. The 21st-23rd of June would be pre-camp for marching band so I could spend my last days with my friends and staying busy. I would kill myself on June 23rd. On June 23rd I went to band, I did practice, I got caught talking to a boy that I wasn’t allowed to be around, I was grounded and I mustered up the courage to do what I was going to do anyways.

I took a shower, I self injured until the shower water ran red, I took more than enough medication to kill myself, I kissed my family goodnight and I went to bed. My last thought before my memory goes was “I hope someone tells my band director so they don’t have a gap in the show.” The next morning I woke up to pounding on my door. I was supposed to be helping get ready for my oldest sisters open house. This is how severe the depression was. I had no regard for what this would do to her special day. It didn’t matter. I just needed to get out.

The rest of this day is really blurry to me. I was far too far gone to be aware of what was going on. I just remember being extremely upset that it hadn’t worked. There was no doubt by the doctors that I had truly wanted to kill myself. I did it far too privately to make them think differently. I had “F*** this” carved into my hip. I was over it. Nothing changed until my sisters came to see me. Kyra was the beginning of my recovery.

Her brokenness from what I had done truly opened my eyes. Even if I didn’t feel important enough to live, even if I could not live with myself for one more day, they needed me. So I made the decision that day to never try that again.

I began taking meds for the first time on June 28, 2011. I was put on Celexa by the psychiatrist at the mental hospital that I was sent to. Unfortunately, I was under the impression that that would be my answer. I would simply start meds and become a new person. It does not work like that. Though I was better in the sense that I no longer wanted to be dead, I had a long way to go to recover from my self injury addiction. It felt impossible to tackle. Everything looked like something I could use to hurt myself. Each day passed and each day I felt myself getting closer and closer to hurting myself again. I allowed myself to think that it was inevitable. So it was. I would go a few months and then fall deep into a binge. Then I would tell my parents and we would cry and a few more months would go by and it would happen again.

The meds took the edge off the depression for around two years. By 2013 I wanted to try something new. I started cymbalta and it seemed to help. I felt more vibrant and my self injury compulsions decreased significantly. I was under the impression that I would never fall back into such a dark spot again. This made the plummet even more discouraging.

In 2014 I began attending Michigan State University. I started to get involved  with substances that would affect anyone, let alone someone with mental illness. My psychiatrist now believes that introducing substances to my body caused the transition from depression to bipolar II disorder. I spent the entire first semester making terrible decisions and awesome memories and I was happy but I was completely lost. I failed two classes and decided to turn over a new leaf in 2015.

On January 1, 2015 one of my very dear friends from high school died. I immediately knew that this was going to send me down a dark path. The depression came raging back in a way that I could never remember experiencing. I was in a darker place than I had been even when I attempted suicide. I continued to seek out ways to numb the pain and I got worse and worse.

Some day in March I decided that I needed new meds. I was completely broken and thought something new could help. I was put on effexor and the side effects caused me to become suicidal. After a severe panic attack from the thoughts returning after four years I took myself to the ER in East Lansing. My dad joined me and the doctor decided I needed to go home with my parents for a week and get the drugs out of my system so the thoughts would go away. They did go away but my depression stayed severe and I began self injuring again. I ended up moving home before the semester was done because I needed to be somewhere where I felt more safe. I made the decision to leave MSU and attend U of M Flint in the fall so I could have support and stability from my parents. I failed three out of my four classes in my second semester.

After moving home I was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder. It completely changed how I viewed myself. I no longer saw myself as out of control, and impulsive, and hopeless. The diagnosis allowed me to grant myself some grace for my mistakes and to make a plan for how to get healthier. I started on Cymbalta and Abilify and started to get better. Also, I decided to take a semester off of school in order to reorganize my life and allow more time to truly recover from how bad I had gotten.

Then in September of 2015 I started getting bad again. I was deeply depressed and moody and I was a version of myself that I did not want to become familiar with again. Then I became suicidal and I checked myself into the hospital. During the week that I spent in a psych ward in Owosso my life truly changed. I was put on Zoloft and Latuda and I could feel a difference. I felt calm and stable without feeling like a zombie. I became motivated to make a change.

After coming home my life became my own. I no longer felt like I had no chance of overcoming my illness. The change was startlingly quick. I found myself working harder and making better decisions. Though I needed help in order to take my medication every day, I was beginning to feel independent and in control of my mental illness.

