The idea for this came to me on a day where the mood was swirling and there was no justification as to why the tears were forming in my eyes. Some would argue the fact I was up until almost 6 a.m. reading and was probably tired could be a determining factor however, I would argue the fact that isn’t the case. Staying up with my nose buried in a book with nothing more than the glow of a little light has a calming effect. For me it is a symbol of my daily struggle with depression and trying to find that little piece of light in a world at times that feels incredibly dark. Reading throws me into another world for just a few minutes and gives me enough time to let my brain calm itself and to let me feel as if I can finally breathe.
I wake up every day with this incredible weight on my shoulders and most days it is incredibly overwhelming to calm myself down enough to drag my ass out of bed and carry on as I did the day before. There was a time years ago when I wouldn't even try to get up and would spend hours just lying in my bed staring at the ceiling or out the window in a constant state of chatter with the voices in my head. My husband and my kids would come in and try to encourage me to join them for a walk or to just leave me room and join them for anything and I would find every excuse under the sun to avoid their requests. I resorted to lies about pain which I did have, but it wasn’t debilitating enough to do the things they wanted me to do. I just wanted to stay where I was and avoid everything and everyone.
I spent so much time living in my head that I missed the life swirling around me. There are gaps in my children’s lives when I look back as if in a fog. I know I was there, but it was almost as if someone was looking at what was going on through a great distance. Some days these memories overwhelm me with a state of shame and sadness because I let the darkness take me away from them.
I remember looking at them when my son was almost seven and my daughter was five and they were sitting on my lap and suddenly it hit me how big they had gotten and I couldn’t even remember when it had happened. I remember holding them and commenting on how big they were and then hit with this overwhelming sense of sadness because while my depression was pulling me away from them, they continued to grow and flourish without me. The world didn’t stop just because I couldn’t picture myself in it. My family carried on and it ripped my heart out to know that the voices in my head that were telling me that I didn’t matter, that I didn’t make a difference to anyone’s life were right. I struggled with these thoughts and feelings every day, and in the beginning I could rationalize with myself as to why this thought process was wrong, but as the voices grew stronger I started to join in with the chanting and began to give up on myself and the light I fought so hard to protect.
I was not happy with anything. I had two beautiful children and had married my high school sweetheart but that wasn’t enough. Nothing ever felt like it was enough. Yes our life was a bit of a struggle having been teen parents at the ages of 17 and 18 but we made it work and there was a time where I believed our love could withstand everything and couldn’t imagine anything ripping us apart. Looking back on all that now, I have a sense to slap my younger self and to give her a crash helmet for what was peaking up along the horizon. While in my heart I never doubted that he loved me (even to this day that is something I have never doubted) but I would push him away to protect myself. No one ever told me that giving yourself over completely to someone made you more vulnerable than you could ever imagine. He was the only person who knew how to break me and he didn’t understand that with a simple word, a look, or a gesture he could crash my sense of security and the love haze reality I kept myself in. This man was my world and he was my everything.
For so long I stood in the shadows encouraging him to grow and develop into the man I knew he was capable of being. I took care of the kids and continued to support him emotionally as he chased whatever venture he needed to chase to find his sense of self. I would offer words of encouragement when he needed it and hold him when things weren’t going as he wanted them to go. Somewhere along the way I gave up on myself and stopped fighting for me. I envied his spirit and drive. While he enrolled himself into university on a quest to better himself, I continued to take care of the kids silently fuming that it was my turn to go to college but I would wait, he needed this, we needed this. I suppose if I had spoken up then and stood up for myself then maybe I wouldn’t have begun to spiral into the circling darkness. If I was being truthful with myself, even back then, I would realize that the darkness had already begun to creep in around me at the age of thirteen when I sat on my parents over sized beige love seat looking out the bay window watching life go by as I sat there crying for no particular reason. I blamed hormones and PMS but I realize that was the first sign that depression had its eye on me and what happened from there on was going to make things rather difficult.
I never felt like I fit in with my friends or my family. I never felt like I was living up to the full potential that I knew in my heart that I had. I would beat myself up constantly for not being like my honour roll sister and honestly believed if I could achieve the grades and awards that she got then maybe my parents would shower me with the attention that she constantly demanded and received. It’s hard to live with a personality that large when you spend so much time living in your head putting yourself down.
