Tag: suicide

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It’s amazing the difference a year can make.

On a late night, one year ago, I decided that I was in too much pain to keep on living and that my existence was too burdensome on everyone around me. I had been dealing with ongoing suicidal thoughts for years, but in the months leading up to that night they’d become more and more intense.

I awoke the next morning in a psychiatric Form 3 hold at the hospital, with my parents sitting by my side. I remember feeling little more than numb through much of my two week stay in Unit 1M. And when I returned home I felt more discontented with life than ever before. I dropped out of my anxiety treatment program, stopped going to counselling, and tried to fade out of people’s lives.

Fortunately for me, I had a few amazing people in my life who wouldn’t stand for the latter. With their help I spent the summer slowly learning to live again and remembering so many of life’s little joys.

In late summer I set off for adventure, hoping that a bit of solo travel and space would help me regain some lost confidence. I spent three weeks driving under the Northern Lights in Iceland, boating through the Fjords in Norway, wandering the cobblestone streets in Denmark, and lounging with old friends in England. The trip gave me some much needed time for reflection and appreciation. For the first time I truly allowed myself to look at my life and the reasons for my unhappiness. The main one, I realized, was that I was scared.

In the autumn I came home determined to open myself up and conquer my fears. I took risks, faced new challenges, and found myself entering winter feeling something I had never truly felt before: Contentment.

And now, one year on, my life is virtually unrecognizable. I found a job that encompasses everything that I’ve ever wanted in a job. I fell in love with someone who makes me happier than I ever thought it was possible to be. I’ve started reaching out and attempting to mend broken relationships. And I’m starting to think that maybe, just maybe, I’m not such a human disaster after all.

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#BellLetsTalk day has rolled around once again.

I’ve always tried to be open and honest about my struggles with mental illness, as I know how important open conversations are to ending the stigma. I used to write about my experiences regularly, but have found myself doing so less and less over the last couple of years. At first I simply wasn’t finding the exercise of writing as helpful as I had in the past. But last spring it became much more than that.
Late one night in June, after 10 years of inner turmoil, I became so overwhelmed with my anxiety and depression that I attempted to take my own life.
I then spent the next two weeks as an inpatient in the Mental Health unit of the new St. Catharines Hospital and can truly say that that was the worst week of my life. But probably not for the reasons you’re thinking…
Each day I was in there I would meet with my assigned psychiatrist, and each day he would make the same comment: “You’re a highly educated and well-travelled young woman. You’re not the type of person I should be seeing in here.”
I never knew how to respond to this. He used words like “typical” and “should” and I just didn’t understand. Educated people can and do have depressive disorders, and well-travlled people can and do have anxiety disorders. Who was he to tell me I shouldn’t be there, when the fact was, I WAS there. I was there, and in pain, and instead of being helped, I was made to feel like my thoughts and emotions were invalid. I was made to feel like I should have somehow been above mental illness.
In the end, I didn’t receive anything in the way of “treatment”. My medication was switched to something I’d been on previously, and I slept a lot, played cards with my dad, and then after a week was discharged.
I left the hospital feeling completely discouraged. Following my discharge I dropped out of the outpatient anxiety treatment program that I’d been taking part in for a year previously, stopped going to counselling, and never spoke to anyone about how the experience effected me.
(Until now.)
I spent the summer wallowing in self-pity and feeling like a complete failure, followed by an autumn spent travelling and learning to trust my own abilities again. Thankfully the latter worked, and I returned home feeling like maybe, just maybe, I could be okay eventually. I built up the nerve to take some big chances, as well as rid myself of a few bad habits.
For a long time I didn’t think I’d live to see my 30th birthday.
But I did make it to 30. I made it, and now when I think of the future it’s not a blank question mark, but filled with possibilities. And for the first time I in as long as I can remember, I want to be alive to see what happens.