So Alive(TW suicidality)

[brownblob]

I have been reading floradrenaline's two years in hell and have felt the urge to share the story of my own hellish period at that age. I'm a middle aged fart now, but I'll try to remember as best as I can.
I'm from the midwest. I was depressed from probably about the age of twelve. I fantasized and planned my suicide through out my teen years. I was a loner with no close friends. While other teens went to parties, the mall, dated, planned for college, I sat at home alone reading, playing games by myself or thinking about suicide.
So the story begins in 1989. I was 19, living at home with my mother, working a minimum wage grocery store job, and going to the local state university. I was also going crazy. I was thinking constantly about suicide. My mind raced in circles all the time--spinning completely out of control. My brain was in a constant frenzy. Negative thoughts constantly told me I was worthless and needed to kill myself. I thought with twisted logic. The fact I was always taking caffeine pills probably didn't help. At work, I was a loner. I worked in the meat department by myself at night cleaning up and stocking the counter. Maybe slicing a ham every once in a while. I remember being back there by myself singing The Doors song "The End" to myself and I knew every word. I would go home at night and read and watch Letterman and write bad poetry.
There was one cashier that could see I was a little off and she tried to befriend me. At first, I would just try to put her off and say random odd things to her. I can remember at one point telling her I didn't exist that I was just a figment of her imagination. She kept trying and I guess we became friends. She knew something was bothering me and she asked me to call her after work one night. I remember playing Edie Brickell's cassette while I confessed to her how suicidal and depressed I was. She had her own mental health issues and had been able to recognize it in me. She told me I needed to go to the local mental health clinic and talk to someone there. I told her I was scared to go. I was raised not to ask for help and to hide emotions and not to cause problems and I didn't want to let anyone know what was going on in my head. I also don't think I wanted help. I had wanted to kill myself for years and had just never had the guts to do it. At one point in my teen years, I had taken a knife and made little scratchs on my wrists and ankles but hadn't had the courage to push hard enough to do it. At nineteen, I was telling myself it was time.
Unfortunately, I became an emotional vampire. I didn't mean to, but this was the first time in my life I could open up to someone and be honest and connect to them. I couldn't handle it. I know she had her own life going on and I was just a drain on her. I also wasn't getting help or getting better.
On May 7, 1989, I was alone in my mother's house. I filled up the bathtub with water. I got an extension cord and plugged an electric clock into it. I stood in the tub and dropped the clock into the tub of water...

Nothing happened. I stood there watching the second hand keep going around the clock. I shook the clock waiting for the end, but nothing. After a minute, I bust out crying and threw the clock out of the tub. I went out to the living room and laid down on the carpet in the sun and cried uncontrollably and shook. It felt like my brain had shattered. I couldn't think all I could do was cry. When I could form a thought, I realized I had to get help. I needed to fight this thing. I needed to live. My mother got home a couple of hours later and I had emptied the tub and put up the clock and spent the evening in my room so I didn't have to talk to her. I wasn't capable of really talking at that point.
May 8,1989: I went to the local mental health clinic and went to the receptionist. I was shaking and crying and I told her I needed to talk to someone. I needed help.
She said,"Do you have an appointment?"
"No"
"Well, I'm sorry but you'll have to make an appointment. Now it may be a few weeks before we have something."
I stared at her. I knew I couldn't wait another day."No I need to talk to someone now."
She was getting a frustrated look on her face.
I said,"I tried to kill myself"
She looked at me like she didn't know what to do. She was trained to make appointments. She said"Hold on" and went back to talk to someone. She came back looking defeated and said,"Just have a seat and someone will be out to talk to you."
A man came out and took me back to an office and what was going on. I told him. He immediately said,"OK you'll have to go to the hospital"
I was terrified. It had taken everything I had to just come in here and ask for help. I almost got up and ran out of the office.
I refused to go to the hospital and eventually he relented. We talked for awhile and he assigned me to one of the social workers there and arranged for me to see her and their psychiatrist right away.
This story will be continued when I get a chance.