My mother went out of her way to make birthdays and holidays special for all of us. She made everything from scratch and I could remember coming down in the morning to see that she had been up all night to make sure that everything was just perfect for us. I feel stupid and selfish any time I get angry and resent her for not giving me the same attention my younger sister received. I never felt like my birthday was its own despite the fact that Mom made a huge effort to make sure it was my day. My sister and I are a year and a day apart and in true younger sibling form, the excitement for her upcoming birthday shadowed my special day.
To say I hate my birthday is an understatement. To say I enjoy any holiday is a joke.
I hate Christmas for all the years I tried to replicate the perfection that mom created for us and failing horribly at it. I never realized what a thankless job it was and it ripped my heart out to envision that she probably felt as sad and hollow as I did when all your efforts went unnoticed. Never once did I ever see tears in her eyes as we ripped apart the hours of wrapping she did nor did I see her with an emotional sigh when we only offered a simple thank you for everything as we headed back to our homes with the carefully thought out packages in our arms. She never asked for anything but gave everything she had to make sure everything was perfect. All she ever wanted in life was to be a mother and to let her children know that she would go down fighting for them with everything she had even if that meant sacrificing herself in the process.
I always tried to emulate the mother she was to us but failed horribly at it. It is hard to give yourself selflessly when depression is the most selfish thing someone can experience. While I loved my kids more than anything (with the exception of their father), I struggled to show them. I am not a huggy person and consider myself very guarded when it comes to showing people how I feel about them (my husband once again being the exception).
When they were little I would kiss and cuddle them and do all the things a mother does, but when it came to telling them I loved them, I struggled. It’s not that I didn’t love my children, because I did with everything I had, I just felt awkward saying the words. They gave me their love and adoration without hesitation and I began to withdraw as they got bigger. When they were babies or toddlers, cuddling them felt natural because they were always attached to me. As they grew up I started to keep them at arms distance. I would hug them but only for a certain amount of time. I would almost count in my head until my uncomfortableness got the better of me and then I would pat them on their head and send them on their way. I honestly believe this is why my daughter has struggles with relating to her peers and chooses to hang out with us and her grandparents. Somewhere inside I wonder if she seeks the company of adults to get the love and adoration I struggled to give her. I was the opposite as a kid and avoided affection like the plague. I think this is why she and I fight so much however as different as we are, I think in the end we’re both seeking the same emotional connection with someone. Everyone wants to have a sense of worth in a world that tells you you’re never good enough.
Suffering from depression magnifies this sense of worthlessness to the point that you honestly believe the world wouldn’t even notice if you ceased to exist. When I get these thoughts and voice them to my spouse he feebly tries to point out all the lives I impact on a daily basis. Other than my immediate family and circle of friends, I cannot see what he is talking about. I find it hard to believe that I have any impact on anyone.
In the spring/summer of 2007 my depression had hit its worst low ever. There were a lot of outside factors that added to the internal struggle. My marriage was in serious trouble as I continued to talk to a man I met online almost two years earlier. I knew I didn’t love this stranger. Hell in the entire time we spoke we had only spent 8 days together and we barely knew each other however he gave me the emotional connection to another person that I desperately craved and begged my spouse for throughout the years we had been together. My husband, being my partner and best friend, didn’t want to lose me and went above and beyond what was required of any spouse. He was the shoulder I cried on when the other man was jerking me around emotionally. He was the one to take me out to cheer me up when I found out the other guy was marrying an ex who showed up on his doorstep with his three month old daughter. He picked up me up off the floor more times than I could count and spent years running home from work in the middle of the day to rush me to the emergency room when I decided I couldn’t live like this anymore and made attempts to end my life. As I look back now I can admit they weren’t serious attempts as I was scared at the thought of actually leaving my kids but just wanted the pain and emotional suffering to end.
When I started cutting (relatively early into the depression) I realized that during those quiet moments when the voices pushed me and encouraged me to “push the exit button” that I could teeter along the edge of life and death. I could obtain the sting of relief from the slash of sharp metal against flesh knowing that if I was to push a little deeper I could bleed out and finally be free of the darkness. I held the cards for once in my life and the freedom I felt every time I slashed at my skin became quickly addictive.