In October I was hanging out with my parents and my dad began to cry while I was telling him about my day. He said he “thought he would never have me back.” My illness had me so sick for so long that I was a completely different version of myself. The change was tangible. I had a spark in me again that had gone out in 2008. I was back. And I’m still back.

I find myself making good decisions and questioning how I did it. I am not accustomed to living in a body that allows me to be happy and healthy and whole without sabotaging it. It feels like meeting a new person every day as I become a better version of myself. I have a higher capacity to focus on other people now that I do not need to constantly be aware of myself in order to survive. My future now excites me instead of causing severe anxiety and fear. I trust myself in a way that I never remember feeling before. For so long I lived in fear of myself because I knew I was the only person who could truly destroy me. I am now comfortable in my own skin and comfortable sitting in my thoughts. I enjoy music again in a way that I have not been able to in a long time. I know that sounds trivial but losing passion for something that once brought you life is really sad and having that passion back is incredibly exciting. I feel new and I am so incredibly proud of how far I have come.

It has been seven and a half years of struggling. Ups and downs and brief glimpses of hope followed by a decline but here I sit. I am back in school and I am so excited to move forward and invest my life in helping people who struggle like I have. I am strong and I am capable and I have the most supportive people in the world to help me if things ever get bad again.

I can’t say thank you enough to every person who has ever sent me words of encouragement or even just followed along through this journey to finding healing. Every single one of you is a part of my story and I think it’s a pretty amazing story. I am so proud of who I am becoming and even where I have come from.

Thanks for walking down memory lane.

-Anna 2.0

 

Happy Birthday, Dad

Hey Dad,

For your birthday I want to thank you for how much you have done for me. I don’t think I’m even aware of how much you’ve done for me but I can at least try to thank you.

When I was little and I made a mistake you would sit me on the counter and say, “I love you too much to let you act like this.” You never said you were disappointed in me. When I colored on the walls, I was responsible for trying to wash it off. You taught me young that when I messed up I was responsible for taking care of it, but I would still be loved. That lesson allowed me to still feel loved through quite a few mistakes in my life. So thank you for knowing that your words would shape my life from the very beginning.

When I grew up, I started to make a lot of mistakes. I lost myself in depression and mania and began to go down a bad path. I didn’t know it then, but you continued to love me. I remember being so mad at you for not allowing me to make ridiculous mistakes. But you loved me. You watched me become a completely different person than we knew I was supposed to be and you loved me the whole time.

When I tried to kill myself, you were the one who sat by my side the entire time. I think back to this every time I think about the impact you’ve had on me. I remember how painful it was for you to see the cuts on my body. I remember your eyes looking at me and through me. I remember how you cried and how you cursed and how you held me when I finally broke down. You stood by me  when I felt like I had to defend myself from the world. You stood by me when I decided to be honest about my brokenness. You stood by me when I made the decision to go to inpatient treatment. I’m thankful for every visit while I was in White Pine. I’m thankful for every word you have said that has built me up since then.

Since then, you have been constant support. I think of countless midnight talks and tears. I think of doctors appointments and adjusting to medications and driving to and from MSU to come get me when I needed to be home for the third weekend in a row. I think of the times that we have ridden in the car listening to Over the Rhine or 80’s rock music. You have been my father for almost 19 years but for a lot of it you have been a true companion.  Thank you for patiently surviving my bad years and having faith in me the entire time. I could not be who I am today without your love and guidance.

I love you and I hope your birthday is the best.

-Your youngest daughter

Pretty Big Update on Me

Hi friends,

I feel that it’s about time that I share the newest development in my life story. Many of you have followed my posts and supported me while I have gone about adjusting to life with mental illness. I have taken a new step in my life and it is time for me to stop feeling like I need to hide it.

Around the middle of May I began dealing with intense side effects from a new anti-depressant that I was put on. I was having suicidal thoughts, which I have not had since before I attempted suicide in 2011. I knew that I did not want to die so after some discussion with my dad I took myself to the ER for evaluation. The doctors and nurses were very sweet and the therapist who did my main psychiatric evaluation was absolutely amazing. She took the time to listen to what my dad had to say about my journey so far and she also took how I felt about everything into account. After eval, I was sent home with my dad for a week so that I could be in a safe place while the medicine worked its way out of me.

It only took a few days for the effects of the medicine to dull down. I went back to work and was getting ready to go back to MSU. Being home, however, reminded me of how much better I feel when I have my parents around. The week of being home showed me that I am not ready to be living on my own, even in a college setting. Instead of moving back to MSU, I moved home and decided to commute to school for the last few weeks. I just knew that my best chance for staying healthy involved my parents and my job.