[oak]

Thank you for posting. This is a wonderfully honest post. I am glad you made it.

I am glad the cashier took time, and persisted, to help you.

I was 13 in 1989, and what "young people today" may not realize is how backwards things were in 1989. There was no discussion at all, of diversity, except as a means to mock. LGBT, religious diversity, mental health: none of this was mainstream.

When you get a chance, I'll look forward to more posts.

[Imissmysun]

This is so good to share - I recognize some of myself in a lot of what you say I had friends in my later teens but as a young adolescent I was very withdrawn very scared of people - very scared of being hurt ( I lost my father to cancer when I was 8 that was devastating to my development and my greif counseling was through the school and not really spelled out to me and brief so I never really adjusted) Sometimes I think I stopped socially developing at that age - but its my thing -

I was really more thinking I should just die but never thought of doing it to myself the thought just never occurred to me - I had the lovely recurring if I die no one would notice speech in my head - I felt invisible - but I relate so much to the loneliness and the death wish and the contemplation of death all the time - not that I had any words for what I was feeling -

Stupid parents not validating feelings and glossing over issues - and thinking that someone else would help me through it - passing the buck good parenting

[brownblob]

Thanks oak and sunny for your support.

So I saw the lady and the psych dr at the mental health clinic. I don't know is she was an actual therapist or just a social worker. I told her my story, but if I mentioned the suicidal thoughts she'd immediately start talking about the hospital. She made me sign something saying I wouldn't hurt myself before my next appointment. The psych was an old dr probably past retirement age. He gave me the smallest possible dose of Elavil because he was afraid I'd try to OD.
I went home and told my mom that I'd gone to the mental health clinic and I was starting some antidepressants. She said,"Good you need to talk to someone, but you don't need those pills." I didn't tell her about the suicide attempt. I just told her I thought I needed something. I went to work and told the friend that I'd gone to the clinic and got some meds. I thanked her. I had realized I had become a drain on her, so I tried not to talk about my issues to her anymore.
And so that summer of 89 went. I went to talk to the lady at the clinic once a week. I had a hard time opening up. If I mentioned suicidal thoughts, she would talk hospital and I'd shutdown. Every appointment ended with me promising not to hurt myself. The meds didn't do anything. I read a lot. I had trouble sleeping all summer. I struggled through everyday just repeating to myself. I just need to take it one day at a time. One hour at a time if need be. I still struggled with suicidal thoughts. I was still a mess, but I wanted to survive. I wanted to beat it. There was a song out that summer called "So Alive" by Love and Rockets that became my theme song.
By August, I couldn't take it anymore. I did what I had promised time and time again even though I was terrified of it. I called the mental health center that night and told them I was feeling suicidal and didn't think I could make it through the night. They told me to go to the hospital and they'd call and have things arranged for me. I told my mom I needed to go to the hospital. She gave me a weird look. I don't think she had ever thought it was that serious. She drove me to the hospital and I was checked in. It was probably like 11PM when I finally got taken to the psych ward.
This hospital had 3 psych wards. There was the regular one downstairs. Upstairs they had what they called intermediate and ICU. I was put in ICU because I was suicidal. There were only 3 bedrooms on this ward and it had cameras in the rooms so they could watch you. They told me to go to bed, so I did.
The other guy in the room started talking to me. He kept trying to get me to go into the bathroom, because there were no cameras in there. I told him I wasn't interested. He finally got up and closed the door to the room and stood with his back to the camera and between me and the door. He stood there rubbing his penis and again told me to come to the bathroom with him. I continued telling him no and telling him to leave me alone. When he finally went and laid back down, I hopped out of my bed and went to the nurses station. I told the guy there that the guy was trying to get me in the bathroom and I wanted another room. He said that they only had 3 rooms and I couldn't get another room. I begged to be allowed to just sit in the hallway all night. I promised I'd be no trouble. He said,"If you don't go back to bed right now, I'll have to restrain you to your bed." I didn't want to be in that room, but the idea of being strapped down so this creep could do whatever to me scared the shit out of me. So I went back to bed. The worker went in and told the creep to leave me alone.
The next morning I got up and had a little breakfast. There was no TV, just a little radio in the room. There were two women in there. One was about thirty and the other was 17 and had bandages on her wrist. They were both cool and we had a nice little talk and then they got up and danced together to the Gordon Lightfoot song "Sundown" It was just an awesome moment. Then the nurse came in and told me they were moving me to the intermediate ward.
The intermediate ward only had a group therapy like twice a week and it consisted of whoever was having a meltdown at the time screaming cuss words at the therapist. There would be several patients a day have these screaming meltdowns at staff. I was there for about a week and the doctor said that because I was so withdrawn and depressed I might have to go to the state hospital. I was upset. That night, I talked to a nurse about it. I told her I was always this quiet and that I was trying to deal with the depression that that was why I had checked myself in. I told her I needed to get out so I could start the fall semester at college. She was really nice and talked to the dr for me and I got released a couple of days later.

