I have dealt with depression and anxiety for over 4 years, although I am sure I have dealt with it at other points in my life before being formally diagnosed. I tend to go through large periods of ups and downs and from the beginning of December 2016 I started another downwards spiral. It got particularly bad the week before my birthday (mid Jan) for a variety of reasons (something I will also go into later) and I was seriously struggling to cope. By the weekend I experienced what I tend to call an 'episode' - a kind of out of body, uncontrollable experience where I have no power over my actions or words, and where I end up feeling extremely scared, frustrated, angry and suicidal. This resulted a few days later with my boyfriend dumping me as it was too much for him to handle and therefore led to a further spiral in my feelings. Not only was I feeling unable to cope, I felt my future and the one light at the end of the tunnel had been ripped away from me. The next night I experienced about 4 panic attacks, no sleep and decided I could not go to work as I was unable to function. As I was laying in bed, my mind was churning with all the self loathing thoughts I normally have, how I was a failure, unlovable, had no one and that ultimately I was going to be 25 in a few days and my life was in no way where I wanted it to be. I was sick of the constant cycle of the illness and I decided that I no longer wanted to live my life.
It's important to note that for the past few months prior I have been receiving private medical care which has been fantastic and I will be doing a later post on. Ultimately though, recovery is a personal experience and something you have to take control of yourself. I let the illness get the better of me, stopped taking my medication and therefore had a stash of anti depressants. I took a whole blister pack of Citalopram in bed and hoped that I would fall asleep and never wake up again. About an hour later my good friend rung me as she knew I had been feeling very low and was worried at my replies to her Whatsapps. As she knew about my overdose a year before she asked if I had done 'anything stupid' and I admitted it but begged her not to tell anyone as I honestly did not want to survive. Of course being the best friend she is, she called an ambulance to save me. My parents were in the house at the time but were not aware of what was happening until I had to tell them the ambulance would be coming.
Although it was what I wanted the sensations of an overdose are scary. In bed I felt nothing - getting up to tell my parents I couldn't feel my limbs, my vision was blurring and I started being heavily sick which was very white and frothy, obviously due to the drugs reacting in my stomach. Once the ambulance arrived they did all the checks and took me to A&E which I decided I wanted to travel to by myself. I was seen pretty quickly and had to answer the same questions over and over again, about why I had done it, how much I had taken etc. Those questions annoy me because they require complex answers which sometimes I don't even know the answer to. I was put on a drip, had multiple blood tests, two ECGs and was on a heart monitor as Citalopram can have lasting damage to your heart. At this point I felt numb and my brain basically shut down for the first time in years. I thought this was a good thing at the time but ultimately it was a way of my body coping with the trauma of what was happening.
I told my councillor what happened who with my permission informed my ex boyfriend. As I was to stay in hospital for observation and to wait for my tests, my parents came after a few hours to keep me company. Of course at this point you have to meet the mental health team, who normally know absolutely nothing and can be quite patronising. Surprisingly the person I spoke to was great and I convinced him that I didn't have the intention to do it again (which I honestly didn't at that point). Much later that evening I was able to come home as my blood tests came back ok and my vitals were also ok. Coming back home was very strange and difficult to put into words. The next few days were even harder, but more detail will be given about surviving an overdose in another post. The silver lining of everything I guess was that I was diagnosed with another condition - borderline personality disorder. I will be speaking about this more too, but it isn't as scary as it sounds and has really helped me to understand why my behaviour is the way it is.
So now I begin my recovery with the hope I will never be in the dark place ever again in my life. The pictures featured in the post were taken as a reminder that I never want to be in that position again.
If you ever feel this way, please please hang on as I can guarantee after two personal over doses, it is not the answer and with the right support and diagnosis you can and will manage and beat the illness.