Soon after I moved home I was able to visit a psychiatrist for the first time. He was tasked with prescribing medication that would not make me want to kill myself. After only talking with him for about ten minutes, he turned to me and said, “Sweetie, it seems pretty clear to me that you have bipolar disorder. Bipolar II (bipolar two).” I felt myself clam up a little bit. The diagnosis felt heavy. My lungs felt compressed. I asked him what bipolar II was and his explanation made it feel a lot less terrifying.

Bipolar type II is a form of manic depression in which you experience the intense swings from depression to mania, without ever reaching full mania. The mania experienced in bipolar II is called hypomania . Hypomania is characterized by impulsive behavior, fast speaking, flying from one idea to the next, increased energy, and a decreased need for sleep. While hypomanic episodes can feel very productive, they are dangerous because of the feeling of invincibility that comes with it. Hypomania leads to stupid behavior. The depression part of bipolar II is often more prominent that the hypomania. People with bipolar II generally suffer more often from depression than they do from mania, which is why I believe I was not diagnosed much sooner.

My personal thought about my condition is that the diagnosis is 100% correct. It explains so much about why I have continued to struggle after how hard I have worked for the past four years. Following my diagnosis, I have improved dramatically in just a month and a half. I have noticed myself exit a hypomanic episode and enter into depression but the awareness about what was happening helped me to understand that I was not losing progress. Before, I often thought that going from feeling great to feeling awful just meant that my depression was getting worse. Now, I understand that my disorder is responsible for the highs and the lows. With medication, it is predicted that people with bipolar II can have “normal days” about 80% of the time. So far, I do not think that I have had a day that was not depressed or hypomanic, but an adjustment to my medication seems pretty promising.

I am extremely thankful for my diagnosis because simply being aware that my struggling is not my own fault was relief that I can’t put into words. This disorder seems more intense and scary than major depressive  disorder but it is not scarier than being incorrectly diagnosed. I found peace in the fact that the diagnosis did not mark the beginning of me having bipolar. I have had bipolar for years. The diagnosis simply means taking a step towards getting better. Diagnosis means correct medication, productive therapy, and increased self-awareness.

So here I am. I’m the exact same Anna that you knew before this post but now you know what I’m struggling with. The struggle is far less intimidating with support and that is why I continue to post these very personal blog posts. Your words of encouragement over time have been invaluable to me and I thank you. I’ll probably write another post once my medication stabilizes in order to explain what it feels like to have a day that is not hypomanic or depressed. I’m really excited for that.

With love,

Anna

Update

It is Saturday, January 24, 2015 and I feel like it’s time for an update. I tend to consider my occasional blogs as accountability for my depression. Though I see my counselor and I keep my parents updated, I frequently find myself going back to the ways of always claiming to be fine so as not to worry people or make anyone uncomfortable. Truthfully, I’m not very fine right now. 2015 started with the unexpected death of one of my very good friends. We had a beautiful wedding on Saturday for my sister, and then a funeral to attend on Sunday for someone that was like a brother to Kyra and me. That whirlwind of a weekend was right after I got over a pretty serious throat infection and ended a not-so-successful first semester of college. Basically, it just felt like things were pilling on.

All of this being said, it did not occur to me until about a week ago that I was in a depression. I’ve been sick again with a pretty serious fever and cough. I’m still adjusting to living in a world without my friend. School started back up and I’m getting the hang of a new semester. I took my behaviors as being part of grieving and transitioning. Then it occurred to me. Weird eating habits, very different sleeping habits, nightmares, irritability, anxiousness, restlessness, low motivation. I think I did not see the depression forming because I have been working on school with vigor and I have stayed very conversational, but my school work has become an outlet and I almost never lose my desire to talk to people.

I recognize now that I am in the middle of a depression. I have had depressive episodes a few times since school started but this one is a bit more intense. I’m writing this simply because I think it is important for me to stay honest about how I’m doing. I am quick to say “great” when asked how I’m doing but that really isn’t the case. Life is great right now. My new classes are fantastic, I still have amazing friends at school, and it’s looking like I’m going to get to have surgery that will make my health increase drastically. That being said, I am in a depression.

Friends with depression, please try to stay aware of your condition. Having depression does not always mean being depressed but being depressed means taking extra time to see how you are doing. Stay connected to your friends and family and stay in therapy! Thanks for taking a minute to see my update. It warms my heart to know that people care.

Love and Blessings.

