I was exhausted yesterday. My kids had managed to eat all the "fast" food in the house. I didn't want to cook. I was tired, and in pain. I chose instead not to eat. Better to starve than stand on my feet and make something. By the time my husband came home from work, I passed out from exhaustion. I slept with my phone next to me, in case anyone texted or called. Unbeknownst to me, my phone was on silent. I woke up an hour later. My husband came in telling me how tired he was. We had both passed out. He had had a closing shift the night before, then was at work at five in the morning the next day. He had had an hour of sleep the night before. We were both exhausted and felt we could sleep a week. I was starving, though. "Let's go get some pizza. In ten years, when we wake up." I checked my phone. Three missed texts. Two from my sister, one from my mom. I check my sister's first. "I just saw on Facebook that Robin Williams is dead! Tell me this isn't true!!!!!" Her next text, "Okay, it's true..." My mom's text read, "Robin Williams is dead." Well, I was awake at this point. "What???? Are you serious??? What happened?" "He committed suicide." My heart dropped. I was in shock, then denial. No. Just no. Then, DAMN YOU, DEPRESSION!
You see, I have been diagnosed with depression. Major Depression is the correct diagnosis. There's depression, and then there's Major Depression. The severe, suicidal kind. That's the one I have. Along with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I am on Cymbalta. It's for my Fibromyalgia pain, and for my depression. The highest dose you can take on Cymbalta is 60 mg. That's the highest recommended dose. I'm on 90 mg. It still wasn't enough. I was also prescribed Abilify. If you're not familiar with what that is, it's an enhancer. When anti-depressants don't completely help the depression, an additional drug is added to enhance and intensify the anti-depressant. Abilify made me throw up, made me dizzy, and was just plain misery. I had to get off of it. But this is how bad my depression is. All of this is VERY personal to me. I wouldn't talk about this if I didn't think it was important, or that it needed to be talked about. Why am I so depressed? I have a loving, perfect, and I mean perfect, husband. I have four, beautiful, healthy children. Our financial needs are met and our wants, too. My house is beautiful. I have a family that loves me. What could I possibly be depressed about. Well, I was severely abused. In every way you can be abused. And it didn't stop until I married my savior at eighteen. My doctor told me that as the brain develops as a child, abuse will totally reprogram the brain, changing the chemicals in the brain. Actually rewiring the brain. My brain will never be the same again. Sure, therapy, which I have been in since six, helps. No doubt about that. I can learn to help and come to terms with my abuse, which I have. I will never be able to reclaim my innocence, though. I will never be able to re-develop my mind. Learn the things I should have been taught as a child. I will never be able to get that precious time back. And that's okay with me. Those were the cards I was dealt. I also deal with Multiple Sclerosis, and Fibromyalgia. Two auto-immune diseases that cause depression. Auto immune diseases chemically change your hormones, making depression a side effect. Then there's the fact that you've lost your life. Things you could once do are no longer a possibility. M.S. is a progressive disease that will cripple, and eventually kill me. What's not to be depressed about there? Still again, that's okay. These were the cards I was dealt. I don't want to be anyone else. Are there days I wish I didn't have all this? Sure. Just like you wish you had a better job, or someone to love, or that you weren't fighting what you're fighting. But you keep going. What else are you going to do? But like Mr. Williams, I know those kinds of days, too.
My very first suicide attempt was at six years old. I tried holding my breath, then choking myself. It was physically impossible, but I didn't know that at the time. Another attempt was shortly after. I had come home from a church activity. We made mirrors with lace around them that said "God loves me." When I got home, I tore the lace off and broke my mirror. "God does NOT love a worthless person like you." Six years old. Even now it makes me want to cry. I have a six year old. She is hilarious. She's happy, she loves to play, and enjoys life to the fullest! It hurts to look at her and know how I felt at that age. It also gives me great joy to know she will never know the pain I felt.
