Starting in January, I began experiencing what I call “sinking spells.” What happens is I suddenly loose all energy, like a tire going flat or a balloon suddenly deflating. I have to lay down and sometimes sleep for a couple of hours. I’ve checked my blood pressure when these attacks occur and it’s a bit low. When I awaken, it’s good. My cardiologist has suggested having a defibrillator implanted in case my heart suddenly stops. That’s just NOT gonna happen.
Yesterday evening, around 11pm, it happened again. I wasn’t sleepy when this happened…..insomnia…..well I quickly passed out in bed (not the same thing as drifting off to sleep). When I finally woke up it was 230pm the next day. I had been “out” for about 15 hours. I wasn’t hungry and my energy level was still kind of low. I didn’t get out of bed until about 6pm. It’s now 2am. I’m starting to get a little sleepy. I had a light dinner of rice and fish.
So as those of you here who are familiar with my story remember, I have made the decision not to violently harm myself, as in not hanging myself or using a gun, slitting my wrists, etc. My preferred method has been jumping, ideally from the Golden Gate. But I no longer live in the Bay Area or anywhere in California. So I have decided, that when the time was right, to simply stop taking my heart meds and allowing nature to take its course.
I often ask God (yes, I believe, please don’t disrespect me – I wouldn’t do that to you), to take me peacefully in my sleep. I have felt eliminating the meds might speed that along. Now, it seems, it may happen without ceasing medical assistance.
Medical studies done with those who have attempted (as opposed to committed) suicide say the statistics show people don’t want to die, they want the pain to stop. I’m afraid I don’t fit into that statistic. I DO want to die. I’m in unending emotional, not physical, pain. Not being bi-polar or schizophrenic, I can’t trace my depression to that sort of mental illness. Mine is a result of side effects of the meds I have taken for the last 6 years, following heart failure and open heart surgery. The depression is one of the known side effects. My circumstances have changed radically. I can’t work. I am isolated and alone. I have no one in my life. Indeed, who would want me?
So perhaps God is saying “yes” to my prayer. I am ready. I’m calm. But still very lonely.
3 comments
Sorry to hear of your sinking spells. That’s weird. We all go through low energy periods, but not like you’ve described.
I have a theory on jumping and a scientist named Anthony Peake explains it better than I could.
My experience. I slipped on a patch of ice over the winter. Both my hands were in my pockets but my right hand was clutching my cell phone. As I began to fall time slowed to a crawl. The hand with my cell phone flew out of my pocket and my phone went flying across the pavement. A thought popped into my head that I needed to remember where that phone went so I could get it later. There was a car coming out of a garage and I wondered if the man inside was witnessing my fall. I remember my head being whip lashed towards the pavement and it was like I had to make a decision whether to let my head hit the pavement or brace myself. I had plenty of time to make this decision. The thing is … time slowed. What probably happened in a split second to an outsider watching me, for me it was a long time…seemed like minutes. So, my theory is if you jump from the Golden Gate or anywhere, you’ll never feel the impact. Time will slow to the point where you’ll either be separated from your body before you ever hit the water or as Anthony Peake thinks, time will slow to such a point you’ll just find yourself somewhere else. If I understand him. Check it out..if you have..time! www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=yrFiAfl_bl8 I put in (dot) where there should be a .
Randall, that’s a really interesting observation, and there have been a few discussions of that idea here in the past: the idea of time slowing to a virtual standstill at the moment of death. It makes sense that if your brain speeds up in a panic or adrenaline surge, your perception of time will slow (seeing your whole life flash before your eyes, etc). What worries me is the idea of time coming to a virtual standstill *while I’m still in this wretched state of mind*. Wouldn’t that translate into an eternity of hell? For that matter, the physical pain of death, whether it’s suffocation or bleeding or a heart attack, would also be drawn out for an “eternity”. And maybe that’s the scientific definition of hell?
Hey bayarea, didn’t mean to sidetrack your thread but maybe it makes sense to you. About stopping your meds as a means of suicide, well… it sounds like that would do it, especially if you’re experiencing those lapses you described. But despite your loneliness & pain, do you ever wonder why you’re still alive? Especially if you believe in God or any sort of grand cosmic scheme which you may or may not be a part of, do you ever stop & think “well I’m not dead yet, so I guess there’s more I can do”?
It reminds me of that show Quantum Leap back in the 80s, about a guy who leaps through time almost randomly, and in order for him to leap again he must accomplish some specific task. Sometimes he’ll accomplish what he *thinks* his task is, but he doesn’t leap. So he knows he has to keep trying something else until he does accomplish his task. Have you done yours, or could there be more?
Salt, those are good questions and counselors and therapists tell me the same thing when I ask “Why am I still here? With everything that happened to my heart, I should be dead.” – “You aren’t done with this life yet and there is something you are supposed to do.” Well, where’s the damn job description or email about this “task”or “mission” I still have to complete? I am too old for this shit.
I have, at least once a year, a dream about my best friend from high school, who died from leukemia when we were in our 20’s. He was the most popular guy in our circle and he was the only one in the group that we ask me to do things. Although there was a period in our senior year when he shunned and avoided me. In these dreams he suddenly comes home. He’s not dead but had to go away. He can’t tell me why this is all so and when he suddenly disappears again I wake up and just dissolve in tears. No one has been able to tell me what the dreams mean. His sister (who is MY sister’s best friend to this day) tells me Jim has message or a lesson I need to learn, but that I’m not ready to hear it, and that’s why he leaves again. She doesn’t know what the message/lesson is.
I don’t believe in hell in the traditional sense. I believe that what happens to my soul is what I choose to have happen. Hell, for me, would be an eternal limbo. I don’t believe in Heaven in the pearly gates sense. I believe that God will want me to acknowledge my faults and achieve true, compassionate sorrow for any harm I did on earth. My soul will not be complete or whole until I can achieve that level of peace. It can’t be done on earth, no one is perfect and everyone will, at some point in time, hurt someone else, damage someones peace. And we have to make some sort of reparation in the form of true humility of spirit before we can know true peace on the other side.
I’m very sensitive and take things too much to heart. I’ve always been a misfit and outsider, even within my own family. I’ve never had the charismatic personality my siblings have that allow them to draw people to them.
I’m tired, lonely and just want to go to sleep. This 15 hour nap was a bit unsettling but it really got me thinking that, perhaps, the end is not too far off and lies in the course of nature for me.
For the life of me, I can’t think of any altruistic or society benefiting reason why I should still be alive. I know one of the warning signs of suicidal ideation is feeling like a burden. I have felt that way for many years. A burden and quite useless.
Anyway…………..