A Mildly Justified Rant

I’ve been debating with myself in the days since Robin Williams’ death. Did I wanted to write a post in response to the things that I’ve been seeing in the media about depression and suicide? Or did I want to sit back and grit my teeth and wait until it passed like a bad headache? I had decided on sitting back and gritting my teeth but then I was gritting my teeth so hard that it gave me a bad headache. Also, we all know it would be totally uncharacteristic of me to sit back and not say what I want to say about this.

Quite frankly, I’m angry. I’m angry and fed up with people being ignorant. I’m blown away that people can speak with such confidence about things that they know nothing about. Though I know that most people are coming from a place of honestly good intentions, it makes me mad that so many people can’t wrap their heads around the basic fact that they don’t understand everything. Let’s be quite honest here. Unless you have actually attempted suicide, you don’t know what it is like to kill yourself. Unless you have had depression, you don’t know what it is like to have it. Much like I have always seen a very pregnant woman and wondered what it must be like physically, mentally, and emotionally to be carrying a child, people should look at depression and wonder. I don’t stand here and pretend to know what it is like to have a small person growing inside of me. Similarly, I wish people would stop pretending to understand what depression is like.

Notice my use of the word “is” instead of the word “feels“. I think that the main problem with depression is that people think it’s just a down mood or a series of bad days that we let carry us away until we just feel sad. This Neanderthal understanding of depression needs to stop. Did you know that it’s possible to have depression and have an amazing day? Or an amazing week! Or an amazing month! Depression is an illness. Like other illnesses, some days are better than others and the symptoms can be treated. I can go months without having too many depressed days but I can also go months without having many non-depressed days.

Depression isn’t just sadness. It’s screaming in your sleep because of the nightmares. It’s having no feelings. Depression is having every feeling at once. It’s feeling lonely in a room of people who love you. It’s pushing people away so you can’t hurt them. Depression is forgetting to eat for days at a time. It is constantly eating for days at a time. Depression is laughing too loud so no one will notice that you aren’t amused. Depression is laughing until you cry until it’s actual crying because everything is just too much. It’s laying awake all night until your alarm goes off for three days in a row. Depression is falling asleep at 4 pm on Tuesday and waking up at 1 pm on Wednesday. Depression is feeling like there is no point. It’s being stubborn enough to find a point anyways. Depression is a headache that won’t go away and sore muscles and ringing in your ears. It’s weight gained and weight lost and body image issues. Depression is so much more than sadness. And it can exist in a happy person like me. People need to recognize that depression is an incomprehensible illness and not just a mood.

I was actually told recently that the reason I suffered from depression was because I didn’t have enough faith in God and I let Satan control my thoughts for too long. This is a true story. Someone my age actually had the audacity to tell me that my near fatal struggle with chronic depression could have been completely avoided had I simply had more faith. He argued that depression isn’t an illness. He actually said, “How do you KNOW it’s a disease.”

Of course, his argument came from the wisdom he has gained from his 18 years without depression and what could only be explained as an arrogant belief that God has given him answers that prove every medical professional for centuries…wrong. I probably sound harsh, but I imagine most people would feel similarly after the conversation I just had. I have never once seen someone with cancer attacked like people with depression are. You don’t tell someone with a broken leg that they should just pray harder and it’ll be better. You don’t tell someone who almost died after a long battle with malaria that they would have been fine had they just lived their lives for Christ. It is ignorant to believe that depression is no more than a bad mood brought on by sinful living.

I ALMOST DIED FROM MY BATTLE WITH DEPRESSION. 

Robin Williams died from his battle with depression.

Depression is a serious illness. I’ve read Psalm 38. I understand that God heals all. But I also understand science. I understand that parts of my brain don’t communicate how they should and that I don’t process chemicals in the way that I should. Do I believe God has the power to correct that? Absolutely. Has he? Nope. So I continue with therapy and medication and meditation and prayer because I know that my struggle with depression is part of the journey that God has set me on.  All I can do is tell people what I know about depression and hope that they can grow to understand in ways that they haven’t before.

I, like many others, was heartbroken to hear about the death of Robin Williams. His death would have been heartbreaking enough without the fact that it was death by suicide. Suicide adds more levels of grief and confusion to any loss. However, as soon as I heard to news of Robin’s death, I began to dread the upcoming weeks. I knew that social media and the news would be filled with people discussing depression and suicide. I’d see people like my classmate, claiming that depression is just a bad mood. I’d see people pointing out the “irony” of a comedian who struggled with such intense depression and comments about his impact on the world.