To be continued...

[brownblob]

I was 20 now. After my bad experience at the hospital, I decided I'd never check myself in again. I don't remember much about that fall. I know at some point I lost hope and the suicidal thinking took over. I know at some point I found a depression support group, but when I went to it, everyone in the group was over 60 so I didn't fit in and didn't go back.
I know some night in late October I had an argument with my mother and went to my bedroom and took a handful of pills. Not enough to OD, but enough to knock me out. I then grabbed my keys and sped off into the night. The thought was I would pass out at the wheel and it would look like an accident. 30 or 40 minutes later I was speeding down the main east west road in the local city and feeling very woozy. I knew it wouldn't be long. That's when I noticed a white car a little ways back. A paranoid voice in my head said"Oh shit a cop!" I slowed down and started concentrating on staying in my lane. I waited for the cop to pass me, but he stayed a little ways back following me. Shit he must have caught me speeding or weaving. I kept fighting to focus on the lines on the road. I drove out of the city and he kept following. I turned around and headed back the other way. He turned around. Shit. I wanted to die not get arrested. My head was swimming, but somehow I kept consciousness. Driving all the way through the city again and back towards home. The cop car following me the whole way, until I turned off to head home and he pulled into a gas station. By that time I was no longer thinking about suicide, just trying to make it home so I could pass out.
When I got home, I was surprised to see my mother's car gone. I thought about just passing out in my car, but decided to try to make it to bed. My legs felt like they weighed a couple hundred pounds a piece. Somehow I made it into the house and passed out in my bed. It wasn't until years later I realized it wasn't a cop car following me it was my mother.
And sometime around Thanksgiving, I took my bottle of antidepressants in an attempt to kill myself. It's all kind of fuzzy. I know I woke up in ICU and then was sent on to the psych ward. This time they put me on the lower level of the psych ward where people were a little more normal acting. I don't remember a whole lot about my time there. I know the psychiatrist thought ECT's would be worth trying and I said yes. I think I got 9 applications over several weeks or a month. I know the staff was making everybody read books on codependency, but it didn't solve any of my problems. I know somebody suggested that maybe I was borderline, so I read a book on borderline but it didn't sound like me at all. I know one of the nurses got me alone one day and got mad at me for not getting better, saying I wasn't trying. I know I eventually got so tired of being there that I lied and said I was feeling better and I wanted to visit my brother out west so I could get out of the hospital. I was hospitalized for almost 2 months.
And I did go spend a few months with my brother out west, although I doubt he really wanted his crazy little brother to visit him. And I know before I went to visit him, I took a bottle of my antidepressants and hid them in my mother's house for the next time.
To be continued...

[floradrenaline]

Brave of you to share your story <3 hospitals are a tough thing. I don't want to say they're overarchingly bad, but negative or unhelpful experiences like yours are very common. I'm glad you're alive -- glad your mother semi-accidentally saved your life -- hope you're in a more hopeful place now. Sending love.

