These are my unedited thoughts as I wrote during the hospital. This was later refined, but I think it means more to see what I wrote without regard to editing.
On Thursday, March 2nd,
I swallowed over 200 pills. I woke up two days later with several tubes down my
throat and restraints on my arms. My memory only exists in flashes. I opened my
eyes once to see my mother and friend looking over to me. Eyes closed. Open
again: A good friend giving me a quick hug. Eyes closed. Eyes open: I'm choking
on the tubes, so I throw a teddy bear to get their attention. Eyes closed. Eyes
open. I hear a long beep. That's the 30 sec. mark of me not breathing. I hear
someone in my ear, "Damn it Erin, breathe." Eyes closed. More sounds of people
yelling at me to breathe. Breathe in, breathe out. Eyes closed.
Saturday night I open my eyes once more. I try to talk, I want to go pee. They
tell me I have a catheter. I say fine, then I'll hold it. Then they hold up the
tube and show the pee going down. I say shit. I fade into incoherent thoughts
and sounds. Apparently I was worried about the journals I sent my psych research
to...six months ago. A parade of people come through Saturday: mom, step dad,
mom's friend, two of my friends. My memory? Only of the flashes of faces and I
saying "never mind" when I realize my words make no sense. Eyes closed. I'm
moved out of the ICU and out of danger for now.
The experience of knowing that I stopped breathing, was incubated, given
activated charcoal which I failed to throw up properly, so my stomach was pumped
and then losing days to coma and incoherency has forever changed my life. Should
it have taken all of that to wake me up? I'm still searching for the answer.
Here I am looking out of a door to the outside world and I know for this moment
I've been taken out of this world and become an observer through these locked
wards. I can see the sun, but not feel its renewal heat and energy upon my body.
I know now to cherish those moments I can stand in the sun and dance in the
rain.
Though the memory of suicide is largely emotional and of visions I stored in my
mind, I see the body has kept a memory of its own.
There are the fading six puncture marks on my left elbow crease from IV's and
blood samples. I see the large bruise on my left wrist from a fight with
restraints. And old scars remain from previous self injurious acts. I look to my
right arm, still sore from days of IV fluid. More puncture wounds from blood
drawn. Again more scars from past acts. My tongue is finally feeling less like
sandpaper and more like what it should- food no longer hurts to the touch.
Though I still feel the sharp pain where a jagged tooth took a slice, probably
during the passing out phase. My throat continues to recover. Days ago I could
barely swallow. Remnants of plastic tubes down them- keeping me alive. When
first awake, my vision was blurry. Today I see it is clear. After days of IV
fluid and continuous drinking I feel my strength returning.
Yes, the body bares the pain of what the mind hath wrought.
There was no guiding light. To those that speak of this phenomenon, I can only
say, it must have been the doctors flashlight checking the pupil dilation. Did I
feel peace? I wouldn't know, I was unconscious in a coma. I have no memory of
such events and wonder if some people made up their experiences in an attempt to
comfort themselves with the lack of memory. Perhaps it is a savior to us all
that we don't remember the worst of it. I think that perhaps the memory of not
breathing and getting closer to death is not a pleasant one. The lack of memory
saves us from deciding if that experience was a pleasant one to be repeated.
Wait. Flash back, back
up. One year and three hundred and forty two days earlier I was admitted to the
same hospital. My family found out a few days later and headed to Disney World.
The difference? Two years ago I planned my attempt and told someone. This time I
wanted to end it. Would it take a suicide to bring my family together? I fear
that the answer was yes.
I go back to the memory of that cold Thursday. Most of my memory was washed away
along with each pill I took (Vicodin=memory, Ritalin=memory etc.). Days later
it’s clear I was in an agitated manic phase of my bipolar disorder. That day a
few people later commented that I seemed “out of it” or acting weird. Though it
is not their responsibility to tell me, I wonder if that would have made a
difference.
