My Own Demons & Suicidal Thoughts

I am going to write about something deeply personal today. I can count the number of people that know about my suicide story on one hand and not use all the fingers. But this week’s news of celebrity suicides electrified some neurons in my brain and reminded me of the time I was hospitalized for a suicidal actions.

So, today, I open my heart and expose one of my deepest held secrets because every single day 123 people die from suicide. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. And, with the deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bordain so broadly publicized, there will be a spike in suicides over the next few months.

First things first, today, I am in a healthier, stronger place than I was in 2009. I have not ideated about suicide since around that time. I am constantly learning about what vexes me and finding ways to cope with those things. One of the things that helps me cope is writing. Working out some of my struggles and thoughts here has become a way for me to expose my demons to sunlight and exorcise them. So, while some might cringe at my raw, emotional story, understand, we all have our own ways to heal, so please accept that.

Also, I include a trigger warning. This story begins after the photo of a flower below. It is a story about my experience getting hospitalized after I was afflicted with suicidal thoughts and actions. Note, I will not call it “attempted suicide,” “taking my own life” of any of many other ways that blame the victim. Suicide is an affliction. I do not include much here about how to get help or how to help others. I only have my experience to convey and cannot profess expertise. However, I am using my experience to editorialize about how suicide victims are treated to highlight how it can be better. And when it is better, perhaps reaching out to get help won’t feel so stigmatizing and difficult.

My most recent midlife crisis was not my first foray into career change. I started independent engineering consulting right before the financial crash of 2009. I had abruptly left a job. It was ugly. The specifics of my quitting are not important. However, I have since learned I am often attracted to jobs that seem amazing, but are high risk. The rewards are big if I succeed, but chances of success are very slim. As someone who used to set a very high bar for what I call success, I was not likely to succeed in these jobs. Things I am learning now are that success is not singular, there are successes along the way. And failure is not always a reflection of me as a human. I am learning nuance in the success-to-failure scale which is also teaching me nuance in the worthiness-to-worthlessness scale.

In 2009, I felt I was a failure. I felt worthless. I felt like I had no future. I felt humiliated. I felt the world was mocking me, laughing at me, tormenting me. The enemies in my mind were reveling in my humiliation. One day, I began taking muscle relaxers around lunchtime. I took two or three more every half hour or so. I don’t know how many I took, but my husband came home and called 911.

A police car, a fire truck and an ambulance showed up, lights blazing. Despite being plied with muscle relaxers, I was acutely aware all the attention was further humiliating in front of my home in my own neighborhood. I never wanted to return to my house or face any of those people again. How could I? They knew I was a failure. And now, they also knew I was a fraud. They too were laughing at me.

At the hospital, the staff was downright hostile. They showed empathy toward my husband for having to suffer through being with me, but I was a waste of a human-being. I was tied to a bed at my wrists and ankles. A tube was forced down my throat and my stomach was pumped. The nurse proclaimed that I was a liar, “We only see like one pill in her stomach contents.” She called it a false alarm, it wasn’t a real attempt to die. Apparently, I had wasted her time and efforts. She made up her mind, I was faker.

Despite my apparent lies, I remained tied to the bed and a police officer was called in to watch over me. I was alone and destroyed. I wanted to talk to my husband, apologize for ruining his life and making him take me to the hospital. The nurse told me I had already caused him enough trouble and he deserved to be home, away from me and sleeping. I begged for her to call him. She refused. She hated me.

She wanted me to take a sedative so I would quit asking to call him. She tried forcing it down my throat. She then made a deal, “If you take it and are quiet for an hour, I will get your phone and let you call him.” I took it. I watched the clock on the wall. To her dismay, the sedative didn’t just knock me out. She underestimated my ability to remain single-minded and determined despite the pill.

She refused to let me call him. By now, even the police officer felt for me. He said, “You did promise her, she could call if she was quiet. Just let her call.” I got my call. I don’t know if I talked to him or what was said. The call itself was the one thing keeping my mind from collapsing in on itself.

The next day, a doctor told my husband the great news. They were able to get me a bed in the hospital. Neither he or I knew exactly what that meant. They hastily prepared me for transfer to another hospital.

Getting me a bed meant, they had received approval to have me committed.

I arrived at the psych ward* in a wheelchair. A new intake brought other patients to the front room. They were asked to mind their own business, but they only lightly veiled their intense interest. I was presented with papers to sign. They summarized them very quickly and forced a pen into my hand. I asked questions.

“What do you mean I have to stay for three day for observations then the doctor decides if I can leave?”

“Yes, that’s how it is. Please, sign here.”

“What if I am feeling better and want to leave tomorrow?”

“That’s not how it works. It’s three days minimum then a doctor decides if you can leave. Sign here.”

