Suicide is not always a choice made by what appears to be a relatively healthy person.  Sometimes it is brought on by side effects of medication, and other times it can be brought on my mental illness.  I think a lot of you survivors will be able to relate to my story.

I have severe anxiety, along with what we now know is major depressive disorder.  I was on the same medication to control my anxiety and depression for 15 years.  Then, like the snap of a finger, my medication stopped working. I was sick as could be from my anxiety, and I did not realize I was slowly slipping into a deep depression.  I made an appointment to see my primary care doctor, and he changed my anxiety medication.  It did not work. He changed it several times over the course of a couple of months. I kept getting worse and worse.

About a month into this process, I started seeing a wonderful psychologist.  I went to my weekly appointments, did the homework I was told to do, and still I was not getting better.  By that time we finally realized we were dealing with both anxiety and severe depression.  We decided that instead of my primary care physician taking care of my medications, I should start seeing a psychiatrist, so I did just that.  He changed my medications immediately and had me go for genetic testing from Genomind. The results came back, and we discovered I was on all the wrong medicines.  My medications were changed again. I continued to get worse. Then I woke up one day and literally felt the need to kill myself.  It did not come on gradually. It was more like a punch in the face. I instantaneously came up with a few plans on how to kill myself. The most prevalent one was by asphyxiation in my car in the garage.  I also thought of overdosing on my meds, driving my car off the side of the road, and slitting my wrists.  I was terrified, to say the least.

I knew it was not safe to stay by myself, so I called my mom to come and get me.  She was here within minutes since we only live a mile away from each other.  When she got here, I had my landline in one hand calling my psychologist, and my cell phone in the other hand calling my psychiatrist.  Whoever picked up first was going to be the one to deal with my suicidal thoughts.  My psychologist answered first and was wonderful. She made sure I was in a safe place, with safe people. She also relayed everything to my psychiatrist, and the two of them worked together.  My psychiatrist was on a plane coming home from Florida, and they were emailing and texting back and forth.  As soon as he landed, he called me from the car. He also scheduled me for an emergency appointment the following day and instructed me to stay with my parents.

The original plan to keep me alive while I was in my suicidal state was to hospitalize me.  There were no beds available in the two hospitals that serve my area.  I went to my emergency appointment with my psychiatrist, and he met my parents.  Once he saw us all together, he learned that my best placement was with my parents in their house.  I had to see either my psychiatrist or psychologist every day, Monday through Thursday, and I had to check in with my psychologist Friday through Sunday.  I was never to be alone. It was arduous, but everyone was on my team.

We were still having a problem finding the right combination of medications.  Some of them were causing freaky hallucinations.  My psychiatrist and I decided that the next best course of treatment for my major depressive disorder was transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).  TMS is a newer treatment that is used on treatment resistant major depressive disorder.  Along with my regular therapy, and medications, the TMS worked wonders. I gradually got out of that suicidal place, even though there were some highs and lows.  I remember I started superficially cutting my wrists at one point. My therapists worked with me through this, and I slowly kept getting better.  My medications were tweaked along the way, and I got stronger and stronger. The urge to commit suicide was eventually gone.  After months of living with my parents, I was finally able to go home, and I was elated! I had to make modifications to how I was doing things because I would have horrific nightmares and hallucinations.  For example, I had to park my car outside because every time I walked into my garage, I saw a hallucination of me hanging on a beam, dead.  Talk about scary stuff!

When I was in a suicidal state, I was absolutely terrified.  I knew 100% that I would hurt myself if I was left alone.  I was afraid to go to sleep because when I closed my eyes, I would see visions of myself dead in a coffin.  I had hallucinations of a dead girl staring at me, and of me hanging dead in my classroom.  It was the absolute worst part of my life ever. No one should have to go through that kind of suffering, where you suffer so badly that you want to die.  I was lucky though and had the right team around me.  Together, we got me to a healthy place. That is, until the suicidal thoughts came again about a year later. I wanted to commit suicide again, so I immediately called my psychiatrist. He tweaked my medications because some of them had side effects that could cause suicidal thoughts.  I went for biofeedback, but that only worked minimally for me.  I suggested going through TMS again, and the doctor agreed with me. It worked quickly, and so far, the results are sticking. My medical team watches me closely, and I know what signs to look out for too. We all know that I will probably have to go through this several more times in my life because of the major depressive disorder.  It stinks, but at least I have the right team around me.

My hope is that one day no one will have to suffer the horrors that I went through.  Mental health help should be available to everyone, and immediately upon the need for it.  Too many people have passed away due to a lack of help being available, and that is not right.