When exactly does one make the decision to end ones life? For me, between the
hours of 8:00 and 10:00pm (but must have been earlier- signs). I listened to
angry, sad music to get myself in the mood. I took one look at the many pill
bottles on my book case. It was then I began pill counting. (put in #’s). I then
began hand written suicide notes. Some I pulled up on my computer- old ones from
past suicidal ideation (go into detail how it feels). Tears fell when I came to
the letter to my brothers. For one second I wondered if those tears would keep
me from my goal- end of life. I hit print. I began the process. First the
Vicodin, followed by Xanax, Seroquel, Advil, Concerta and Ritalin. I looked at
my lithium bottle and knocked it over. Never taken. This would be important
later. I suddenly became less steady on my feet. I grab the printed stack,
started for my door. I fall to my knees, set the stack to my left and fell down,
head on my backpack.
Seconds, minutes, and hours do not matter at this point. Eyes closed. I hear my
friend banging on my door. It’s locked. She gives up and tries our shared
bathroom door. Consciousness gone. I feel someone taking my pulse- it’s too
fast, she yells. Out again. I feel men around. They ask me to put my arms around
them and walk. Barely conscious I feel myself in an ambulance. An oxygen mask
over my face. I lose consciousness all together.
Those are the actions taken when falling to suicide. My thoughts and emotions
somehow become separated.
Between the hours of 8pm and 11pm, I feel an increase in agitation and euphoria.
I took a graduate class final and feel like I did awesome. At the same time
disturbing thoughts flow through my mind- I think of the lack luster support of
my campus toward mental health. I wonder if it would take a suicide. I think
about my psych department and the support they do not show to students who excel
outside the classroom, but maybe not in. I think of my life and start
remembering growing up and my changing relations with my family. I still feel
the sting of every strike and put down. I drown these mounting thoughts away
with music, driving to my dorm. I joke with my friend about how much Lithium it
would take to kill me. She laughs, but I see her fear. In my room she won’t
leave. In my mind I make my decision- I’m going to swallow the pills. I suddenly
become interested in my Latin HW I have no intention of doing. She takes the
bait and says she’ll check on me in two hours. That’s all I need. I felt my mind
cloud over. It was time.
An interesting anecdote of memory when you’ve come so close to killing yourself
is that it goes backwards, forward and then back again. Then only to jump back
to the present. My memory is fractured and I wonder if I’ll ever have a clear
picture of the nights and days I decided to end my life.
I look out of my ward window. Glass several inches thick, locked and barred. A
wooden fence to my left blocks the view of the courtyard. I see the day
treatment wing in front of me. The sun shines down on this building, briefly
hurting my eyes. I haven’t seen the sun in a week. To my right more fences and a
few trees. The trees still lay bare and empty. A haunting memory of how I viewed
my life. I listen a moment. I hear the locked doors being clicked open and shut
by the hospital staff. A patient wonders the hall, again speaking rather
incoherently. I know other patients sit in the common area, either asleep almost
in a vegetative state, others so depressed you see their life slipping from
their eyes day by day. A few constantly talk, a sign of the mania I know so
well. Still others are hopelessly locked in their schizophrenic mind. I’m in
intensive care for 24 hours. Tomorrow I change units, where the patients are
motivated to get treatment and resume their lives. Birds fly by and I know soon
I can rejoin the living, feel the sun on my face and the wind whipping my face
with a tinge of cold, reminding me spring has yet to come to the physical world.
Yet somehow on this day, I can already feel the spring within me start, warming
my heart and refreshing my troubled mind. I will live another day.
Living another day I know was ultimately my choice. As determined as I was to
not wake up from this self-inflicted coma, I took one single step to remain
alive. In the middle of pill counting and pill popping, I dropped the Lithium
bottle. It is true all of the meds I did take was enough to kill me if I had
just an extra half hour, ingesting a bottle of Lithium would have either killed
me or left me brain dead. I’ve lied to those around me, claiming I couldn’t find
the lithium. Perhaps I was a prideful survivor of suicide. For whatever reason,
I maintained this lie. However, self denial was not enough to kill me. I picked
up the Lithium and dropped it behind the book case. This was my simple hope to
live. I’ve told others since that I was in a fight with God: I wished to die,
He wished me to live. God won. But in the end, I know that it was I who has
truly won. I get a second chance to put the pieces of my life back together.