I wore those slashes with a sense of pride and shame. I didn’t go out of my way to hide what I was doing. I wanted people to see the pain I was in I just didn’t want to discuss it because I knew that anyone not going through it wouldn’t understand. When the scars would heal and fade I would feel panicked and work myself up into an emotional state to reopen my faded emotions. Even to this day I get a sense of sadness to see that the scars aren’t as pronounced as they once were. There are days though when I am blinded by the white lines and feel the emotional reminder of the state of mind I was in when I made them. Each mark was done with care and purpose. Each location on my body was done with the utmost thought and consideration. I wear these scars with a sense of pride and shame. They reflect the marred feelings the darkness leaves you with. You feel as if your emotions are shredded and the relief that comes with the pain caused by your own hand is a craving I don’t think I will ever get rid of.
It has been six years since I last cut and I still struggle daily with the desire to puncture my skin. There are times when the emotions are their strongest when all I can hear in my ears is the sound of scraping flesh and can feel the ghostly sting on my wrists as I absently slash away my pain. As far as I have come since the darkest days of depression, I still crave the need to teeter that line between life and death. People say that suicide is a coward’s way out but that is a complete lie. I can honestly say that when you have decided to give it all up and end your light it is anything but a cowardly decision. It was one of the hardest and strongest decisions I had ever made. I did not go into it lightly and was determined to make sure my decision could not be taken back.
On August 27th, 2007 (one day after my mother’s 51st birthday) I had truly given up and there was nothing in this world that was going to stop me from finally taking my life and leaving everything behind. I had been an emotional wreck since the other guy married his ex the previous month and the two of us were no longer speaking. While the relationship hadn’t technically ended, we hadn’t spoken for weeks and I still clung to the fact that maybe he would wise up and realize what an amazing person I was and come back to me and leave her and his child once and for all. These thoughts were completely irrational considering I wasn’t willing to leave my husband the entire time this “relationship” went on. I spent endless months up until that point questioning what I did wrong to lose another person I had given my heart to. I truly couldn’t see that the other man was the only person I had lost and that regardless of how much I pushed my spouse away during this online affair, he continued to stand by my side and did everything within his power to fight for me. I was livid with the fact that the only time he wanted to fight for me, to fight for us, was when he thought he was going to lose me forever.
I can still remember my husband showing up at the university one day early into the affair while I was on a break and he took me for a walk in the woods behind the visual arts building and pulled me along the trail to the river. It was a crisp fall day and the colourful leaves were falling around us and he looked at me with tears in his eyes and pulled my engagement ring from his pocket. I had stopped wearing it and only kept my band on because despite everything, we were still married and I didn’t feel whole when that simple piece of gold was away from my finger. He took my hand and took an emotionally driven deep breath and told me that he loved me more than anything in this world. That the thought of losing me scared the shit out of him and he wanted nothing more than to marry me all over again and to prove to me how important I truly was to him. He told me I was his heart and the thought of losing me was ripping him apart. He apologized for neglecting me. He apologized for everything I screamed at him when we argued. He just wanted me and he was willing to fight for me and fight for us.
As he pressed the cool metal of my engagement ring to my ring finger he tearfully asked me to marry him again. To be his and he would in return pledge his heart and never ending love. He just wanted me to give him another chance. The darkness made me selfish. I choked back tears and told him I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do and I was hurt and confused.
He slide the ring down my finger and kissed my hand and told me he loved me and as I watched the tears slide down his cheeks I felt like an asshole for watching the pain I was causing him. Despite everything he was the love of my life and that is all I ever wanted and yet I kept him at arm’s length to protect myself from further pain. There was no room in the darkness for this little piece of light.
He gently pulled me into his arms as I reluctantly let him and then he carefully kissed my lips and whispered how much he loved me. I felt his tears against my skin and tried not to let it affect me but inside I was dying. I caused his pain. I tried so hard for so long to make sure nothing and no one would ever hurt him and here I was ripping his heart out when I spent so long trying to guard and protect it. I was a bitch. A cold heartless bitch and despite the fact that I resented him and kept pushing him away, he never stopped fighting for me.
