So here it goes, bear with me on this one it’s long but revealing. Times may change as well as improve on awareness and education on topics, but we still fight, point, blame, argue, and more when things hit home. I’ll be honest, I fell into a statistic of suicide the instant things became a blur to me. I don’t to this day remember everything that happened and why it happened, I still only remember pieces, what everyone thinks of me, and how I was treated. Let me say, the hardest thing to deal with is not only losing yourself but also losing the trust and more in the people you thought that no matter what happened in your life, you believed would be there for you. Yes, after all of it happened I understood the reason people go back and try to finish what they started because I myself feel it too even this day and mine was not the story everyone assumed it to be. My life is not easy, it’s no fairy tale, no walk in the park, but it’s my life and I’m just now starting to get it back, small piece by small piece at a time. It started a long time ago, labeled as just the emotional one in the family, the girl every deemed as overreacting, and a self-deprecating person. Yet no one knew the emotional demon that was eating me alive from within and honestly I was unaware of it all and how to deal with it myself.
Going through life labeled is hard enough, but when you marry an abusive narcissistic man you don’t see it before you, and you want to fix it all believing between what everyone has always labeled you as and believing everything he told me I was. That was what I thought was the hardest thing to ever overcome in my life but I was wrong, my life was about to get worse and I had no clue what was about to happen. Eventually, after two kids and a divorce, I was diagnosed with my plethora of mental health issues as well as PTSD from the abuse I had gone through. I then had to go through a life of people refusing to understand or believe in mental health, that people actually live day to day with the hell mental health delivers on a daily basis. Before I found my passion fighting for what is right and writing about it, I was in a lifetime career I loved, I was a nurse. I loved helping others; I loved my job, and for the most part, loved the people I worked with along with those I got to help. To me, nothing could be more rewarding than what I was doing. Problem with life is there is always that massive curveball that gets thrown your way to make you doubt everything you have ever become. I fought to this point to try and manage my “illness’, I was on meds and doing therapy as well. For the most part, I felt leveled but still had fallen pretty big at times. Soon my work had become treacherous, I was unable to continue meds due to being told I was missing too much work to be able to continue therapy, so then I was missing appointments with my doctors and was unable to continue meds. Now, where it gets tricky is that even working in the health field you realize mental health is still a hush, uneducated, unaware, neglected, misjudged, and categorized area that I was eventually let go of my career I loved so much because I had to choose between my health and my job. In the time off I had my health fell even worse, a friend tried to commit suicide, and I couldn’t get out of this rut in my life to even surface and breathe. The state finally acknowledged my mental health as a disability and I was able to research, dive into a new career, and most of all become an activist for the most important thing I have ever fought for in my life.
The culmination of it all was where my own son tried to take his life. I called a mental health crisis line where they yes, put me on hold, and at 2am in the morning told me to wait until 8am to talk with my primary care doctor to get help. So for almost six hours I waited and prayed that my son wouldn’t go through with anything until I could get help. Finally, he was seen but the story wasn’t over, to this day it’s touch and go and I’m learning as a parent and human being that even suffering myself there are also other sides to the illness I hadn’t yet experienced until then. I’ve had friends try to commit suicide and even go through with it, seen person after person, celebrity after celebrity commit suicide, yet until my son, the person I love with all of my heart, would do anything for, was in so much pain he wanted it to end, I never understood the panic and need for help and awareness needed until then. Getting through that day didn’t end the worry or need to know and understand more, the ongoing need to educate and fight for the cause more, and it all hit me in the face like a brick. The pain didn’t sink fully and completely into my bones until I was happy and fulfilled thinking everything was fine once again. My best male friend, the one I stuck by through his attempted suicides, through the alcohol, through every up and down he experienced, as we became closer got down on one knee and in front of my very eyes proposed to me. I was shocked, I said yes, and held him close as my life became what I thought was going to become the most amazing future I always wanted but have never had. I started to tell my closest friends and waited to tell my parents I said yes as he wanted to ask my father for permission first. Soon, his best friend, as well as mine, was planning details to our wedding and even though my doubts and questions I followed blindly in love to everything we had. Soon enough I was pregnant with our daughter and even as the doctors told me it wasn’t about to happen, that we were going to lose her, I, and or both to labor, we had to start talking about options. We were both on edge and without this knowledge and as I waited to see if our daughter was going to make it I had stopped taking my meds to be able to give the both of us the best chance possible. During all of this, he was amazing as long as we didn’t talk about our daughter and just focused on the future and our plans for the upcoming wedding. We had a date, the location, and a general guest list created, yet in the back of my mind I had her name picked out and the idea of our daughter as our flower girl flitting through my mind every time we talked details. He didn’t want her and made it VERY clear it wasn’t an option and he wouldn’t live a life without me in it. Time went by and four months into the engagement and more together my belly was growing. Things were getting more intense as the day I thought I lost our daughter was just a few days before I lost everything in my life including everything I thought I was. A friend of mine found out about a girl in his life claiming to be his longtime girlfriend. I told him it was over, that I couldn’t grasp or acknowledge why he lied and used me. Soon he contacted me; he assured me that I was his one and only and always have been. He assured me he loved me and this woman was an ex that couldn’t let go and was crazy. I should trust him and blindly I did as I talked to him through immense tears and loss.
