Sharing My Story

This week is Suicide Prevention Week, and I thought it would be the perfect time to share a piece of my story that most people don’t know. Some of the details or fuzzy, I couldn’t event tell you the day or month this happened, and some are still crystal clear, like the flavor of ice cream I ate and the color of the notebook I wrote in. Regardless of what I can and can’t remember clearly, overall it is a night that I will never forget. 

I was 16, and it was a weeknight in winter, maybe February or March. I was alone in my room, sitting on my bed, struggling yet again with my physics homework. No amount of notes, teachers or tutors had helped me be able to understand it. As I stared at the hellish worksheet in front of me I started crying, and something in me snapped. I decided to give up, no on the homework, but on everything. It had just become too much. 

It’s important to know that I didn’t decide to end my life because of physics homework I couldn’t understand. My life in those days was full of loneliness, pain, abuse, struggle, few friends, a shattered heart, events that shook my faith and bullying. These things sent me spiraling deeper and deeper into a depression I didn’t know I had. Back then I didn’t know that depression was an illness and that I couldn’t control. I genuinely thought that I was just a crazy, broken girl with no light in sight. So in that moment, when everything became too much, I took back the only control I thought I had, and decided to free myself from my pain, and the people around me from the burden of my existence. 

As soon as I made the decision, I remember feeling calm and relieved. In my mind I was not making a rash decision, but a logical choice. I can remember going to the kitchen because I was hungry and getting ice cream. I took the whole pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cake Batter ice cream, thinking that since I was going to end my life, the calories really wouldn’t make a difference. I sat on my bed, ice cream to my left, green notebook on my lap, and began to write my goodbyes. I wrote letters to my mom, dad, little brother and a small handful of close friends. 

Looking back, I’m still shocked at how calm and logical everything seemed to me. From the moment I decided I needed to die, to the moment I began swallowing handfuls of pills, there were two to three hours of time. I ate ice cream, I wrote my goodbyes, and I validated my choice calmly and rationally. I remember lying down in bed, a stomach full of pills, ready to go to sleep forever, and I remember exactly why I’m still alive. 

Everything was fine, I had no regrets or concerns or worries, except for one. I began thinking about the events that would follow my death. I had included some instructions with my goodbyes, songs to play and what I wanted to wear (even in a suicidal depression I was a planner). But the thought that stopped me in my tracks was what would happen first. My mom would come into my room the next morning and find me, and in the end that thought saved my life (Mom guilt for the win). 

I went to my mom’s room, told her I needed her, and eventually ended up in the local ER. From there I spent two more years suffering silently until I was diagnosed. And now, five years after I tried to end my life, I have finally found true bliss. I can say without hesitation that I am happy, and that I love my life. It took years of pain and suffering and hell to get here, but it was worth it.