[Imissmysun]

I love this visceral real thread and I am so honored to be able to read it and hear your story - I wish there had been some one to hear you - to really hear you when you were young -

I know I would have done anything to be seen to be really seen when I was an adolescent -

You are alive and a survivor and just awesome

[brownblob]

This story is longer than I thought.
So in 1990, I went out and spent a few months with my brother. I took long walks and read a lot. Then I went back home and as they say "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results." I went back to living with my mother, working the same job, returned to college in the fall. I wasn't in therapy or taking meds. I had given up on all that. I don't have much memory of this time period. Partially, I think because of the ECTs , and also because with my mental issues I began blocking things out. I turned 21 in 1990.
I do know at the end of November that year I called in to work one day, and then proceeded to take those antidepressants I had hidden, a mixture of OTC pills and washed it down with vodka. My next memory is being in ICU and my sister yelling at me. It was the only time she ever came to visit me in the hospital. Somewhere along the way somebody told me the paramedics had to revive me, but I have no memory of any of this.
I know on December 1 I was taken up to the psych ward. It was a different hospital this time. I remember a nurse getting mad at me because I was wearing sweat pants and a hospital gown as a shirt. She told me to go put my shirt on and I told her I didn't have one. She looked at me like I was crazy and said,"Put on the shirt you were wearing when you came in."
I just told her"I wasn't wearing a shirt"
"You had to be wearing a shirt when you came to the hospital."
"I think the paramedics tore it off."
She didn't understand and told me again to put my shirt on. A day or two later my mother brought me some clothes.

I remember their idiot psychologist wanting to know how often I masturbated and suggesting I join AA to make friends. I just looked at him and said,"But I don't drink."
I was disappointed that I had failed. I was still suicidal. I liked the group of people I was in with. It was like a family atmosphere amongst the patients. I became close friends with one woman who was in a wheelchair in particular. We just hit it off. We made a suicide pact. At the end of December, we stole a plate from the dining room. We went to my room into the bathroom and broke the plate. She cut her finger to make sure it was sharp enough. At that moment, a tech came through doing checks and heard something in the bathroom. I'm sure she was thinking we were doing something sexual. She opened the door on us and ruined our plan.
I was placed on a 24/7 suicide watch. I had a tech with me at all times. I had to leave the door open whenever I used the bathroom or took a shower. I was a very modest person going into that, but by the time I left I was so used to it I didn't care who saw me naked. The hospital started proceedings to have me committed to the state hospital. I was forbidden to have any contact with the lady I was friends with.
They also started me on a new med. It worked. I became very emotional. Within a couple of days, I felt the urge to walk the hallways of the psych ward. I would pace for hours at a decent pace. I thought I was losing my mind. The funny thing was that being on the suicide watch, the techs were forced to walk with me. One of them even started bringing in running shoes to change into when she had to watch me. This went on for days of me just constantly pacing the hallways until one of the techs asked me one time,"So have you mentioned this pacing thing to your dr?"
I said,"No why?"
He said,"Well it could be your medicine."
So I told the Dr and he gave me something to make me stop pacing. I had no clue that could even be a side effect of medicine. I spent three weeks there on suicide watch before they moved me to the state hospital. I remember towards the end of the stay sitting down with a pad of paper. The pills were helping but I had no clue what to do with my life. I had always planned to kill myself so I never made any actual plans for my life. I sat there crying with the pad of paper trying to come up with something I wanted to do with my life. Then I started trying to come up with anything that I cared about . Something to make life worthwhile. The only positive thing I could come up with was my friendship with the lady in the wheelchair that I wasn't allowed to talk to. I decided I'd have to find a way to try to maintain a friendship with her.
One day a sheriff's deputy showed up to take me to the state hospital. He asked me if I needed to be cuffed. I said no. He drove me to the state hospital and dropped me off.
To be continued...