I cannot thank him enough for being the one and only person to fight hard to save my life when he walked into our bedroom on that hot summer day when he found me in our bedroom, on our bed teetering on that line between life and death.
I had decided that I was done.
There wasn’t any fight left in me and I was tired. I had been up in our bedroom for most of the day and I can’t even remember what I did that entire time. I honestly think I just laid there staring at this bird on a branch outside of our bedroom window trying to rationalize what was going on in my head.
I still hadn’t heard from the other guy and fought the urge to read his blog or go online and find out anything I could about what he had been up to since the last time we spoke. I knew him and his ex girlfriend had gotten married two days after my birthday. That destroyed me. I constantly wondered if he thought of me or if he felt anything about how he destroyed me and how he snuffed out any spark of light that I had, even if there wasn’t anything left anymore. I know my mind was swirling with endless emotions and felt completely out of control and disconnected to everything around me.
I can say with certainty I have no idea where my kids were during all this. I think my husband was in the basement on the computer as that is where he usually was. I knew the kids were okay because he would take care of them since that is what he had done for months while I wallowed in the pit and struggled to join them on the rare days that I had my emotions in check.
After fighting the urge to cyber stock him, I gave in and went downstairs and logged on. I went to his blog, read something about him and his new wife having sex in a shower and felt my entire world crash around me. He wasn’t thinking about me. He wasn’t feeling the pain and despair that I was feeling. He had no idea the life he destroyed and the chaos he caused with my family, nor did he seem to care.
Something inside of me snapped.
I felt every emotion in me explode and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I felt hysterical and quietly logged off the computer and went back up to our bedroom to let the emotions over take me. Once in our room I paced back and forth trying to catch my breath. I became hysterical and nothing made sense. So many emotions bombarded me and somewhere amongst the chaos I decided I was done. I couldn’t face another day.
I remember crying to my cat (who is my little fur baby) and I told her to take care of everyone. I could barely catch my breath as I petted her head and whispered to her that I was done and couldn’t do this anymore. She meowed at me as if to plead me to reconsider but I didn’t regard it as anything at the time.
Taking a deep breath I quietly went downstairs and tried to compose myself on the stairs as I entered the main floor. I didn’t want to draw any attention to what I intended to do. I saw the kids were outside and my spouse was downstairs. I went to the cupboard where my meds were and grabbed a full bottle of antidepressants and another bottle of something else (I think it was a mood stabilizer, which seems ironic now) and then went into the fridge and grabbed a one litre bottle of white wine (which was about three quarters full) and headed quietly up to our room. I kind of remember my husband calling up from downstairs at one point asking if I was okay and my body shook as I quietly grabbed the bottles of pills and lied to him and said I was fine. My inner voice was screaming “NO” but the darkness quickly silenced it as I headed back up the stairs to finally end this pain.
In our bedroom I quietly closed the door and began to cry harder. I know there were voices in my head pleading with me not to do this but I had already made up my mind and I was done. I had decided to down both the bottles of pills with all of the wine and then I was going to slit both my wrists and hang myself off the head board. I was determined to get this right. I did not want to fail.
As I popped the lid off the first bottle of pills I sat there shaking. The cat cuddled up next to me and kept hitting my hand with her paw pleading with me to stop. I began to cry even harder as I told her I loved her and begged her to watch out for everyone. She kept pawing me harder as I took a deep breath and tipped the first bottle of pills down my throat. My heart was pounding hard as I realized there was no turning back and I had to finish what I started.
I chugged wine and swallowed the first bottle of pills down in two gulps. I leaned back on my pillows and took a deep breath as I grabbed the second bottle and popped the top. It was half full but I was sure the fact that the first bottle was nearly full and everything else I had planned that I wouldn’t fuck this up and soon I would finally get some peace and quiet from the inner voices and would be free from the darkness. I downed the last bottle of pills in one gulp and drank down as much wine as I could.
