This article is tough for me to write about because I don't actually know how I'm going to be able to talk about something so personal. All I know is that I have the sudden urge to talk about it and now I'm regretting it to be honest, but it's important to talk about. I've been beating around the bush here for too long and should probably just say what it is. Rip it off like a band-aid. I attempted suicide.
The Beginning
I'm ashamed of it. I was at an all time low. No one knew what I was suffering from because I never told anyone. I bundled it up in a nice little bow of an 18 credit course load thinking that adding more of what was making me go more and more crazy each day would somehow cure me from all my troubles. It didn't and next thing I know I'm crying on the phone to 911 telling them how I need an ambulance because I just swallowed all of my medication and how I have no idea what to do. After being released from the hospital that day, I went back to my parents' house to recover there for the week. The plan was that I'd take the week off, drop one of the classes that was causing me the most stress, and merrily go back to school. I was wrong again. I went back to campus after the week, went to my class, and before class even started, I had a panic attack. Right there in the middle of the building was me trying the hardest I could not to scream as I called up my mom and told her that I didn't think that I could take any classes for the rest of the semester. My parents supported me in the decision and I was back home once again living with them.
The Recovery
Contrary to what my mind was determined to believe, dropping out of the semester didn't immediately cause my depression to go away. I had gotten rid of the cause of the breakdown, but I was going to go back to school the next semester and I needed to know how I was going to be able to survive it. Thanks to the Dynamic Duo, my doctor and my therapist, I was able to become a resemblance of a human being who somehow got control over her life. Now, that's not to say that even after two years since the event that I have completely gotten over my depression because that's not true. There are days that I just feel like the world is crashing down on me and that there isn't possibly anything that I could do to get out from that hole. But each and every time I manage to get out of it. If you were to ask me how I get out of that hole, my response would be "I have no idea in hell how." I'm sure there's someone in the world that could give you a detailed game plan on how they get out of their depression rut but I just don't have that. And that's okay. I don't need to have a step by step plan. A large portion of life has been me consistently wanting a step by step plan of what was going to happen in my life, and if something altered to where my plan couldn't work, I would be a mess because a Plan B never existed. So to be able to get myself out of that hole of depression without a structured plan is something makes me feel freer and stronger than I've ever felt.
If you ever need someone to talk to, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at: 1-800-273-8255
OR you can talk to someone through chat at http://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/.
