In early 2009 I started dealing with severe recurrent depression, even though I was undiagnosed at the time. Â I’m sure many of you know what that feels like. Â I felt like my life had no point, none of my classes were interesting, I didn’t want to hang out with my friends, and I just hated everything and everyone, especially myself. Â All of these emotions just kept building up until I couldn’t deal with it anymore. Â In September of that year I tried to overdose on sleeping pills. Â I calculated what the lethal dose for someone my size would be, and took that plus a few extra just to be sure. Â Waking up the next morning was the worst feeling of my life. Â I had work, and a psychiatrist appointment (who had no idea anything was wrong with me, my parents just insisted I go see him and talk every week). Â I decided to try something a little more certain: Â opening my carotid artery.
I have no idea what prompted my actions that night, but I ended up posting on 4chan about my decision, my depression, whatever. Â Some of them seemed to care, and I had spent a lot of time there over the prior year, so I figured might as well have my last moments with them. Â I posted my email accounts, my Facebook account information, everything. Â It wasn’t as if I would need it anymore. Â Why not let them have some fun?
Soon after that, police showed up at my door. Â Apparently someone from 4chan had looked up my information, called the cops and told them about what I was doing. Â So I was handcuffed, put in the back of a cop car, and taken to a nearby psychiatric hospital where I was treated for 22 days, diagnosed, and put on an anti-depressant (Celexa, an SSRI). Â I won’t say my stay at the psych ward was pleasant, but it was certainly interesting. Â Most kids (I was 16 at the time, so was in the under-18 section) stayed for 6-10 days. Â I spent the first 10 days with the label “Close Observation Case,” meaning I had to have an orderly within 10 feet of me 24/7.
Anyways, long story short, I got “better” and was released from the psych ward. Â My return to school and normal life went pretty well, I remade friends, and life was better. Â I finished high school and went to college. Â Recently, though, my depression has come back. Â It’s like my anti-depressants stopped working (or they gave up on me like so many other people have). Â The haze of depression has returned to my life, and even though I’ve done years of therapy by this point, none of it seems to matter.
I’m back on the edge, and I’m back to this site.
3 comments
Depression is a nasty beast. It cuts your legs out just when you’re getting your stride. It comes back every time you think things are okay. The scary thing is that, unless you have extreme circumstances beyond your control that are making your life terrible, often depression isn’t even tied to any one thing going on outside of you. So when you feel great, things are the way they are, when you feel like slitting your wrist, often things are the same way as they were when you were feeling great but you just can’t see through it.
I’ve been through over and over again what you’re in right now. I’m there and back again on a weekly sometimes daily basis. I am lucky that I’m crazy and that the voice in my head screams at me to get up off the floor and keep going when I’ve given up.
One thing that really helps me is getting to the woods regularly. I’m also lucky in that I live very close to a wooded area, but if you can get to a park or wooded area, maybe a stream or something, start going as often as you can. Walking helps but seeing life as life is meant to be helps more. We aren’t meant to be stuck in little boxes by ourselves. Make yourself one with the world and you’ll never truly be alone.
If your medicine stops working you should get the dosage checked or a different medication. Its hard to keep going, but its obvious your time on earth here is meant to continue on. Its not very common when someone online actually decides to make the phone call to the suicide hotline. There are people who care.
You have been dealing with depression for a long time, so you know it definitely positively feels like it is going to stay this bad forever, but it doesn’t. It changes. So, yeah, you already know it does get better, but the total pisser about it getting better is that it doesn’t stay better, so when you (we) are in the suicide trench and considering aiming for the carotid artery, it is at a moment in time that will change. It won’t feel like that forever. It may change in an hour or a day or a few days, but it will change. My only advice is to try to get as comfortable as you can and take as good care of yourself as you until it gets better, even if it simply means pulling the covers over your head and sleeping through it. I am really sorry you are going through this really low place again – it bites, I know. I have been reading this site off and on for years, but this is the first time I have posted a message. I hope you write back and let us know how you are doing.