(input 3/23/08 start) jump back a bit. around ‘97, the year i was introduced to my wonderful psychiatrist and psychologist…and they really were wonderful…they did help me make some wonderful changes in my life. i was diagnosed borderline personality disorder, bipolar, ADHD, PTSD. i was put on, taken off, and swapped around on several medications including ritalin. i landed on a regime of neurontin, wellbutrin and klonopin (lamictal was added in about ‘05). i pretty much stayed on those for about five years. some others may have been thrown and removed over the years, but my memory on that is not so great. but looking back now, on my suicidal behavior…
i had my first attempt when i was 23, (’85). i was put in mental health facility for about 6 weeks. i continued with suicidal ideation, but alcohol was my slow means of getting there and i didn’t have another attempt until i got sober in ‘97 and started taking the meds. from ‘97 until now (early ‘08) i have had over 6 attempts that landed me on life support and admitted to the behavior health units.my last attempt, june, ‘05, was very well planned…i can’t believe i’m still here, (i didn’t feel like i was here for a long time and perhaps that was the 60mgs of klonopin i chased with alcohol and other things) and sometimes i still curse god for leaving me here. but…well i usually “bounced” after each attempt. always, in a day or two, every time, i was back and running as if nothing happened. i wouldn’t discuss what had happened. to everyone that did know….each attempt was just treated as a hiccup….just as i liked it never happened. i never liked getting attention for anything other than my accomplishments. i always tried to compartmentalize my mental health issues. the source of these suicide attempts eluded me and i felt that they struck me like a hit and run…no exact cause and no consequence. being suicidal…it just was a part of ”how i was”. it really felt that way, and no one ever reviewed this with me…not really.
but, my first consequence came down on me (sept. ‘03) when i’d been admitted to the emergency room of one of my hospitals that i’d been admitted to at least twice before. i think they were implementing a three strikes policy. at about midnight, a hospital psychologist and a lawyer entered my room with a nurse and some orderlies. they were drawing up the documents to commit me! “but wait, i want to call my psychologist and my lawyer….i will voluntarily go to marietta memorial.” it was conveniently timed (midnight) so that i couldn’t reach my own lawyer or psychologist. i was forced to sign away my freedom with out recourse and…committed. next, i remember laying in the back of a squad car, one cop driving and speeding about 100 mph down the highway for what felt like…oh i didn’t know where we were or where we were going. god i was in the middle of west virginia, laying in the back of a cop car with just one male cop driving me…the mental patient. i felt so vulnerable, violated and scared. this cop could pull over and do anything he wanted. at this time of night, in the middle of WV…he could do whatever he wanted with me and it would be the word of a “deeply disturbed” person against one WV’s finest. god, i’d heard stories like this, but it was happening to me…or was it…this is unreal.
a week before, i had been a counselor in training, working with the criminally insane in a maximum security facility in CA. now, i was headed to be a civil commitment case myself. it was humbling. upon arriving (safely, thank god), i was handed stuff to go and wash the lice off of me….LICE! god, i was not someone who would have lice….didn’t they know who i was…what i do? but, alas here i was in the WV state mental hospital. how did this happen? another hit and run kind of thing, because i was fine…really. if they would let me go i would get right back to work on my graduate courses and not miss a beat as i’d so gracefully done before. but no one would budge and it was one of those experiences…i thought they wanted to “scare me straight”! but this meant nothing to the hit and run driver of my suicidal tendencies. there was no action or language for reasoning or dealing. it was just one of those things…but it happened. (alcohol and PMS were involved every time.) i stayed for two weeks and it was a typical state institution experience….but of course i counseled and uplifted as many a patient as i could. after all i was in the midst of my counseling intern hours…this was a great place to work on my skills. it’s not as if i was going to step on any one’s shoes doing this….yeah, like the place was crawling with docs and therapists to really help any one of these poor “frequent flier” lost souls i was surrounded by. but…i was one too. certainly this was some cosmic joke. i couldn’t see why i had to be in “that place”. a looney bin in the middle of west-by-god?! well, i don’t really remember too much of how that wound down.
i do remember a year before, the morning after i returned from another visit to the behavioral health floor for the “suicidal hit-and-run girl”, the phone rang at 7am. it was my best friend and she said, “i have cancer.” my first response was “no way!” well, our conversations were never about something like cancer, so i only had a few responses in my repertoire. she didn’t seem upset and i guess at that point she didn’t know how seriousit was. but this is the twist…here i was wanting to die and the whole while, my best friend was fight for her life. how self-centered am i! she was a sponsee i’d “adopted” from the local recovery center and when she was diagnosed with the cancer, her husband took off, and she had just moved here. she hardly knew anyone except me. and we…we knew about drinking and addictions and mental illness….but…cancer? well another story for another time. but she lost her battle to cancer around march of ‘04. she is with me always and some days i still have the impulse to go to the phone and call her…it’s just still second nature. i’m glad she moved on from all of her pain and is perfectly perfect now. but i loved be perfectly imperfect with her and i really really miss her. (input 3/23/08, end) please forgive my editorial skills. i’m a designer and they always kept and editor one foot behind me at all times!
