My medications have not been working for over a month. I don't know what happened, but they just stopped being effective all-together. I knew I was Bipolar, but I didn't know just how Bipolar I am. My emotions have been all over the place, even emotions I don't even know what they are! It's been quite exhausting. There have been some things over the past few weeks that have added onto that stress. To top it all off, I had hardly slept for a week. My mind has been a very dark place to be. My paranoia has been pretty bad (thinking people are conspiring against me, talking about me, working against me, going to leave me, etc).
For a very long time, I have tried to fight for my life. Recently, I realized I've been fighting this since I was a little kid. I have wanted to die for nearly all my life. Of course, the severity hasn't always been as bad, but it seems like the severity keeps getting worse. In my life, I have made three attempts (two drug overdoses and I tried to slit my wrists once). A couple weeks ago, I had finally reached my breaking point - I snapped. I couldn't do this anymore. I'm completely drained: physically, mentally, and emotionally. So last week, I had made a decision - I would end my life on Good Friday. All my other attempts were done out of rashness, but this time it was planned. Good Friday seemed like a good day to do it, that's when Jesus died right? Earlier this week (Monday), I made a goodbye video on my phone. I figured once I'm gone, my husband might look around on my phone and find it.
I had been praying for a while, begging God, to show me that I'm worth more alive than dead. That if he's really here with me, that he'd show me somehow that I'm not going through this alone. I had everything planned out: day, time, how I was going to do it, and even what my final conversation with a friend was going to be like. My plan quite frankly, was flawless. I did my research. I would either die or end up in a coma. I tried to harden my heart through all of this. I had/ve so much pain, and the added pain of thinking about how my death would effect others wasn't helping either. I'd try to numb myself without cutting (earlier this week I got my 7 month chip for not cutting). I just kept repeating to myself, "just push it down, numb it." I started not to care about things anymore. Things that I used to enjoy didn't matter anymore. Whatever life I once had, I didn't have in me anymore. I isolated a lot. I only went places because I had to. I didn't talk to very many people either (though I don't talk to very many people anyway). I pretty much only talked to my husband, family, and a friend. I didn't want to be around anyone - I didn't want anyone to have to deal with me. People who were around me were paying for it because of my uncontrollable emotions and paranoia. I tried to prepare my husband for the inevitable, but can someone really be prepared to lose a loved one from suicide? I asked my friend to take care of my husband when I'm gone. Any little bit of hope I had before was gone.
Then this week happened.
Monday evening we went to see the new Paul movie with my parents. While we were waiting for the movie to start, my mom was talking about Easter. She wanted us to all get together for dinner for Easter and was asking me where I'd want to go. I felt really guilty about it because I figured, "I'll be gone before then." I couldn't tell her I wouldn't be around for Easter. So I just said I had no preference. Then during the movie, there was a scene where Luke was about to be in "Nero's Circus." He was telling the other Christians who were going to be in it "The pain will only be for a moment." It made me think, "What if the pain I've been going through for so long, is really, only for a moment?" After the movie on the way home, I told my husband that I had made plans for very soon. I didn't tell him when or how, but that it was very soon and he needed to be prepared for it. I told him I had made a video as well. When we got home he was bawling his eyes out, screaming, and hitting things. I didn't know what to do; I didn't know how to comfort him. Every night we pray together and when he was praying, he literally prayed for two hours! Around 11:30 I told him, "I really need to get to sleep." Pretty much the entire night he was crying and in the morning. I had told my friend that I had made plans for very soon too.
Tuesday morning.
Nick called the crisis line and I talked to my friend. I told him the day I had planned, but not the time or how. He said he had suspected that day. I told him what my final conversation with him was going to be like, and he said, "And that's how you're going to repay my friendship?" I felt even guiltier. How do you repay someone's kindness and friendship, by telling them, "You've been a good friend, and I've really appreciated it. I have really enjoyed talking to you for the past couple weeks. Thank you for being such a good friend to me"? He even said he went to his church, got on his knees, and prayed for me! What kind of person does that? I can only remember getting on my knees three times - ever! But he got on his knees to pray for me. That really touched me. My husband's tears touched me as well.
Then suddenly my phone was blowing up. Hardly ever does anyone text me or call me, it's always me contacting people. But on the day when I'm not really wanting to talk to anyone, EVERYONE wants to talk to me!
