My Suicide Attempt

If you have fibromyalgia, then you can understand the pain, the never ending pain that stalks your life. The pain that comes at night, the pain that comes when your child tells you a joke and you are unable to laugh, the pain that comes when you see that your pain prevents you from an activity with your wife or son. When the pain first came, I didn’t know what it was. I thought that I had a cramp in my left shoulder which led to my neck. From the first time I felt the pain, to when it began to immobilize me, took only two months. At the two month point it was my son’s 3rd birthday. My wife is Hispanic so her and her family went out and spent over $1000 to have this party for my son.  There was a jump house, and my son kept calling for me to come and jump with him. It is so hard emotionally to hold back the tears when I had to keep telling him “No.” The pain distorted my face and my voice. In addition, the pain caused my left arm to be pulled up to my chest and my hand in a clawed position. My wife and I didn’t understand what was going on, we only knew that I was in pain. I spent two years going from doctor to doctor trying to figure out what was wrong. I remember the one doctor I hated the most. I was finally referred to the doctors that take care of the San Francisco 49er’s. These guys were supposed to know it all. They were the ones who were going to repair my injury. After numerous tests I finally got to go and get the doctor’s analysis. There were two doctors in the room. They were whispering back and forth, looking at the x-rays and MRI’s. The tension was building, as my wife and I kept looking at the doctors and looking back into each other’s eyes. Finally the one doctor came and he began talking to my wife. He totally ignored me. He told her that he could not see any damage and he couldn’t find anything wrong. He then began to talk about mental illness. My brain said, “Whoa, stop right there. There is nothing mentally wrong with my brain.” Right in front of me he stated that, “Some people make up illnesses in order to get attention.” His official diagnosis is that all the pain was a mental disorder. He suggested to my wife that I should get immediate help from a psychiatrist. My wife and I walked out to our car in silence. Even when we entered the car there was this heavy silence. I finally asked her if she thought that I was “crazy.” It took a few minutes before she answered with a “No.” We drove home with an uncomfortable silence between us.

The time period was Christmas. I had been in too much pain to even get out of the house to go Christmas shopping. At this point the pain was so intense that I could barely sleep at night. During the day I was locked in my bedroom. I would hear my wife tell my son to be quiet so that he wouldn’t disturb me. My fear was that my son would grow up and not even know his dad. I was fed up. I began looking at insurance companies, looking at what I could do to make sure my wife and son would be taken care of after I took my life. One night she caught me looking at insurance companies. She dragged me out of the room, screaming at me for what I was thinking. But I was determined to die. I just couldn’t take the pain anymore.

Well, this was the day. I was going to go see my 27th doctor, with hopes he could tell me what was wrong with me. I went up and saw him. He took me into his office, looked at the x-rays and other tests and he told me that there was nothing he could do. It took only five minutes in his office. I walked out to the car and finally said to myself that I had enough. No more tests, no more doctors, no more pills. As I headed home I felt like this big load had been lifted off my shoulders. Today was the day when the pain would leave me. I arrived back into my city, and began looking for a police officer. My idea was that I was going to die by having a police officer shoot me. This is called “Suicide by cop.” I was going to let the police officer use his gun to kill me. It didn’t take long, in fact, to find one. There was a cop who had pulled somebody over. All I had to do was to wait until he was finished and then call him over. I wrote a quick note to my wife, left all my pills on the front seat. He finally finished with the other person, so I called him over.  In my good hand I had a very small screw driver, in my other hand, which was useless, I placed a plastic paint scratcher. When the officer came out of his car I pulled out the screw driver and told him he had to shoot me. He ran behind his car, and I thought he had pulled his gun. Instead, he had pulled out his taser. He shot at me with his taser, but the barbs struck at a low point of my stomach. I was on so many pain meds, plus I was in so much pain that I didn’t even feel the jolt of electricity. I pulled out the wires and I said he had to shoot me with his gun. By that time two other officers had shown up. I could hear them yelling behind me. The second officer also shot his taser, this time the two barbs struck me in my lower back. Again, I didn’t feel anything. I heard an officer behind me yelling at me to put down my weapons in my hands or he would shoot. I told him to go ahead, and I wanted him to shoot me. This time someone shot me with a taser, and it struck close to my neck and the other barb was directly across the spine.  For the 3rd time I felt the electricity, and oh wow it put me down. There was no pain from the shot, just I lost all control of my muscles. The officers then came at me and jumped on me to place the cuffs. One of them placed his knee directly on my neck and shoulder that was hurting so bad. I wanted to scream but I didn’t know what the police would do. They placed the cuffs on me and then let me lay there on the ground. At this point I was in a lot of pain. My left arm was pulled behind me so that the cuffs could be placed. They finally picked me up and placed me in a car. They took me to our town’s tiny jail to book me in. They then took me to the hospital to see if there was anything medically wrong with me from the arrest. The officer took me to the hospital and I was immediately placed into a room. A nurse came in and saw the barbs in my skin. She asked the police officer how to remove the barbs, and he told her to get some pliers. The nurse removed my shirt and she took her pliers and pulled at the barbs. Every time she pulled she would say “Sorry.”  The first one came out and they look exactly like a miniature fishing hook. She then pulled out all the other barbs and then had to place band-aids on all the holes. So, now I was ready to be placed in jail. It was a 45 minute ride.  When I arrived at the jail, a different officer  booked me in and had my picture taken. The jailers had me remove all my clothing. I was placed naked into “a rubber room.” There was a hole in the ground where one could go to the bathroom. I had to stay in the rubber room until I was finally bailed out by my wife.  Upon arrival home, I was embarrassed and shocked to see my name and picture in the newspaper detailing all the accounts of the arrest.  I was thankful for my wife for her support.  Everything I go though she goes though as well.  Due to the pain I attempted suicide another time, but that story can wait for another time.