CONTENT WARNING: suicidality, depression
In early June, I was hospitalized for 5 days after nearly ending my life.
I have had depression for several years now, and have been taking medication to treat it since I was 16. Since then I have gone through a long list of medications that were ineffective at best and detrimental at worst. In February of this year I began taking a medication that, for the first time, actually helped. I was sleeping and eating normally again, I regained a sense of motivation and creativity once more and finally felt like myself. Unfortunately, I began to experience physical side effects that my doctor and I soon determined outweighed the benefits, and I was put back on an old medication.
Within weeks, my depression came crawling back, as ugly and jeering as ever. This time, it stung a lot more. I had been at the summit and I knew that I was going to have to come back down. I could see the bottom from where I stood and I knew how shitty it was going to feel once I was there again. This time felt different though. The depression took hold of me with an iron grip and there was no scrambling loose. During those months, I was unable to see my therapist. My internship and schooling became more intense and increasingly demanded more of me than I could give. I tried to call and tell my doctor how I was feeling, but each time his front office staff told me he was booked up, and to just call 911 if I was in an emergency. I was drowning, and this time I felt I was drowning alone. I was filled with such an intense feeling of hopelessness that, try as I might, I could not shake free of. I told myself at one point that my best case scenario would be to somehow find a medication that didn’t bombard me with side effects, take it for the rest of my life, and try to hold on and not kill myself. At that moment, that sounded pathetic and bleak, and I began to wonder if there even was a point to living anymore.
I had struggled with passive suicidality for years at that point. It was so constant that it no longer scared me. However, during this past spring, that teeny voice inside my head that used to gently intrude with suicidal thoughts quickly grew louder, stronger, more aggressive. I told my family later that there was a part of me that wanted to live, the part that was rational, determined, and in control. In horror I watched this part of me start slipping from my grasp. It was still there, it was still fighting, but it was getting tired. It sounds silly to me, but I felt like I was terminally ill. I was 100% certain I was going to die by suicide, maybe not that same day or the next, but I would at some point. It only depended on how long the part of me that wanted to live could hold on, and by late May, it was starting to look like it wouldn’t be much longer.
Being alive was excruciating. Every day I woke up and the hopelessness, the reality that I was losing the ability to take care of myself and my obligations, absolutely gutted me. I was constantly breaking down, then quickly stitching myself together and compartmentalizing so I could get homework done or provide therapy to someone else. I will never know how I managed to do it. Every day I told my mother how much I wanted to die. She was terrified and at a loss for what to do. At one point, the crisis line was called, but I convinced the clinicians that came to my house that I didn’t need to be hospitalized. I was determined not to have to go inpatient. I didn’t want to have to miss out on school and my internship. I didn’t want to have to pay the gigantic bill that would surely come afterward. But mostly, I was terrified of what it would mean, what was going to happen to me.
When I was finally able to see my therapist again in June, she immediately told me I needed to go to the hospital. She brought my mother into session and told her the same thing. My mother was relieved. She hadn’t wanted to go against my wishes, but I had seen on her face how terrified she was for me, how little sleep she was getting. I packed a bag and went into the ER with my parents. That first day, I was shuttled around the emergency department and poked and prodded until a bed opened in the behavioral health unit. My father stayed with me the whole day, only eating a single chicken tender provided to him by a nurse. I cried almost constantly, and at one point a nurse waited until my dad went to the restroom to pull me aside and scold me for “trying to make everyone feel bad” and admonished me to pull myself together. Finally, close to 9 PM, a bed was ready for me and my father was told he would have to leave me then as it was past visiting hours. He grew frantic. I could count on one hand how many times I had seen my father cry in my lifetime. As I was wheeled away, I watched his face crumple.
My actual hospital stay was mostly uneventful. My first night was probably one of the worst of my life, and I was awakened at 6 AM to get my blood drawn once again. But once the initial shock wore off, it was fine. I made friends, and when we weren’t in group or recreational therapy, we played games and watched Impractical Jokers on TV. I had nothing but the few articles of clothing I’d brought, my life condensed to a single hallway and two rooms. The worst was definitely never knowing what time it was, as there wasn’t a single clock on the entire unit. The first couple days, I pestered the nurses constantly to give me the time, but towards the end of my stay, I made peace with unknowing. Everyday various family members and my boyfriend visited me and called me every morning and night. It was strange, being at my very worst and most vulnerable, but yet receiving even more love than I was used to.
While at the hospital, the insight I gained was invaluable. I realized I had so much more control over my life. Up until then, I had assumed there was nothing I could do to fight back against my depression besides continuing to survive. When people suggested various coping skills, like mindfulness or yoga or what have you, I scoffed and brushed it off. Surely my depression, which had taken over my entire life, was bigger and stronger than any tiny coping skill could possibly hope to fix. I never gave any of it a chance, and so I wallowed and marinated in my own sadness. Group therapy at the hospital helped me come to the realization that I can essentially fake it ‘til I make it-- that is, I can push myself to do some silly little coping skills even when I feel too depressed, and eventually my mood might catch up with my actions. Another thing I realized is that I had been putting all of my hopes into my medication to save my life. It turns out, even the best medication will only take the edge off. It might help my sleep or appetite or motivation, but it will never fix the thoughts in my mind or the life circumstances that are causing me to be depressed in the first place. I had unintentionally set myself up to have my hopes crushed. Finally, the clinician who led group therapy told me, “Depression is a bad liar,” and it struck a chord in me. This whole time, my depression had convinced me that my whole life was going to be this way. That there was no way out and there was nothing left to hope for. But it lied. It lied, it lied, it lied.
That first night of my stay, I made a promise to myself that I would never end up in the hospital for the same reason again. I know now that if I ever get to that point again, I will reach out for help. But I am also confident that I have the tools now to ensure it doesn’t have to happen. I am so much stronger than I ever gave myself credit for. I have so many tools and resources at my disposal, and a truly incredible support system that I can lean on when I get tired. I am back on medication that is helping and slowly helping me feel like myself again, and I am realizing that I have spent so much time and energy just surviving that I was never at any point thriving. I am doing so much more to take care of myself, of my body, mind, and spirit. Things aren’t perfect. I have still struggled a lot since getting home from the hospital, but not once have I had another suicidal thought. That alone gives me so much hope for my future. I am confident now that I will eventually come to the point where I won’t have to take any medication anymore, and I will be thriving and happy.
More than any other feeling -- and, oh my god, I mean this with every atom in my still breathing body -- I am so, so fucking glad to be alive.