It gets old really fast. Truthfully, it’s not ironic that a comedian would die from suicide. It’s heartbreaking. Yet those of us who have struggled with depression know how important our defense mechanisms are. Some of us chose humor. Some of us chose intelligence. We create a wall between us and the world. It is not at all ironic that someone as famous as Robin Williams would feel utterly alone. I can’t even imagine how lonely it would be to know that the world knows your name and yet believe that no one on Earth understands how you are feeling or what you are going through. Robin Williams was honest about his demons. He was open about his struggles with addiction. If you have watched his past interviews, his depression appears to be painfully obvious when he talks about addiction. Addiction and depression go hand-in-hand. I’m not saying that his death was predictable, but it in no way should be shocking. Depression can be fatal. When it is fatal, it’s death by suicide.

Interestingly enough though, suicide is always shocking. Suicide defies the human instinct to survive. My Dad wrote a beautiful post on Facebook shortly after Robin’s death. In it he said, “When a person is somehow able to overcome this most basic of instincts and takes their own life, they have so violated a basic law of nature that it is almost like defying gravity. If someone truly defied gravity, and levitated, you would not ask them how they summoned the willpower to do it, or what strength of character allowed it. Those questions wouldn’t even make sense. Instead you’d ask what special conditions allowed them to do this thing no one else can do. What did they have that others lack.” You would be shocked to hear of someone levitating and shocked to hear of someone taking their own life. There are certain things that people just don’t do. Depression-when it’s bad enough-changes the way you think. Robin may have known that millions of people loved and respected him, but either he didn’t care or it couldn’t touch how deeply he was suffering. Maybe both.

The horrifying truth is that no one knows what was going on in his head when he took his own life. Even right after my attempt I could only explain it with, “I just didn’t want to be alive anymore.” Since my depression has been treated, I’m back to a place where the idea of someone taking their own life shocks, baffles, and confuses me. How could anyone be miserable enough to want to die? It’s easy to explain. Depression.

To the media: Stop acting like hard to understand what made Robin kill himself. He was ill. Depression made him sick and he took his own life.

To the people who say that depression is not an illness: Do some more scientific research. Look up how the brain behaves in someone with depression versus someone without it. There is a reason that it is doctors and not priests that diagnose people with depression.

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On a more personal note, I have been struggling with my depression for the last few months. I haven’t been having thoughts of wanting to self-injure and I haven’t considered suicide since before my suicide attempt in 2011 but my depression has been a bit of an issue. In my case, depression tends to show itself through bad moods and bad attitudes. My parents always know to check on me when I get too quiet or too snappy. Though this just sounds like normal teenage girl behavior, in me it is more likely a sign of my depression. I need a lot more alone time when I get depressed. I become somehow more extroverted and more introverted. Both craving surroundings where I can talk endlessly and loudly, and needing long periods of time by myself to unwind from being around people. My sleep patterns change and I am visibly worn down.

Life is changing a lot right now and that causes anxiety and depression to flare up. My parents do an amazing job of frequently confirming that I am safe and that I am staying on top of my counseling and medication. I am so thankful for the people in my life that have been supportive and loving through the journey that I have been on. Even though my depression is giving me some trouble, I am so excited for the next few years. I think that college will be great for me and that I am ready for the independence that comes along with it.

God bless.

Seeking Help

Hi friends! It has been a long time since I have posted anything. Right now I’m on a round of steroids to break a cycle of migraines that I have been dealing with for a while. Of course, this means that I’m wide awake after midnight! I was thinking of just scrolling mindlessly through Facebook and Twitter but I saw a few posts that reminded me of a blog I wanted to write so here we are.

In the two years since I went public with my struggles with depression, self-injury, and suicide I have had a lot of people come to me seeking advice. Each person that I have spoken with has had similar questions and it leads me to believe that there are general questions to which people want answers from those who have experienced it. As a reminder, my comments on these questions reflect on my experiences alone. I am not a medical professional or a therapist. Blah blah blah. Get a second opinion. You know the drill. The questions I want to talk about are as follows.

1. Should one seek medical help for depression?
2. Are anti-depressants a bad idea?
3. Do mental hospitals help, or do they just make it worse?
4. Why do people think I’m doing this for attention?