This time not forcing pieces where they do not belong, but taking the time to
truly find my life again.
Back on medication and back in control of my life, I lie down, close my eyes and
give a silent thank you that I can open and close my eyes voluntarily and
breathe in and out without being told. It is the little freedoms of life that we
seldom see as miraculous or a wonderment, but I know I have no choice but to be
forever changed by this experience.
I’m in a crowded common
room. Welcome to the hospital’s intensive care unit. A man who thinks he is
related to Michelangelo (and calls himself as such), and can send me a magic
carpet is singing loudly. Occasionally he breaks out with incoherent talk about
driving to New Jersey. My roommate sits to the right, talking non-stop to anyone
who dares to meet her eye. The woman across from me lays her head again against
the table. I’ve yet to hear her speak a word. Her face is drawn, wrinkled
through the years and eyes so lifeless I feel as if I want to give her a hug and
see if they can spark to life. The man to my left puts me at ease with his
sarcastic wit and positive demeanor. Though, he says drinking and drugs quickly
changes this.
The TV is on, but remains only background noise. Only one patient seems to be
engaged. Another woman, whose saddened face can elicit empathy from anyone here,
continues to talk to her visitors. Her face becomes more saddened through the
evening and I feel for her, knowing all to well the sadness depression brings.
Another woman hopelessly locked in her diseased brain meets with her husband.
His face is drawn and coarse from the years of heartache it seems he has had to
endure. His wife continues to mutter words we can scarcely make out. She brings
him all the pictures she’s colored. He also colors with her. I wonder what this
woman may have been like years earlier. I fear my disease could take that course
and feel a cold shiver down my back.
The nurses sit back in their chairs just outside the room. They chart us every
fifteen minutes or so. They look at us and I can see the sadness in their eyes.
I’ve tuned out, preferring my ipod to the near constant chatter. This is the
first music I’ve heard in five days. Tomorrow I leave for a new ward and new
faces. But I never forget the ones I leave. Over the years each one has left
some mark on my life. Some things you don’t forget. I stay apart from them, but
to be in this ward, I know we share some common ground. I am much younger and my
brain is in its early stages of a life long disorder. While confident in being
able to manage this brain, I wonder what the years will do to it. I can’t help
but fear in the end I’ll be the one sitting in the corner, with a husband
looking sadly at my newly colored pictures. I have no crystal ball to prepare me
for what the future brings. I know I can only be here now and trust in my faith
and hope. Trust the medications I know so well and the treatment plan I’ve
worked hard to put together. I trust these moments, not the ones to come.
My blue wrist band hangs loosely around my slim wrists. Name, age, account
number and birthday. My pass into this hospital. I can take it off easily. Does
this mean I’m not a patient? Slipped back on, patient again? The signs of being
a patient: Morning meds, night meds, groups, workbooks, bed checks, terrible
food, wrist bands, no sharps, barred windows, locked doors, bed times, wake up
times, vitals in the wee hours of the morning, two safety contracts a day, few
clothes, many nurses, many mental health techs, no shoe laces, no draw strings
and doctors. I get the feeling we are all caged birds. Maybe this is why
Michelangelo sometimes sings.
What separate me from the staff? I have a B.S. in psychology, years working the
self injury support group, years of therapy and reading the medical literature.
I speak their language. I see how they carry themselves and know when I’m doing
therapy with the kids I carry myself the same way. They laugh, talk and speak
about the patients. I can laugh, talk and speak about the kids. Who defines the
line between them and me? Probably my suicide attempt and I have yet to master
my disorder. But I see it in their eyes sometimes- they know the roles could be
reversed, maybe in some alternate universe or a different time and place.
Sometimes I know they share the same fear- going from therapist to patient. I
stepped over the line and can never fully return. I grieve this loss at times in
my private moments.