Leaning back on my pillows I sat there crying and feeling pretty numb. I waited to feel the effects of my actions. I think the wine started kicking in long before the pills as I started to calm a bit more when I grabbed something sharp and stared at my wrists. I don’t even remembered what I used. Normally when I cut I used safety pins and would work the lines over and over, pushing deeper and deeper. This time, I don’t know what I used. I know I slit up my arm starting at my wrist and following the vein up 2 or three inches. The left wrist was deep. When I got to the right one the sense of calm you get from booze was kicking into high gear. I slit the right one about an inch, inch and a half and then slid down my pillows with my wrists at my sides and waited. I remembered about wanting to tie a scarf around my neck and hand off the head board but the effects of everything were taking effect and I didn’t bother. I wasn’t bleeding as much as I thought. I worried I didn’t cut deep enough but knew the pills would do their job and soon I would be free. I don’t know how long I stayed like that when I heard my husband come upstairs looking for me. He called my name and I think I answered him as he came into our room. He saw the empty bottles and the booze and my wrists and kept asking me what I did. I began to cry and told him I was sorry and I couldn’t take it anymore. In my haze I remember him asking me what he should do and I was angry that I had to make that decision for him. I just wanted to be left alone but a small part of me was so glad that he showed up because I was scared and didn’t want to be alone as I left this world.
Everything was getting hazy as I heard him calling 911 and then my best friend showed up crying that they were going to pump my stomach. I could hear the ambulance in the distance as I looked down at my wrists and watched them start to fuse themselves shut. It was the most unexplained thing I had ever seen. I should have had stitches. And yet they started to heal in front of my eyes and I couldn’t explain it.
Despite the fact that I was slowly dying, I made sure I hit up the bathroom to pee before they took me to the ambulance. That is the strangest memory I have of the whole thing, stumbling to the bathroom and sitting on the toilet peeing with the door opened while everyone stood outside in the hall way. I don’t know if they were talking, I don’t know if anyone said anything to me, I just know I got up and stumbled in a haze down the stairs with help and into an ambulance. The EMT asked me questions which I kind of remember answering and then darkness followed by the faint scream of the siren as we headed to the hospital. To this day whenever I see an ambulance I relive that day over in my mind. I worry about what the neighbours saw. I worry about what the kids saw and who they stayed with and how their father told them about what was going on. I live with constant guilt that their insecurities and behaviour towards me is because they’re still mad at me for putting them through everything. I feel like the most selfish mother on the face of the earth and I wish I could take back what I did that day but know all I can do is try and make it up to them, however that may be.
I still don’t know all the details of what happened while I was out of it. I remember whiteness and I could hear the hospital activity around me. I was out of it and didn’t open my eyes. It was as if I was walking around in a white haze on that thin line between life and death. I swear at one point I looked to the right and saw someone sitting in a chair next to me, a security guard or someone else, I don’t know. I know people came and went throughout the time I was in the emergency room but I never opened my eyes. I could hear everything around me but all I saw was white and it was as if the environment around me was empty and sterile.
I guess at some point I got up to pee and face planted off the end of the stretcher and bruised my eyebrow ring and ripped open the back of my thigh on a gurney screw (things I remembered and pieced together over the next few days). They didn’t think I would wake up for awhile and was surprised that I did. The next day I was still in a haze and woke up while being wheeled to a room upstairs. As I began to wake up more I realized I had to pee and was told I had a catheter and I wasn’t allowed to get up until I started to wake up more.
They shifted me to my new bed in my room (where there were several other people) and as my haze began to wear off I was pissed. I don’t think I have ever been so pissed in my entire life. I didn’t want to be here and was so angry that I was. I was done and could not understand what cruel God would make me live a life I didn’t want. I was so angry at Him for months later, intermixed with moments of sadness and helplessness (which at times I still experience).
While in the hospital my husband came by every day. I can’t remember if the kids were with him since everything was hazy and they had me on medication to keep me calm. My mom sat by my bedside holding my hand with endless tears in her eyes asking me why I would do something like this. I don’t remember explaining it to her because I knew deep down inside no one would understand.
She had called our church minister who I had spoken to a few times during the past few years about my depression and marriage issues and everything. He was always so kind and understanding and I think if it wasn’t for him and his limited guidance I probably would have hit the exit button sooner than I did. He had a way of putting things in perspective while still challenging you think open your eyes a little bit and to look past the darkness to see that the light was never as far away as I thought it was. Years later when he retired from our church I truly felt as if a piece of me was missing. I don’t go there as often as I use to because it just doesn’t feel the same, nor does it mean the same thing to me anymore. While I’m not as mad at God as I use to be, I still struggle with the same anger I had when I first woke up.