Yes, even with proof of lies sitting right in front of me I believed him, held my belly, and thought of our future together holding on to every amazing thought I had and the date of the approaching nuptials and our daughter on the way. It wasn’t over though; the demons he was hiding was just about to surface. His so-called crazy ex-was asked about their relationship and out of her own mouth, they were still happily together. As I approached him he then fought me and said I messed it all up, she was going to not only kill herself but he might as well as kill himself because he couldn’t live a life with the knowledge of her death on his conscious. So there I sat with our child growing and a ring on my finger as he was leaving me to be with someone he clearly never told me about and was hiding from me. I wasn’t about to let either of them die over something as stupid as a relationship or wedding and ended it. Not my life but ended the knowledge that what he said, everything promised, the I love you, and the proposal was just a joke from the minute he got down on one knee and asked for my hand. That night I was feeling sick, I knew it was a mix of nerves and more. I knew I needed to feel better and for the first time in almost three months started taking my meds and aspirin to get back to me. Soon enough I told him to be happy with her to not kill himself for me, that I would rather die than him as well as her ending it all over something, someone like me. Soon enough I was so tired, I fell asleep.
No, I don’t remember any feeling of wanting to die, yes I do remember telling him he was right taking the pills was a lot easier than I thought, but I knew how he would take it and without explanation all I did was take the pills I was missing since I found out I was pregnant, and let him assume what he wanted to. To my unknown knowledge not taking my meds forever since finding out I was pregnant and mixing it with meds you take over the counter when you’re sick caused a reaction and almost killed me. Thanks to a friend who found me, my life was saved and it was ruled as an accidental suicide so I was treated within twenty-four hours and sent home. I don’t ever to this day think my actions were right and I still pay for it every day with how people treat me, ruling and judging my “suicide attempt” as I tried to move on with my daily life. I didn’t know even through my own son’s attempts how others would make you pay for what happened or what they assumed happened making you prove everything that has ever happened in your life as if you were on trial. I lost many people in my own life including family, but it showed me who truly is there for me. Yes, my actions were wrong, and no, I didn’t want to die but now understand more than ever how when this happens to others how they go back and finish the job. After the act and to this day I think about it, I feel every time when the pain hits, I feel every moment when I get close to someone, I wonder if life would be better without me here. What keeps me fighting is not only my children, whom I love more than anything but those of you out there that I started fighting for since the beginning.
As time goes on I’m starting to see, feel, and experience a minuscule part all sides of the story of suicide. If you’re wondering, the ex-fiancé is still with the then-unknown girlfriend, and yes, I hope they are happy and have there ever after. I’m truly not a harsh person and still love him enough to know everyone no matter what deserves their happily ever after. Yes, I tried to get ahold of him, to get closure, to get explanations to his leaving me, our daughter, for someone I never even knew existed, but for almost four months now nothing and I’m ok with that. I’ve gone back to therapy, I’ve had to prove myself and everything that’s has happened to be real and not some crazy I made up. Yes, apparently if you suffer from mental illness and something tragic happens you find that to this day everyone is still unaware of what mental health means to those around you. The education on the topic is still so poor that if you are bipolar apparently you’re classified as some crazy liar and have to prove everything you have ever done; by the way, I have and let me tell you that even with some people it still makes no difference what so ever. Even with concrete proof in front of them, they still will only believe what they want because as much as they say they support mental health awareness, they themselves don’t even know how much they are contributing to the discrimination and judgment on the very topic that we all are fighting for awareness and education about.
It’s taking me a while to get back to me, to accept that in times I may feel very alone in everything, but I have to fight to be me even harder than I did before. Some of you may ask why, why to keep fighting when it seems to make no difference. The thing is my story doesn’t even scratch the surface of what most mental health patient’s experience. My story may just be the tip of the iceberg and my demons merely the Casper version to their demons, so, if I need to be the very person to stand up and scream for them because the pain they are experiencing is a pain I can’t even imagine, I know that’s where I need to be. We all need to fight for those who can’t. Yes, money helps, but it won’t help stop and end the stigma. The problem can only be attacked if we all take a stand and hand in hand fight for ourselves and those who can’t stand to fight for themselves. If we don’t take a stand and share our stories, who will remain to fight, who will pave the path for others to make their way? This is something we need to stand and make an end to the stigma. We need to promote education and awareness. We need to stop glorifying and making excuses. We need to stop pointing fingers, placing blame, and worst of all for those who survive, making them pay for your own questions and uneasiness and or waiting until after a death to fight for something that can be helped. There is a pain so unbearable it goes unseen, so misunderstood you think there will be a note for education and closure. The truth is those in pain, those who ended it all to soon, don’t know why, don’t understand themselves, and no there isn’t a trigger or reason why, there is only unrelenting pain and torment that the only relief they see and have an option for due to social stigma is death. Ending the stigma means so much more than throwing money and celebrities at it. It means empathy and putting aside your own preconceived notions of mental health and realizing there is no answer, no concrete reason why, and no one person is the same as the other. There are a billion stories, a billion people affected, and a billion ways you can help starting with the way you think.
Stand and fight with us, life sometimes fu**ing sucks, but together we can make a difference.
A.N.E 