We all sit around the TV
eating breakfast. It’s already prepared and comes from the kitchen. Is this what
separates us? I pour more sugar on my cheerio’s and listen to all of the
chatter. We put our clothes on, one pant leg at a time. Some of us prefer coffee
in the morning, some of us coke. “Bless you” is heard all around after a sneeze.
A seemingly normal gesture in a room of craziness. We go on to group about
family dynamics. Functional family is not in our vocabulary. I’m asked to read a
large amount of the text and give an example. A reminder of the line that
separates me from many of the patients. I find myself in the middle.
Intelligence to be staff, but disordered back to the patient line. My lucid
thoughts no separate me from the patients around me. I hear the voices, but do
not speak back. I try suicide, but bounce back within the week to safety. I feel
the paranoia but rationalize it. I see the hallucinations but blink them away.
Where is the line that divides them from me? Perhaps it’s self-control. Or a
near constant drive to want to join the living and living healthy. I accept my
disorder, but do not accept how far it can bring me down. I look at the patients
around me and decide to step over the line and find myself between therapist and
lost patient.
Suicide has taken a toll on both my mind and body. Words still come slow to me,
not always able to put the right sentence together. People ask me why with
regularity and I can only shrug my shoulders. The answers lay in a sealed
envelope in the polices hands. There are many suicide letters written and a
letter explaining my actions. Deep in my heart I know those letters will never
be enough. The real answers will forever stay locked in my mind though I hope
with time, my memory can help unlock that door. Or maybe my memory is protecting
me and I don’t need to know. All I need to know is that I’m alive and will stay
this way.
A new unit and a new way to express myself. As each of us begin to talk, we
realize we all belong in the same club: Bipolar. We share our stories of
believing interstate 95 meant we can go 95mph with our music blaring. Or the
$1000 spending spree’s. The agitation and euphoria. Yes, we have our own
impulsive, euphoric, manic club. Though we each talk in jest, our eyes reveal
the fear. Each of us knows the dangers that follow our high. These locked wards
and wrist bands quickly remind us.
My therapist calls. This will be the first conversation I remember us having out
of three. I relate the bad decisions I’ve made, and the new good ones. I come
clean that some hope existed when I didn’t take Lithium. She tells me how she
would have been upset…and investigated for malpractice. This awakens me to a
whole new understanding of the ramifications of my actions. We both agree I have
many new issues that need adjusting. This woman mean so much to me and I look
forward to the next time I sit before her on a couch. She more than anyone holds
the keys to my life.
Hseus stands in the sun.
Though it only shines through another locked door. I imagine him thinking of his
freedom in a few hours. Discharge. A welcoming and fearful thought. Gayle puts
words to what we all feel- afraid to fall asleep. We see the flashbacks and
monsters that go bump in the night. We need to sleep to keep away the mania, but
we don’t want the images. A true double edged sword and we have to find out
which side it sharper.
7 days, hours, minutes- I decided to end my life. Now ____.
Back on medication I
forget how to write. Or draw. The blank page fills my mind. The first few days
here I burned through nine pages of the written word. Today, I can scarcely
manage these few sentences. Memories of mania come flooding back and I remember
why I sometimes miss it. Flashes of suicide come back as well. I remember why I
hate the manias.
You could take the curtains off. Or the blinds. Stick a paper clip in the
socket. Tear up a blanket or pillow case. These are all ways we envisioned we
could kill ourselves while in the ward. Positive talk to four bipolar women who
survived their suicide attempts. We say this all in jest though, knowing in
reality we are lucky to be alive. SILENCE.
”Ahhhhhhh.” The piercing scream cuts through the silence. We look at each other
and cock our heads with interest. The screams begin again and the counselor
excuses herself. She closes the door behind her as she rushes to the ICU. The
four of us stand watching and waiting. Maybe she’ll be taken to the seclusion
room on the other side of the door. Our locked door. A mental health tech comes
to the seclusion room and we think we will get a look, but she’s just getting
the wheel chair. Then our counselor appears and the excitement is over. She was
screaming only at a hallucination to get away. We say “oh.” That’s not a far
fetched reason for the scream. We know that experience. We return to our seats
un-phased and return to our suicide talk.
