DESPAIR

In a fleeting glance I look normal. I have two great kids under 7. I volunteer at school, teach a after school art class, president of PTA. I cook wholesome and tasty meals, bread and cookies to die for. My husband is a physics professor and we have been married 10 years.
I scrapbook, write, read and jog/bike. I meditate and do yoga. Until three months ago I also worked 3 jobs, most at night when kids were asleep or at school so I could be home with the kids. I did play dates, taught my children French and sign language.
Then one night I came home from work and took and exact amount t of beta blockers then waited for death. I knew it would come, because I had worked as a emt before. I had seen people die from 5. I took enough to kill 6 people, though it was overkill, if you will pardon the expression. It was the perfect poison. Could not be used to get any kind of high so not regulated, and very, very lethal if taken in large dose. It slows your heart rate, take enough and it will stop it. You feel nauseous, sweaty, maybe dizzy, then you pass out. Your heart rate conti ues to drop as you are unconscious till you arrest. Then you die. There are only two medications that might counter it, they almost always fail. It was foolproof,  so I thought. I had debated everything beforehand,  had rationaled and reasonbed. Had made very sure that I was committed, as I said, there was no room for second thoughts. Once it was taken that was it. There was no inner struggle, no cry for help. I never told anyone I was having problems, that is not who I am. I came home, counted out the amount I had previously calculated, and laid them on the burgandy sheet on the bed. I looked at them for a few moments, I tried to think about my life, husband, my precious children. I felt nothing, so I took the pills. I lay down and prepared to die. I felt very calm, relieved in fact. In a little time I would be no more. The thought was strange, but not uncomfortable, again, I felt unspeakable relief that the internal misery was over. There was nothing left to worry about. As strange as it sounds, it was exilerating in its release.

And so i waited. I grew warm, then hot. I began to feel very odd. A loud ringing came in my ears. I lay in bed and waited, exulting in the fact I was at last escaping the torment. I waited… I began to sweat… I waited… and then began to have halucination. I knew they were halucinations, I could focus on them and make them go away till another took its place. I began to feel puzzled, I had never seen anyone have these with a bb  overdose. They passed out then died.  And so i waited, I began to feel a tingling in my extremities, it became hard to breathe, I knew this was the end and waited for my mind to go blank, for my personhood to dissolve. I began to vaugely wonder why I was still able to reason this out. Then the convulsions started, involuntarily my legs and arm muscles began to act independently from my desire, my body arched back painfully, my neck muscles straining and pulling. I knew these were my last moments. I began to recite my ssn, I thought that when I no longer could remember it I would die.

I spent hours this way, slowly I realized I would not die. I raged at the cruelty of a life that denied me peace.

I was eventually at the hospital after my husband found what I had done. The muscle pain from the convulsions was indescribable.

I was removed to a regional hospital 4 hrs away.

I was there for 18 days.

My social worker was a warm person, she told me at our first meeting that she had a very good intuition of when someone was going to try again and I was one of the ones who scared her. I remember being puzzled, I had not raised my voice in weeks, I did not see how I could make her frightened.

I took the medicine, went to groups, never made myself conspicuous in any way. I was a zombie, waiting to get out to complete what I had started.
My husband began to call incessantly, bugging the nurses about when I was to be released. They nicknamed him “Angry Man”.
He became angry at me being there, he told me that I was the one who should be caring for the kids and cleaning, it was my job, the reason he married me and I needed to get better quickly so i could return home.
At last I was released, though I told the Dr I still felt the same. Nothing had changed except I was now on 5 meds.
I went home. I had a sliver of hope that I would be able to function again. I went to see Dr May who had been scheduled by my social worker. It was a hours drive, a half tank of gas. My husband stated truthfully that I had a choice between feeding the kids and getting therapy. I only went once more.
I dutifully went to psychiatric Dr, it turned out to be a PA who saw me for 7 min and took my off two meds cold turkey. I told him I thought they worked… He did not listen. I told him the ones I did not work at all, he doubled them. We were billed 400 and I began the process of going cold turkey off depression meds. I felt as if i was going crazy, it physically hurt. I just wanted myself to function again without the migraines, the ringing ears, nausea, extreme sweating, feeling as if i were out of control, the panic that sent me to the floor shaking, there was more, but the most noticeable one was the creeping despair. I stopped feeling again. I stopped raging at the PA who sent me into the tailspin. I dully accepted it when I opened up and told husband I needed help and he replied we had no gas to drive me to a Dr, that I had to put the thought of going to hospital out of my mind because there was no one to care for children. That it would destroy us as a family if i went in patient. He did not know how hard it was to ask him for help.

I feel frustrated and helpless. And angry. At least I can still feel these things sometime.
I have struggled with depression since I was 15, but always thought that I would be able to beat it if i tried hard enough. I tried, and tried, and sometimes I would make some progress. I was always mostly able to hide my dark secret, there were times that I could not get out of the house. Days I went with without sleep, I thought it was normal to get 2-3 hours of sleep, I would get up and garden at 5 and, I would stay up late and clean or read. It was just the way things were.
I got married at 26 had first child at 28, then my father died from cancer a month before my daughter was born, we had to pick up and move to Oklahoma, land of no mental health help. My depression and anxiety got worse.
Now I have another and better plan, one that can not go wrong, sometimes when it gets too hard I will go over it in my mind, 180 seconds, that’s all it would take.
Once formulated it becomes easy to carry it out, I know I want to die. I know I am sick. But there seems to be no help for me, I wanted to get better, I did, I never missed my medicine, I tried to take care of my family, but now… two weeks after PA I am filled with despair. If i called they would say come in, it is hours away and we have no gas money. I told husband and he told me to get through it as best I could. So all I am left with is 180 seconds.

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