1. “Should one seek medical help for depression?” Absolutely. Depression is serious. You will be told to just cheer up and to stop being so grumpy and sad but you can’t help it. Depression comes into your life and sucks out the color. You do what you have to do to survive. Many people seem to believe that part of surviving depression is pretending it is not there. I did the same thing. I thought that if I could keep up with my friends and laugh, I would be fine.  I was terribly wrong. All that the faking does is hide the warning signs from the people who love you. If you seek medical help and take it seriously, depression is treatable. There is hope and there are options.

2. “Are anti-depressants a bad idea?” No. Simply no. At age 14 I went to the doctors because I was struggling with what they called “mild” depression and issues with sleep. The doctors did not want to put me on anti-depressants because of my age. I am very glad that doctors will not just hand out drugs to any kid that comes in and complains about being sad sometimes, but I know that if I had told the doctors the extent of what I was feeling I would have been put on anti-depressants immediately. People think that anti-depressants turn us into robots. It makes us incapable of feeling anything or thinking for ourselves. This is not the case when put on the proper medication at the right dosage. I think of it like a hearing aid. A hearing aid does not give someone super sonic hearing. It simply brings the hearing aid user to a level of hearing that the average person has. Depression is an illness. Treatment is a reasonable response to illness. Of course, I do not believe that anti-depressants on their own are sufficient treatment. Therapy is crucial to surfacing from depression. Combining anti-depressants and counseling is like having knee surgery and then going to physical therapy. Depression is a physiological issue that one can’t simply talk through.

After my suicide attempt I was put on Celexa and it was absolutely life changing. The world felt more clear, my mood got better, I became a generally pleasant person, and life seemed manageable even on the bad days.  When Celexa stopped being effective I felt like a different person again. My body had built up resistance to the drug and it was obvious to my friends and family that I was struggling again. I became more overly emotional, my temper worsened, I got dark again, and my struggles with self-injury resurfaced. After two years on Celexa I was switched to Cymbalta. Cymbalta is amazing. I never find myself feeling foggy or medicated but I feel like my brain is functioning as it should. I am still in therapy and still taking medication. This is not a shameful thing. If you broke your arm, you would put it in a cast. My brain does the wrong thing with chemicals and I have to take medication to correct it. It is unfair that people are looked at badly for seeking medical treatment to a medical issue.

If you think that medication can help you, talk to a doctor. There are options that will allow you to live a much better life and there is no shame in needing help.

3. “Do mental hospital help, or do they just make it worse?” Unfortunately, I know a lot of teenagers who have been sent to the wrong treatment centers and it caused issues for them. If you are from this area and thinking about heading to a mental hospital, I highly recommend White Pine Psychiatric Center in Saginaw, MI. I personally benefited a great deal from my time at White Pine. If nothing else, time at a treatment center gives you time away from the everyday things that cause stress and pressure. They take away things that could be used to harm you. You meet with psychiatrists, psychologists, doctors, nurses, social works, and other people who struggle with things that you do too. Mental health centers give you intense treatment so that you are not a danger to yourself or to others. The small time investment is absolutely worth the life that it will give you.

If you are embarrassed to go to a treatment center, don’t tell anyone. It is no one’s business what you do to ensure that you are healthy. Say you’re going on vacation. Tell people you’re going on a road trip. I don’t care. No one else should either. There is absolutely no shame in knowing that you need help. I had to be sent to the mental hospital because after how close I was to achieving my suicide attempt, we all knew I needed time away. I needed serious treatment to get back on my feet. Be one step ahead of me. Go to treatment before you almost die. I promise, surviving suicide is far more traumatic than asking for help.

4. “Why do people think I’m doing this for attention?” This one is personal to me. When I posted my blog post sharing my suicide attempt, I received mostly positive feedback. People showed love and support. There were also some people who decided that I was writing about my “suicide attempt” and “self-injury problems” to gain attention. It was really easy to get mad at those people for taking something so personal and scary for me and turning it into an attack on my character. I knew that there would be people who thought that but I did not quite know how frustrating and personal it would feel. Since then, I have learned that I people genuinely do not understand depression. Most people have a bad day and then pull themselves out of it. They do not understand what it is like to live every single day in a fog. Some people can not even wrap their minds around depression being an illness. To them, depression is a bad mood and we choose to live in that bad mood instead of sucking it up like everyone else. These are the people who think that depression is a way to get attention.