Fear. We all experience it on some level. Some fear animals or reptiles,
murderer’s and rapists, old age and dying. Some fear going crazy and others fear
staying crazy. I know what it’s like to fear, but now I know the experience of
having a large amount of people fear the actions I may take. Days without phone
calls no longer means I’m just busy, but that I may be in my room dead from an
overdose. The times I get excited and energized will not be taken for strict
enthusiasm, but the beginnings of mania.
My eyes instantly close and I feel a slight pain. One eye then opens. I haven’t
seen the sun in a week. A wind tugs at me gently. Then again with more force. I
hesitantly open two eyes. I’m surrounded by brick wall and dead vegetation.
There’s a padlock on the wooden door. Anywhere else this could have been perhaps
a courtyard to a restaurant or the patio of a house.
The near constant sirens of the many ambulances remind me of how close the
hospital is and that when I walk through the backdoor I walk back into Snowden’s
transition unit.
But for now I am given a sense of freedom. I can smell the air, feel the wind
through my hair and suck in full, real, warm air. This is real, not something
made up to help comfort me (pillows, blankets etc.). But a real, tangible part
of the Earth.
Sounds- birds, wind in tree’s, leaves, phone, children, rustle of my pants,
ambulance, cars, trucks, wind whipping though my ears.
The Motion of Death
Was I almost dead or close to dead? Some might say there is no distinction- I
was just near death. They fail to see the motion of death. If I was almost dead,
my motion would be toward death. I am in the act of death and almost there. Just
a little further to go. I am not ceasing the act. I am almost dead..
If I was nearly dead, the motion has ceased and left me in a particular state.
The act is completed and I stand next to death. Motion has stopped and I come to
rest at deaths bedside.
The distinction is clear to me. One week ago I was almost dead. One more pill
bottle and the motion toward death would have been completed. Instead, the last
few days I’ve simply been near death. I come to rest. And being nearly dead,
I’ve come to a new level of understanding. Nothing can ever be the same. I
closed my eyes Thursday and never expected to see the light of day again. I
never thought I’d feel the sun in my face, the relaxing deep breath or my
brothers laugh. When you come to peace about such decisions and become ready for
death, any other outcome leaves you forever changed.
I look in the mirror and I see a shadow of who I was. I see the tired eyes and
dark bags under my eyes. My clothes are wrinkled and dirty from the several days
of sharing two outfits. I see a fear that was never there before. I fear the
actions I now know I can take. I broke a trust with myself that I don’t know if
it will ever return. I know, I know I am capable of being my own grim
reaper. I am not only capable of having suicidal ideation, or taking a few
bottles of pills and puke it up, but capable of taking all the pills and
then to close my eyes hoping for forever.
I didn’t just see death and be smacked in the head with it (GI quote). I was
experiences death. I was in favor of death. I asked for death to come. I set off
the motion of death. Some how that changes the facts about everything. It wasn’t
a warning. It wasn’t a cry for help. It was just the motion of death.
Eight days later I am no longer wondering why I tried to die. I see so clearly
now. I watch the events come together and can’t believe I was so blind.
Nine days after my dark decision, my body throws me another curve ball. I have
come off my mania and have started the path to depression. I stop talking, put
my nose in a book, ignore therapy assignments, lose patience and have a sky
rocketing irritability level. I’ve been waiting for days to feel less manic and
more stable. Unfortunately my disorder is determined on its course to experience
both moods before hitting stability. Even medicated my brain is unable to tame
this beast.
I smile and exude confidence that I can hang on, but one fact still remains: I
am afraid. I feel that staying somewhat manic for a few days has kept me from an
awful truth: I wanted to die. My memory protects the more intense situation once
in the hospital, but each day my brain recovers those last few moments before
the overdose. The coming depression is soon to focus my mind on those moments
and remember those times. I will be smacked with the notion that I tried to
murder myself. I said goodbye to my graduation in seven weeks, my dream job and
a good-looking future. I barely even flinched. I harbor a deep sadness as a
result. I closed my eyes for one last time and felt a sense of peacefulness and
happiness with my decision. Nine days later, my neck hurts from the tubes. I
can’t have pain medication because I’m healing my liver and kidney’s and my
brain is on a roller coaster without a harness. Depression now makes me miss
those moments of peacefulness and the strength by which I made my decision.