“How does the doctor decide?”

“They determine if you are well enough after examining you…when they are sure you are not a danger to yourself or others. Here is a pen, sign here.”

“What if I don’t sign?”

Blinking.

“Do I get help if I don’t sign?”

Blinking.

Ultimately, I did not sign. At the time, I was not fully aware that signing meant I would commit myself to the psych ward. I refused to sign because I didn’t like feeling pressured, bullied into signing. In confusion, I often resorted to stubborn refusal as a protective mechanism. I said I would feel better if a lawyer looked at this before I signed. With that, they put the papers away and went about getting my other check-in stuff.

I didn’t know my rights at that moment. I was pretty sure most people arriving at the psych ward don’t know their rights. If I had signed, I would have voluntarily committed myself and relinquished some of my rights to self-determination. After committing myself, they would have kept me for three days before making a judgment about my mental fitness. At that time, a recommendation for me to stay would mean I had to stay unless I submitted a request in writing to the institution. That request would be reviewed for another three days. Meanwhile, I would remain committed. If the institution denied my request, I would have to appeal to the courts to be released.

What a mind fuck that whole thing was. There I was, emotionally fragile and not totally with it being asked to simply sign away my rights to self-determination. Two or three staff people hovered over me with pens eagerly waiting my signature. Perhaps they assumed I wanted to please them and would just relinquish. The whole time I was sitting in the front room of a psych ward with other patients idling around. I was a spectacle. It was more failure and humiliation.

Even though I didn’t sign the papers, I was still unsure of my rights. I didn’t know if I could just sign myself out and go home. The doors were locked. I certainly was not free to just walk out. Strangely, the challenge of defeating the system and getting myself out of the psyche ward buoyed my determination. I wanted to live to get the fuck out of this twisted system that was bullying me. It was weird to say, but my anger at my treatment in the emergency room and in this psych ward compelled me to keep living. I guess I did not want to die under the heel of a dysfunctional system that marginalizes people when they are the most vulnerable.

They released two days after my arrival. My husband and I did not talk about it. I didn’t want to. I told virtually no one. I don’t think I even told my mother. I was humiliated. Here I was, a super smart, career woman with all I could want, but I stupidly ended up in a psych ward.

The experience dismayed me. The entire mental health profession felt broken and twisted. I did not seek any out-patient treatment for many years afterwards. The doctors at the psych ward did not follow up with me. None of my regular physicians were informed of my hospitalization, so they never offered additional treatment either. The next time I went to therapy would be years later and mostly for career help.

Months afterward, I sent an email of complaint to the emergency room hospital. Reading it today, I realize that even then, I would write to release my feelings. I was full of anger. I wanted the nurse reprimanded or, better yet, fired. I got a canned response that ensured they held no liability. When I requested a status a few months later, I was advised that the hospital would not discuss what they did about it with me.

I realize now, I didn’t really want her disciplined, I wanted to be treated with himanity and respect. I wanted scream at the system “I AM NOT WORTHLESS!” We are not worthless. People who experience suicidal thoughts and actions are not worthless. Rather than dismissiveness and aprehension, we deserve to be treated as any other patient with an illness.

I cannot tell you for sure why I survived. Anger at the system was part of it. My anger gave me purpose and purpose is what needed. I have been able to move past these thoughts. It’s been a long process: it’s on-going.

Rather than live in constant survival mode where I have to win at all costs to keep myself from reverting to a fearful and abused child, I am finally, truly owning up to the fact that childhood abuse affected the adult me deeply. And it still does. I constantly remind myself failure and inability are not reason for feeling humilation. I have to stop myself from imagining people, my perceived enemies, are laughing at me and reveling in my misery. I also work hard to stop myself from deriving pleasure from others downfalls. That kind of thinking is like wagging the dog.

Certain personalities bring out my competitive one-upmanship, my thirst to win at all costs. While the other person may feed positively on that, I do not. So, no matter how lovely and great of a person they are, I have to cut them out of my life for survival. My biggest stumbling blocks are my feelings of inadequacy, worthlessness and helplessness. They are there, always. My work is to know when they are overwhelming me.

My experience is mine. I do not want anyone to avoid seeking help because of my experience. But I tell my story because I want people to receive treatment with love, humanity, grace and empathy. I want people to feel the place they reach out to will receive them with open arms and no judgement.

Now that I’ve written this, I feel rung out, but cleansed. I unlocked a little part of my brain where a heavy and burdomsome secret lived. It doesn’t have power over me anymore. I am not humilated by it anymore. I am releasing this memory off into the wind. I am setting it free.

* I’ve chosen to use the term “psych ward” rather than “mental health hospital” because I want people to understand it is not a sort of retreat.