I understand how frustrating it is to be told that you are faking it. My family has never accused me of faking and if that happens to you, I am so sorry. You have to stay persistent. There are other people to talk to. You do not have to feel apologetic for struggling. You should never be chastised for asking for help. In the last couple of years when people have contacted me about their issues with depression, I have found myself humbled by their strength. I was not strong enough to ask for help until I was literally dying. I frequently find myself telling people that the fact that they can ask me for advice and help shows that they are in a better place than they might think they are. The most dangerous place is the place where you do not want help and would not even consider asking for it. Please know that more people than you think would take you seriously if you told them about your difficulties. The people who cry “attention whore” have their own issues to deal with.

To sum it up:

1. Should one seek medical help for depression? Absolutely.
2. Are anti-depressants a bad idea? No way.
3. Do mental hospitals help, or do they just make it worse? A good mental health center is positively life changing.
4. Why do people think I’m doing this for attention? They don’t understand depression.

Thanks for your time. ❤

This World Is Not Done With You (Part 2)

To view part one of This World Is Not Done With You, click here.

In my last post I began to discuss the things that one does not think about when they are thinking about suicide. The first thing is that you have no idea how amazing your life will be. The second is that you don’t realize how important you are to people. And the third is that you don’t understand the pain a family feels when suicide is brought in. I cut off the post there because suicide is so complex and intricate. It is hard for me to understand what I was going through, let alone anyone else. However, I have learned a lot. Like I said in the last post, I can’t stop anyone from feeling suicidal.I can’t change minds. All I can do is offer insight from my own experiences and hope that I can save a few people from a lot of heartache.

I still think about Thursday, June 23, 2011 every single day. Which leads me to the number one thing that you don’t think about when you think about suicide.

What if you survive?

You will think about how nice it would be to not have to deal with the world anymore. You’ll consider the relief of no longer hiding how unhappy you are. You’ll try to tell yourself that everyone will be much better off. You don’t consider becoming one of the large percentage of people who survive a suicide attempt. I can not possibly explain to you how hard it is to look someone you love in the eye and tell them that you tried to kill yourself. It is painful to hear the comments about how you did it all for attention when you are just trying to recover. It is exhausting to spend night after night having flashbacks to when you attempted and the time leading up to it. It is tedious to have to constantly reassure people that you are truly doing well.

I am one of the lucky survivors. I have emotional issues to deal with and physical scars from self-injuring, but many people become permanently disabled from their attempts. It is truly a miracle not only that I am alive, but that my kidney’s are functioning. I know of someone who survived a suicide attempt but became a quadriplegic from the severity of the attempt. And to think they thought they were miserable before. A lot of people tell themselves that if they survive, they’ll just try it again. It’s not that easy.

You will be watched constantly by the people who do not want to lose you. And yes. There are people who do not want to lose you. Eventually, the thoughts will slow down or go away. But you will feel like people will always consider you a risk. You’ll be able to see in their eyes when they’re wondering if you’ll be there the next morning. You will constantly wonder if the people you love are thinking about what you did. That too will die down. What doesn’t go away so easily is the constant feeling of needing to show people that you’re doing better.

I’m not saying that you’ll always feel the need to seem totally happy. You will still have bad days. You’ll still have days where you could punch someone in the face for breathing too loud. But you will constantly want to show the people you love that you are doing okay. You will do anything to prove that you aren’t at risk anymore and you will spend nights laying awake feeling guilty for the peace of mind that you stole from people you love.

I am almost at my two year anniversary of my suicide attempt and it was only a few months ago that I finally started to feel like I could relax and stop trying to prove myself. I have done everything in my power to stay genuine with my condition since I attempted, but sometimes, when the depression would get really bad, I would find myself still trying to comfort my parents. I just wanted to reassure to them that I was going to be there the next morning if it were up to me.

When you attempt suicide, you don’t think about having to recover if you survive. I’m still recovering. I don’t have thoughts of suicide anymore. That doesn’t mean that I’m totally healed from the whole thing. I have really bad nights and I have really good nights. It’s not predictable. It’s not comfortable. It’s not easy. It’s hard to find people who will be willing to stick with you through the recovery process. I am blessed to have such supportive friends, family, and a therapist that I trust and respect.

To close, I just want my readers to understand that these are only a few of the things that you learn after you survive a suicide attempt. And no one thinks that they’ll be one of the survivors. If you are thinking about suicide, please seek help. It is serious. There are so many things that you don’t know. Life is worth living.

Remember,

This World Is Not Done With You

This World Is Not Done With You

“And you want to get out of here because you don’t have the strength to stay.” -Go Radio

This post has been heavy on my heart for a few months now. I’ve been putting it off and putting it off and putting it off…out of fear of what others will think. But I’ve decided that, yet again, this is weighing too heavily on my heart and mind to simply ignore. Most of the people who will take the time to read this know that I had a nearly successful suicide attempt in June of 2011. It’s been almost two years and the effects have dulled but I know they will never wear off.