Before that moment, no one feared I was going to commit suicide, no one was
waiting for me to prove my sanity and no one doubted my judgment about my
disorder. As a result of waking up all of that is taken away. Almost everyone is
afraid I might end up dead on my floor, that I am not stable and that I am right
about my stability. Frustration sets in. Nine days ago I wasn’t frustrated. I
know this is my own damn fault and I take responsibility for nine days ago, but
that doesn’t make it any easier. Depression has come to remind me that I hate
the frustration.
I have come to realize how much stronger I now have to be even though I am at a
lower stability level; the cruel reality of my decision nine days ago and of a
troubled mind.
I have to be stronger than my past, my disorder, my impulses and thoughts. The
thoughts tell me I am just a disappointment to everyone now and I ought to just
focus on ending it all again. Waking up changed everything not for the better,
but for the worst. I have to fight back. I know people didn't like my decision,
but I did NOT disappoint them when I woke up. As much as this is all now hard
for me, it is hard on others as well. They now worry more, which takes more
energy.
My past flashes through my mind and reminds me of all the hurt. I begin hurting
as if it was done to me today. I fight back. I already survived the abuse, now I
just need to take a deep breath. Breathe in, breathe out. I feel the impulse to
go off on others and show others my irritability. I am so close to saying the
words. My hands shake. Breathe in, breathe out. I get lost in a book and
isolate. I am fighting back. In my head, the neurons are standing around in a
circle with a mischievous grin. They take turns on the trapeze. Only they like
to intentionally miss the transfer and enjoy falling to the net below and jump
up and down. The net is the medication I am now on to keep me from crashing to
the floor but my moods are jumping up and down, depressed every morning, back to
hypo-mania in the evening.
My will must be stronger than the jumping and I hold on to reality with all of
my strength. I act more stable than I know I am inside. Breathe in, breathe out.
Ten days ago (day before
suicide), I had a place to live in the dorms, I was on a high with hypo-mania, I
was caught up on all of my classes, I had the trust of others and therapy was
going fine. One day from now I have no where to live, banned from the dorms, I’m
crashing into a depression, classes I’m behind in resume, I face mistrust and
fear from others and therapy takes a few steps back. And I’m supposed to be more
stable now? Somehow that doesn’t seem quite right. I went into suicide with all
the confidence in the world and have come out a deflated balloon.
My memory flashes back to one moment nine days ago. I stand at the bookcase
holding my Lithium bottle. Haziness has already set in my mind from the other
pills. I know I’ve probably taken enough to kill me. Still, I hold the Lithium
bottle. If I take this I will seriously damage my body. If I take this I will
die. I feel a wave of nausea. I move my bookcase. I drop the Lithium. My death
leaves room for hope. I wanted to be dead, but if I lived though this I didn’t
want to substantially hurt my body. That small window of doubt was enough for me
to live.
In the present, now battling depression, my mind replays the Lithium moment. I
realize now that it is the fear of possibly waking up from a 2nd
suicide attempt and facing people again, that keeps me from trying it again. I
shake my head in amazement- knowing that it should be the will to live keeping
me from another attempt. Amazing what two days and a new mood can do for you.
Manic, my suicide was planned and delivered without prolonged ideation or
thoughts. Depressed my suicide was planned for weeks and not delivered because
they were only thoughts. NO one seems to understand this. They now worry about
my new low. I don’t’, realizing I won’t have enough energy to keep these dark
thoughts from slipping to someone. I hate the sedentary nature of depression and
scarcely use the word here. Almost everyone else is depressed. I don’t want to
be like them- whining and holding on to the sense of worthlessness. I do not
feel this bipolar depression as a unipolar person would. Depression does not
take my core, doesn’t let me ruminate on the past or relationships. Depression
takes my energy and taints only the way I view my past, present and future. My
depression pulls out its defenders against stability- irritability and
isolation. Only I can stand myself.