[brownblob]

I will try to wrap this thing up.
Late January 1991: Probably the low point of my life. I'm committed to the state hospital for 90 days. I don't know how things work now, but back then that was a standard commitment. There is just no avoiding the situation. Through my own behavior, I have gotten myself locked up in an institution. It is a depressing place. I am in the acute care building which is for the short term patients. It is a short walk to what we call the Big House where they keep the long term patients. The ward I am on is full of mainly bipolar and schizophrenics that have gone off their meds. Many patients are delusional or hallucinating. For 21 year old me, it is a scary place to be and then to have to come to grips with the fact that I belong here. I'm that crazy.
I mentioned in my last post that I had finally found a med that was working for me. I was more in control of my brain. I was emotional. But it was not a magic pill that made me happy. It just made me stable, not suicidal and in control which honestly was a miracle. I still had to try to figure out how to navigate life.
I remember meeting with the psychiatrist and she is telling me how great her life is. She has a good career, a nice car, a nice house, a husband and kids. She says,"But you have to work for it. It will not be given to you. It is like climbing a ladder and you have to go just one step at a time."
I stare at her. Here I am at the state hospital and the shrinks still don't understand me. I tell her,"But I don't want any of those things. I'm not interested in a career. I don't care about nice cars or houses. I don't want to get married and I sure as hell don't want kids." It is obvious to me she doesn't understand me.
There are two wards in the acute building. One locked and one open. You have to earn privileges and show you are stable before you are allowed to move to the open ward. The first privilege was being allowed to go to the cafeteria in the Big House. After a week, I was given cafeteria privileges. It doesn't sound like much but the high point of it was the walk between buildings. Being able to breathe fresh air for the first time in months was awesome. The Big House itself was an awful building. It was built around 1940 and had the feel of a scary old asylum. You ate in a cafeteria full of the long term care patients. Each ward brought in in groups.
After about 2 weeks, I was interviewed by the chief of staff psychiatrist. It didn't go well. He told me I was a hopeless case and that I'd eventually kill myself. He called my mother and advised that my family be brought in for grief counseling so they could be prepared for my inevitable death. When I lined up to go to the cafeteria that night for dinner, I was told he'd taken away my privileges. I went back to my room caught my roommate masturbating and laid down on the bed and cried.
Luckily, I never had to talk to that dr again. After about a month, I got moved to the open ward.
On the open ward, things were better. The patients were stable. It was amazing to see the same patients who were completely delusional a month before, act as normal as anyone you'd ever meet. It was really eye opening to me. You were responsible to make it to your groups and therapy sessions on time. You could wander the grounds during daylight hours, which was basically a city park. The psychologist and therapy ladies on this ward were super nice, but by this time I was so paranoid of mental health professionals that I probably wasn't very cooperative.
The three months there gave me a lot of time to think and to get used to being stable. I got out in April. I got a low paying retail job and got an apartment with the lady in the wheelchair that I'd had the suicide pact with at the other hospital. I went to the mental health clinic a couple of times but I couldn't afford my medicine and the social worker I talked to there told me her job wasn't to help me but to monitor me in case I needed to be hospitalized again. No thanks. I stopped going. I'm hoping the system has improved in the last 25 years but I don't really want to find out.
I read books on depression, personality disorders and cognitive behavior therapy and tried to retrain my brain not to think suicidal thoughts. I've lived a fairly normal life. I'm not going to say I've ever really been happy. I've had my bouts of depression over the years, but I've survived. I tried to stay busy in an effort to stay numb a lot of the time. Last winter, I fell into a bad depression and went to the dr and I've seeing a psychiatrist and trying to different meds with no luck so far, but I'm not out of control and suicidal like when I was younger.
I think it is therapeutic for me to tell this story, because it is something I've never told anyone. It is my deep dark secret and I'm hoping somehow it might help someone out there struggling.

[oak]

Thank you for sharing. This is a great series of posts.

Thank you for sharing about a state hospital. I groaned the first time I read those words. I was hoping you wouldn't end up there.

I am glad things are better for you.