At the age of fifteen, I caught one of my brothers trying to hang himself. I cried. He cried. We held each other and cried for an hour. I begged him not to ever do anything like that again. I told him I loved him more than life itself. If he ever died, he would be responsible for my death as well.
Suicide attempts were not uncommon in my family. Every single member of my family has heard the sweet call of the siren. The call of relief, the promise to an end of pain. We're all alive today. One didn't survive mentally, though. I have a brother that is so medicated and in a mental hospital. Sometimes he can't remember who we are.
At fifteen years old, my mother gets my brother and I on anti-depressants. They work great! I feel better than I have in years! I have an allergic reaction. I get off anti-depressants.
Eighteen years old. I overdose on anti-depressants. Wanting to die, yet not sure if I REALLY am ready, or if I can actually go through with it. I am taken to the hospital and pumped with charcoal. My doctor asks me, "did you know you could have died?" "No." "Really?" When I thought about it, no, I didn't think the dose I took would kill me. "I guess it was just a cry for help." My nurse taunts me all throughout the night. "You were trying to kill yourself, weren't you?" "No." "Well if it looks like a duck, talks like a duck..." She then leaves the room. My door is propped open, and my curtain pushed back. Everyone, janitor included, has heard my story. You see, I'm not allowed privacy. I could choke myself with the monitor chords. Heck, it's a hospital. There's a lot I could do to take my life. I hear the nurse in a hushed voice call a therapist for a psychiatric evaluation for me. To see if I need to be admitted to a mental hospital. I have bowel movements of excruciatingly painful charcoal being removed from my body. The nurses keep knocking on my door. "Are you okay?" No, I'm not okay. This hurts, and I need time to poop! Of course they're checking to make sure I'm not hurting myself. I understand that, so I hold the remainder of my bowels. My boyfriend, aka, future husband, is there by my side. He's normal. He has no idea what I'm going through mentally or physically. He just holds my hand. He doesn't even ask why. He knows the pain I've been feeling. The therapist comes and asks me questions. She doesn't think I am a threat to myself or society. I am released. At this point, to deal with the abuse I was getting at home, I had become anorexic. I am 5'6, and big boned, thanks to my dad. I almost got under 100 pounds. Anorexia and an attempted suicide attempt. No one says anything to me. No one tries to help me. Not a word is said about either issue. It's swept under the rug like nothing happened.
I marry my boyfriend at eighteen. He literally saves my life. In every way a person can be saved. We get pregnant after a blissful year of marriage. We're both twenty, and extremely poor when our daughter is born. Postpartum depression sets in. I go on to have three more children. I deal with severe depression, and my abuse all over again. Then Postpartum depression. I have thoughts, pregnant, and after, of driving into oncoming traffic. Standing in front of an oncoming train. Overdosing, strangulation, drowning, hypothermia, (we lived in a climate that reached -50 degrees, and that was common! The weather also wasn't a good factor for my depression. It was always dark and gloomy.) and carbon monoxide poisoning. If you'd checked my laptop history, you'd find ways of committing suicide in there. It was a common search theme. We were also going to school at the time. My husband was working on a bachelor's degree, we were living on the planet Hoth, and I had four children in five years. We starved, we'd been evicted, we had our car repossessed. My husband lost his grandfather. I lost an uncle to suicide. I was diagnosed with both M.S. and Fibromyalgia during this time. My daughter was born premature and had problems keeping her blood sugars and temperature up. She practically lived in the hospital the first year of her life due to a lung disease. Our lives were nothing short of hellish. Just writing about it, and thinking about it all, I can't believe we survived it all. It was pretty dang rough. We finally graduated, though. At 25, we had that bachelor's and four kids. Whew! But we're here now. And where is here?