I told my husband and my friend that they were really being a thorn in my side. I wanted to end my life and they were making it more difficult for me to do it. I did eventually tell my husband the day I had planned (as well as my mom), and they both had a feeling about it as well. I must be pretty predictable. Anyway, if Monday I was 95% sure I was going to go through with my plan on Good Friday (tomorrow), I was now at a 65%. I had an emergency meeting with my therapist that day (as well as Celebrate Recovery), and then the next day (yesterday) I had an emergency visit with my psychiatrist. Later today I see my other therapist. I told my sponsor yesterday too. I got my meds changed and I can tell you, last night I slept the entire night. This was the first time since I was a kid that I slept the entire night! I'm still around 65% though. I think once my emotions get under control, it will be easier to deal with the other stresses going on in my life.
I've pretty much abandoned my plan for tomorrow and I'm still trying to fight it. I don't know how long I can continue to fight it though. I wish I could have hope like usually in the end of this entry, but I'm not at the point where I really have much hope still. I do, however, think that my prayer was answered, as well as other people who have been praying for me. I ask that you would continue to pray for me, and that my meds will work too.
Allie I am praying for God's Love and Hope to surround you and fill you and give you JOY today! I'm glad you have been honest here. May Jesus direct you and Nick
ReplyDeleteTHank you
DeleteDear Allie,
ReplyDeleteI am only looking from the outside in. I don’t know what it is like to be so troubled and depressed in spirit; certainly, not for so long and so repeatedly. I do know what it is like to be harassed with unwanted thoughts – OCD – and when that slips beyond my control it brings me great grief. But how much more so when the thoughts are themselves so grievous and refuse to be quiet! I do not know.
I’ll pray for you and for Nick, that you might keep on fighting the good fight. And that you each might find those to refresh you as you do.
One thing that helps me in my own worship, and which might help you, is listening and meditating on the hymn “Let all mortal flesh keep silent”. (I’ll attach a link to one version I like in the post script, I’m sure you could find others.
I’m impressed by the grandeur of the hymn, which I find absent in many songs sung at church. (But maybe I’m being a snob.) Anyway, its opening line instructs us to be silent and ponder, not the everyday, but the eternal. Not in a way where we move from thought to thought, from proposition to proposition, and consider the logical relations of each. But to *see* - to be caught up in (as if in an instant, I feel) Christ: to experience Christ, not to merely know (about) him, as he descends, saves and sustains us, and as he awaits us.
He is a mysterious and ineffably attractive figure – wholly other, to whom even cherubs veil their face to his presence – and yet close by, giving to us ‘his own self as heavenly food’. But that is the mystery of a God who transcends the cosmos and is yet immanent within it: that God the Son is also man adds another rich dimension to this.
That’s why I find the line “with fear and trembling” so apt. A crude, but perhaps helpful analogy, or image I form is that of a child waiting to see his parent who, say, was serving in the army overseas. As the time nears for his plane to land, and as he waits, he is filled with a nervous energy, maybe even apprehension until he comes.
And I find the description of heaven – of being endless day where angels praise Him ceaseless – meshes with my own imagery of heaven, as a cool and undisturbable pool of water, infinite. I’m trying to express what I find mesmerizing about the constancy of heaven, but am not doing quite a good job of it. And the coolness is not to denote what is merely abstract or distant, but that it will be complete refreshment. Other imagery is better for some.
I find it helps to remove oneself from this duration of life, to not merely recognize that this duration of life is but the brief and important prelude to eternity, but to subjectively enter eternity, to imagine, even if dimly, eternity, and then to glance back at, not just our present duration of life, but the entire history of this age from Christ’s advent to his receiving the Church to him.
I also want to add, that I suspect that you’ve been of help to many anonymous readers of your blog, even of those who have never commented, and whose names you’ll never know. I saw this, by way of analogy for how your husband has helped me. You’ll help probably different people, and in a different way than your husband helps others, but that is how it is, given that no person can do all things. And I given this, I know that you’ll go on being able to help others.
Particularly, your candor. In your weakness, those with like struggles will see their own weaknesses, even themselves in you. And in your progress and endurance, they will see themselves too, and so will strive with that hope. It is not merely doable in the abstract, but you have done it so long: ‘so can I’ they will think.
In Christ,
Sean
P.S. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wl4u8lnDQs he has another version to, but this has less insturmentals, which seems more keeping with the theme of silence.
Thank you for your kind words. I will be sure to check the video :)
DeleteYour welcome.
Delete