I close my eyes. Instantly I wish for my car. I want to just drive. Drive and
hear my music. That is freedom, I think. To be able to walk through these doors
to the world outside without needing permission. Climb in my car, hear the music
that drowns out the disordered thoughts in my mind with no time limit. And just
go anywhere. Feel the sun on my face and wind in my hear. Freedom. Freedom I
gave up when I decided to give up on my life.
One day soon I know I will have to deal with the decision to end my life. Not
the after effects, but how I felt now about almost dying. The moment I stopped
popping pills and decided to lie down and die and before I was found. As far as
I know that time period was less than a half hour. Thirty minutes of labored
breathing and increased heart rate. Thirty minutes to come to peace with my
decision. Thirty minutes to remain quiet and not ask for help. Thirty minutes of
a peacefulness I’ve never felt before. Thirty minutes of knowing I made the
right decision. Thirty minutes of harmony within my body and mind. It seemed so
right. I made the decision for myself, in my best interest. I gave validity to
my feeling that I was to live hard and fast and die young. To make a big splash
in this world and get out before I drowned. Was all of these feelings only the
mania/ Was there any truth to these feelings now? Or maybe these feelings only
come because I knew I couldn’t keep my blistering pace to one slower. I wanted a
sprint to the end, not a marathon. That was my personality, wasn’t it? Suicide
suddenly casts doubt on so much. Were those thirty minutes everything I feel
them to be? Or was it all just a few neurons mis-firing. I’d like to think I was
very in control. Though because of the result of my disorder I know there was no
way I was in complete control. I could have called someone or taken that therapy
session instead of all the pills. That was a choice. But the feelings then- they
were real.
Did I make the wrong decision? Instantly my mind blurts that letting the Lithium
go was my only wrong decision. A deep breath in and out and I also concede that
taking the pills were also the wrong decision. Depends on perspective. All of me
knows the pills were obviously a bad decision. But I cannot completely drown out
the voice that tells me it was the Lithium.
Will this be my un-doing? Will I get the crazy stamp back? Will I choose suicide
upon entering the real world? Or will I hold onto the fact that my life will
change dramatically in two months. Can I close down the option that my life
from 23 years old on will be phenomenal? Or believe the mood and believe that
this will continue to be my life despite a life change. Part of me says who
cares if there will always be Bipolar. There will always be the memories of the
past. Breathe in. Breathe out.
I whisper I can try. I can try to live with this disorder and be healthy. I can
take the gifts I’ve been blessed with and keep using them. I reach the children
with autism in ways few can. I die and all of my knowledge and experience die
with me. One child in particular rises in my care and leaving her would
jeopardize her future. Losing my life will jeopardize many of the children. My
brothers will lose the one person they receive complete unconditional love from.
Who knows if they will ever recover from such a loss. My trail blazing self
injury research will grind to a halt. Self injurers will lose their voice in
research for a while and the research will fall behind again, as will treatment.
My support group will lose the motor that’s kept it going. My group has often
been the beacon of hope they’ve been searching for. What message am I sending by
taking my own life? I’ve always lived what I preach. What if my death sets off
others?
I chose to live fast and hard. As a result, there are many in my care. I may be
replaced, but some things are not replaceable. While living, I cannot deny the
impact I do have on others. I know I need to live for myself, but if I can’t
reach that level, think of Julia or Colin. Their disorder keeps them locked in
their mind. I have brought both of them to a whole new level. They found their
way to this world and I help keep them there. It would never be fair to suddenly
take away their one life line to this world. Just because I get locked up in my
mind, I have a responsibility to keep them “here.” They put their trust in me
unlike anyone else. I can’t take that trust and trash it along with my life.
Colin and Julia deserve better than that. I can give that to them.
Lucky for me, my love for them is stronger than any depression. Now I must work
to be sure my love for them gets stronger than my mania.