Six years later I still don’t understand why I am here. I am not making a difference to anything or anyone and I struggle every day to find purpose and meaning. A month ago I quit my job and I am filled with so much confusion and regret that it chokes me every morning. I had hoped that the job I left behind would be hard to fill. I had hoped that I had impacted the work environment so deeply that they would regret pushing me to leave and would realize how important I was. Sometimes when I couldn’t sleep I had fantasies of them frustrated and cursing on how they should have listened to me and fought harder to keep me. To this day, I haven’t heard a peep from any of the management and from what I hear, life carried on as it always had. Yeah my departure put a few people out but in the end nothing had changed and everything went along as it always had. One person does not impact as many people as my husband tried to tell me.
After my suicide attempt my father came with my husband and mother to the psych ward I was in to visit and he almost seemed angry. He handed me this poem that was printed on paper with a rose on it. I still don’t know what it said, hell thinking about it now, I’m not even sure where it is currently is (even though I know I still have it) but he gave it to me and told me to read it and it would help when things got tough. He obviously put this together himself and somewhere deep down inside that stirred an emotion towards my father that I had long since suppressed. Deep down inside I stupidly wanted my father to pull me into his arms and choke on his tears while he told me how grateful he was that I was still here. My husband and my mother had and I was surprised when my father’s emotions were presented to me on a printed piece of paper. All these years later he has never spoken to me about my suicide attempt. He has never acknowledged it and it is as if it never happened, same thing with my sister. My mother seems distant and reluctant to talk to me and I get a sense that she is fearful she will set me off and I will chose to end my life again and it will be all her fault.
A few months after my attempt Mom had gotten some photos back from the printers from her birthday and there was a family photo amongst other pictures. I sat and stared at the happy faces and could see the struggle in my own eyes as we all looked at the camera. To an outsider it seemed like a regular family photo but for my mother and I that photo was a symbol of what she could have lost. She choked back her tears even though they slid down her cheeks as she told me she has a hard time looking at that photo because she realized it could have been the last photo she would have ever had of me if had I succeeded in my suicide attempt. She couldn’t understand why I would put her through that or why I would want to leave my husband and our beautiful children. She struggled to find the right words so not to set me off but eventually the tears consumed her and I leaned over to hug her. I hate hugging people who aren’t my husband but I felt like I needed to offer whatever comfort I could give her despite the fact that photo made me angry, hurt and guilty. We sat there for a few minutes while she composed herself and I swallowed down my emotions. That photo was tucked away and hasn’t been brought out since that day. I think by hiding it Mom doesn’t have to think back to when she nearly lost me.
I struggle every day to remain stable.
I no longer take medication to modify my uncontrollable emotions. I honestly think they make things worse in the long run but they do give you time to get your shit together and to calmly think about what your next move in life is going to be. Group therapy gave me the tools to cope with emotions on the days I wanted to give up and felt overwhelmed. The one thing I have learned from everything is to get the thoughts out of your head. Talk to someone, write it down, paint, draw, just do something to get it out. The more you swallow how you’re feeling the faster the darkness will consume you.
Things are never as irrational as you perceive them to be once you take the emotion away from it. Everything has a logical reason and if you can’t seem to find one at the time, take a big step back and breathe. Life is overwhelming and this was my way of coping. If anything comes from this it would be that at least one person can relate and understand why I struggle to find my purpose and maybe someone can help shed a little light on what that purpose may actually be.
I’m still very angry and I hope in time that will disappear into something of relief and gratitude for the second chance that I was given. A few years after my suicide attempt I had a four leaf clover tattooed on my right hand with the date 27.08.07 below it to remind myself that even though every day is a struggle I made it past that hurdle and I can do it again. I just have to reach down deep inside and retrieve the light and be willing to protect it when the darkness closes in.
Do I feel that I am someone worth fighting for? No, but a part of me will argue that I must or I would have given up this fight a long time ago.
“Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once.”– Paulo Coelho (author of the Alchemist)