Life has become so much better. Trial wise. Yet my depression stayed. I was off and on anti-depressants for years. "This is just a phase. Of course I'm depressed. Times are rough." So I'd take them, get off, take them, get off. Until six months ago. My five year old son has this rope he plays cowboy with. It was tied like a noose so he can wrangle cattle. It was perfect. That's what I'd use. It came down to the wire, and I told myself I sucked at everything. I was worthless. My family was better off without me. I would be doing them a favor. In one last attempt, I said out loud, "God, you either send me a sign I'm supposed to be here, or give me the strength to do this. I have to carry one thing out in my life." I kid you not, two seconds later, my husband called. "Hi, hun! I'm on my way home." "Um, why are you calling? You're not supposed to get off work for another hour." "I know, everything just worked out that way." "You never, ever come home early. Why are you coming home now?" "Just worked out that way. Lucky, huh?" "Yeah.... Lucky." I took that as a sign. I told my husband when he got home. He took it as a sign, too. I got back on my anti-depressants, and I'll never look back.
Diabetes isn't something that comes and goes. "Oh, I don't need to take a shot, or my pills! I'm not under stress, and my blood sugars are good." Um, no. If my Type One diabetic husband doesn't take shots, he will die. If I don't take anti-depressants, I will die. "Yeah, but Diabetes is totally different! He'll LITERALLY die!" Right? Wrong. Why does he have Diabetes in the first place? Why can't he just "snap out of it!?" Well, like me, his body went wrong somewhere. His body decided to chemically change and cause an imbalance. Well, my body decided to go wrong and cause an imbalance, too. It's true, like Type 2 diabetics, there are things you can do to fight it. Diet and exercise can keep their blood sugars under control, eliminating the need for pills. Then there are people like my grandfather. He's in fantastic shape, skinny, gets plenty of exercise and eats super healthy. He still has Type 2 diabetes and has to take his medications. Cancer, M.S., Diabetes, Thyroid diseases, brain tumors, Bipolar Disorder, depression, whatever! No matter how your body decides to attack you, it is not your fault. It's the way your body went! I can't get rid of my husband's Diabetes no more than he can get rid of my Major Depression. I would tell him to stop taking his shots as much as he would tell me to stop taking my anti-depressants. Major depression is a disease. I'm not crazy. You would never in a million years, upon meeting me, say that I was fighting such a huge battle. I am seriously hygienic. I work out, I'm not overweight, I'm a makeup artist, so presentation is a big deal to me. My nails are always done. I look very well put together. I love my friends. I love to laugh. I am freaking hilarious! You would never, ever guess what demons I fight. Just like I couldn't point out who has Type One Diabetes. We're all dealing with something on the inside. Don't judge. Don't be embarrassed. If you have cancer, please get help. If you have depression, please. I beg of you, get help. It's a proven disease. You're not crazy. You need medication as much as my husband needs insulin.
So back to Robin Williams. Now you see why it hit me so hard. Someone I admire, someone who's made me laugh since I was a little girl, someone who's an amazing human being has just died from my disease. It cut me deep. I felt like I lost a brother. One of my own. I know what he was thinking before he did it. I know the struggle he was facing. People said, "there were no signs! He was happy, surrounded by friends, happily married, and had a beautiful daughter! He was rich! What in the world did he have to be sad about?" You see, disease doesn't work that way. Cancer doesn't care if you're rich or poor. Disease doesn't care what you have. Disease, in most cases, isn't seen from the outside. So why was he sad? He wasn't sad. He had Major Depression. A disease that kills.
I told my husband how hard Robin Williams death was for me. I knew his struggle on a personal level. I was devastated that this stupid disease took yet another one. I was angry. Depression just isn't fair. Such is life. I wish he had had the tools he needed to fight this. And even then, we don't know if he did have them and they didn't work. In a way, I'm happy he's pain free. I know how much pain he was feeling. He is now in the arms of his maker. He is feeling nothing but light and love right now. No more pain. But I am also still in the world, grieving with the millions who miss the light he added here.
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| 1951-2014 Rest in Peace, Robin. |
