Beginning of the end or End of the beginning?

My suicidal struggle story started when I was just a kid. My mom, a single mother of two kids, and my brother, a young man ripped from his childhood by a drug addiction that started before he was 15, both struggled with mental health issues. When I was a little girl, I used to lay in bed and pray that God would let me sleep forever and never have to wake up. Even at such a young age, I knew that my journey through life would not be an easy one.

Coming into my teenage years, I was overcome with demons left from years of physical and mental abuse as a child. My first trip to the suicide ward came when I was in eighth grade. I was terrified of what was to come and furious at the world. I had uncontrolable anger problems and was constantly plagued with suicidal thoughts.  The struggle continued into my highschool years, when I came out as a lesbian to everyone at my terribly biased and unaccepting school. I was readmitted into the suicide ward my sophmore year, and again in my junior year. Each time I would leave there feeling as though I had conquered the problem and could lead a normal life. And each time I was wrong.

I left public school after the stay my junior year. I started at an alternative school, and things seemed to be getting better. For the first time, I met a guy that I really fell in love with. I had dated men before when I was younger and going through my “experimental” stage, but I always knew that in my heart it wasn’t right for me. But this guy was different, which in reality only caused more depressions for me because I felt so confused about who I was as a person. For years I had openly expressed that I would never love someone of the opposite gender. I had been in several relationships with females that lasted over a year. But this guy seemed so amazing. I would soon find out that it was too good to be true.

About 3 months into the relationship, the boyfriend became mentally, and eventually physically, abusive. I was more lost than I had ever been. I am an extremely independent, outspoken young woman, yet here I was letting someone abuse and control me. I felt as though I had ended up with someone who was exactly like the person that had beat me as a child. I was terrified, but when I would try to leave him, the abuse and brainwashing would get worse. I would end up feeling like the problem was me, not him, so I would stay.

Eventually I came to my breaking point. I knew I couldn’t take any more and I felt as though I had no where left to turn. September 1, 2008, I made the only choice I felt I had left. I kissed my parents goodnight, called the boyfriend to say I love you, and then took over 400 pills. I had decided that if I was going to do this, I was going to make sure I would never have to face anyone afterwards. When my parents found me the next morning, I was clinically dead. The EMTs worked on me for 45 minutes before they finally got me intubated and “alive”. The doctor at the emergency room immediately told my mom to call in all the family. He said I would either not make it, or I would be a vegetable for the rest of my life. I was in a coma on life support for five days and everyone had already said their goodbyes. But someone out there knew that it wasn’t my time to die. I still had too much living to do.

Five days after the whole thing started, I woke up out of a coma that medically should’ve ended my life. The doctors had no explanation and still call me their “miracle patient”. I had to re-learn how to talk, feed myself, walk, and pretty much function as an adult all over again. At 18 years old I was doing what I had done as a toddler. It was a long, hard struggle, but I made it. Now, I’m not one to talk religion, and I believe everyone has the right to have their own faiths, but there was a higher power out there somewhere that pulled me out of death’s grips. People say everything happens for a reason, and I’m walking, talking proof.

I sit here 7 months later a totally independent adult. I graduate high school next month and will be attending college for political science and gender studies in the fall. I live on my own and pay my own bills and make my own decisions. I’m proof that you guys can make it. I know more than 90% of people out there what it’s like to feel like you cannot go on one more minute. I have been through abuse, eating disorders, discrimination, self-mutilating . . I know what it’s like to lay in bed at night and feel so angry, so hurt, so lost that you absolutely know that if you don’t end your life, the pain you feel will. But you CAN MAKE IT. I still, and I believe always will, struggle with day to day life. But I have been to hell and back and I’m still here, so I know from the bottom of my heart I will survive.

Let me tell you all something. I had to wake up after my overdose and look people in the eyes. I had to look my parents in the eyes after they found their daughter’s cold dead body in the floor. I had to look my friends in the eyes after they all got calls and texts to get to the hospital now because I was dying. I had to look my family in the eyes after they traveled 3 and a half hours to get there before I passed away. That guilt is so overwhelming I cannot begin to explain it. But you know what? Not one person EVER made me feel bad for my decision. None of them were angry. They were so overwhelmed with relief that they could care less. I know you think no one would care if you were gone. So did I. But I was fortunate enough to make it through so that I could see all the pain I would have caused.

When I made the decision to end my life, I looked at it as the beginning of the end for me. Now, as a survivor against all odds, I know that it was the end of the beginning. That chapter of my life is over, and I will move forward with hope and tools for coping. All of you can do the same.

If it makes a difference to any of you, I CARE if you live or if you die. Please don’t put your loved ones through that kind of pain. There are ways to cope, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. Your feelings ARE valid. The pain IS real. But there are ways for each and every one of us to get through the tough times. You just have to find the right ones for you.

I’m sorry this is so long. If anyone has any questions or comments, please feel free to respond. I wish everyone the best of luck with anything that lies ahead.