Lately, I’ve had more than a few people ask me to talk to someone who they know who is struggling with serious thoughts of suicide. I replied hastily that when I wanted to be dead I did not give a single care about what anybody said to me. “Nobody understands. Nobody is going to stop me. No one will notice. I can’t wait to just be done planning this. They think they know but I’m totally different.” The thoughts I was having were serious and consuming. But I didn’t want to talk. And I didn’t know of anyone who had been through that like I was going through it.

Suicidal thoughts are unnatural. That’s just a fact. Human nature is to survive. Naturally, everybody sometimes thinks about dying. I’ve never spoken to someone who has not wondered who would be impacted by their death. What I learned after nearly dying is that more people than you would think are severely impacted by the loss of a life. You do not know how many people are affected by you on a daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly basis. I am doing a disservice by not speaking about the effects of suicide that I have learned in the two years since I was hospitalized.

From here on out, I’m writing in a numbered list of things that you don’t think about when you’re thinking about suicide.

1. You have no idea how amazing your life will be. All that you think about when suicide has crept into your mind is how miserable you are and how you just want to get out. You aren’t thinking about how great it will feel when you get your driver’s license. You aren’t thinking about celebrating with you sister when she is proposed to by an amazing guy that you consider a brother. You aren’t thinking about finally finding someone who will treat you with respect and dignity. You aren’t thinking about missing graduation, your wedding, the birth of your first child. Truthfully, you aren’t thinking. You think it’s you thinking. But the part of you that wants to be dead, is not the part of you that will die. That may not make sense. But I can tell you that I have NEVER wanted to be dead. There must have been someone else living in my body to make me think that I should not have been on this Earth. It does not make sense to me how I did not see how amazing life is. I still go downstairs at one in the morning crying to my Dad on some nights because I am scared of the fact that a part of me once tried to kill me. You don’t want to die. You think you want to die. But I promise you that you don’t. Life has so many amazing things left to offer if you give it the chance.
2. You don’t realize how important you are to people. After my suicide attempt, it was several months before I went totally public with the experience. I was too overwhelmed already with trying to figure out what to do next. However, the small group of people who did know were impacted in a way that I had no idea was even possible. AND I SURVIVED! A woman whom I used to babysit for came and visited me in the hospital once I was moved out of the intensive care unit. She asked if she could talk straight with me and I told her absolutely. All she said was, “What would I have told my baby girl.” At this time, the little one I would babysit was about four and a half and I had been babysitting her since she was born. I never thought of her when I made my decision. The four-year-old who brought me so much joy, would learn at a young age that sometimes people get unhappy and leave forever. Luckily, I’m here to hold her in case she ever does learn that. You will leave a mark on this world that is gaping if you decide that you don’t want to be here anymore. And that is not a good thing.
3. You don’t understand the pain that a family really feels when suicide is brought in. You die and you become a past tense member of your family. “I had two sisters…now I have one.” The feelings of guilt, and anger, and stupidity, and blame can tear a family apart at the seams. It does not matter how much you enforce in a note that it isn’t their fault, (or that it is), they can’t ask you questions once you’re gone. They have an extra chair at the dinner table and a voice missing when everyone is singing along with the radio. Maybe your family is the reason you want to commit suicide. I’m assuming that if that’s the case, you are a teenager. You only have a few more years and then you can leave. You can get away and never have to deal with that again. Truthfully, regardless of you thinking that they would be relieved if you were gone, your family loves you. And a house just feels different when it’s down one.

I am going to write a follow up post to this one because I have a lot more to say and I have already said a lot. If you are one of the people who is having issues with suicide, I can’t stop you. But I can tell you that you’re wrong. It isn’t your only option. It isn’t the only way you’ll be happy. People will miss you. Amazing things are in store for you.

Me? I’m doing amazingly. I still take my antidepressants everyday. I still see my therapist twice a week. I still have nights where I want to self-injure so badly that I start shaking and sweating but I don’t do it. I was, “one pill away from death.” I have seen what it does to a family, and I survived. None of us can even fathom how horrible it would have been for my family, my friends, and my church if I had “succeeded.” I’m happy now. I truly am. I obviously have my bad days but not once since I was in the hospital have I wanted to be dead.

Stick it out. This world is not done with you.