Well I know it’s been a super long time since I posted anything, but life has been a huge jumbled mess the past couple of months and it finally erupted over the past couple weeks. Well in the past I have given everybody very brief descriptions about what has happened in life, mostly revolving around my father. But some very disturbing things have happened in my past and over the past couple weeks that I really need to get off my chest and writing and painting are my two main releases. For the past couple of years besides the problem with my dad I have also had some problems with my mom but more importantly I have problems with myself. I guess I will tell you the main thing and then things will all fall into place I guess. When I was 16 I attempted to take my life, I wasn’t so much unhappy with myself but unhappy with my circumstance and I felt as though they couldn’t be changed, and that the only way out was to stop breathing permanently. Only one person knew of my attempt and that was the person who saved me, so I started going to therapy but I didn’t stay in it long enough to make any true break threw. Well I had never told anyone about this event until recently, when I felt myself coming to that breaking point. This time the feeling was a little different, I had no intention nor did I want to hurt myself, but I wanted to be gone. I did not want anything physical to happen to me, especially not by my own hand but I wanted to disappear off this earth. I told someone that I thought was a really good friend. Well I guess words got slung around and some where in there they were taken out of context and she thought I had attempted to harm myself recently; and her response more than shocked me. The individual decided to abruptly delete me from facebook, unfollow me on twitter and delete me from her BBM, with out uttering a word to me. Eventually I realized and confronted her in disbelief and her response was…
“u need help and I cant help you. I can’t have it on my heart and mind that u want to commit suicide. I have a lot going on in my life. U need someone to help u sort that out…Therefore until u get ur life straightened out I can no longer continue my friendship w u…Hope u seek the help you need”
A little hurt and upset I attempted to explain to her that it was a long time ago, and after that she became even more enraged and told me…
“When u get ur life together u can hit me back. I don’t have time to play games. U played me by sayin all that to get my attention or to get attention period. Its time to grow up already, suicide is NOTHING TO PLAY WITH! Take some time to find yourself.”
Now first I would like to make it known that really could careless if she paid attention to me or not, most of time it didn’t feel like she cared about me anyway. I still ask myself why I chose her to open up to in the first place, maybe because she messaged me first asking if I was okay? But wait the story gets better I guess in caring nature, or make herself feel better she wrote my mother a letter saying that I was attempting to kill myself, well as a result my mother took me to the hospital where I was admitted for three days at St. Mary’s Hospital for Mental Health. That was most definitely an unforgettable experience. Everybody kept asking me if I was mad at the individual and for a while I wasn’t, I felt that by writing my mother for the first time it showed she actually cared about me, but then I thought and was like she deserted me basically when I needed her the most and no matter how hard I try to see it her way, I think that is the worst thing you can do to someone who was in my situation. To me if I was really on edge, her turning her back on me would have pushed me over it. And now she still will not communicate with me for nothing in the world, I am positive she doesn’t even know I was admitted. Since that conversation with her that Friday after noon my life and my emotions have kind of been a big downward spiral. But I took her advice while I was locked up under the Baker Act “take some time to find yourself” and I am working on that, to not only find myself to live my life for myself...
I am not going to lie some positive did come out of the experience even though I was kind of upset with my mother for Baker Acting me , even after I told her the individual was full of it, but I know that she was worried about me and truly just wanted me to be okay. While in the hospital I was told that I am bi-polar and that I suffer from depression, which I already knew but who doesn’t. But the bi polar thing kind of sense, I have extreme uncontrollable anger and the smallest thing can cause me to snap and then 15 minutes later after I scream, break some stuff , and curse a couple people out I am my happy go lucky self again. A lot of people do not know that because I would like to think I hide it well, but the truth is most people don’t care enough to pay attention. Even the individual who I have known for years said to me “ohhh boy I have never seen yiu like this….angry” I get so angry all the time and that is usually why I snap at people constantly, and I am always on the defense. I have this scenario in my mind that continues to play, that makes me feel that every time someone says something to me or questions my thoughts or actions I feel like I am being attacked so I attack back just like in middle school. The before mentioned “friend” once told me “you have a voice use it,” well I feel the only time it actually is heard is when I am yelling. The good news for the most part I know what my problems are, the only thing now is solving them, I thought about going back to counseling, but while it will be nice to have someone to talk to who actually listens, but I don’t know if it would actually help.
I wrote that a couple days ago but never posted it, well I finally got a hold of the letter the individual wrote to my mother. To be hones it just confused me even more, because although some of the stuff she wrote I personally feel is not true, the letter made it seem like she cared… I have one question that I want to ask her, which would confirm wether she is lying and whether or not she cares. If I hadn’t have noticed that you deleted me, where you going to say anything? She talks as though eventually one day we will be friends again, but I do not know how true that is, because I don’t think she wants to, and dependent on the answer she gives me to that question I don’t know if I can because can I truly trust her again. Not to mention the fact she posted parts of our conversation on twitter, and sent out a BBM blast, but she says it was accident and sent out a bbm blast apology, but still never said a word to me. Now about my experience in the hospital or more of the aftermath, to be honest I have felt like since I got out I feel like a crazy person. Like I actually have problems, and I know I am not tweaking crazy but somtimes I just feel even more emotionally unstable now than I did before I went in. My boyfriend says it is probably because being there and talking so much about suicide only made me relive the previous attempt that I never truly dealt with. Also I feel like since it happened maybe just because I am more aware, I feel like I hear about suicide everywhere non-stop. That alone is driving me crazy. It gets to the point were I go through such a rollercoaster of emotions that I get sad then I get so angry, beyond angry that I just cry, because I feel like I cant do anything else.
Hey, someone retweeted your tweet about this blogpost on my timeline and so I just thought i'd reply, as this particular post has really touched me.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I must say that the way in which your friend acted was extremely shady. Once you confide and trust in someone with information as serious as suicide, that person should treat it with the UPMOST respect. She's supposed to be your friend for goodness yet she chose to desert you in your moment of need? It does NOT matter what else she is going through, this is your LIFE hanging in the balance and if she were a good friend, she would have at least made some effort to offer words of comfort or just be there to listen. It's really cheeky how she unfriended you because of that and personally, I would not bother having people like that around you. At least you now know who you can trust and who will be there for you in your hour of need.
Secondly, the post touched me because I too suffer from clinical depression and have also considered suicide many times so I realise the severity of this. You're extremely brave to be talking about this in public and you can only go up from here. I don't suffer from bi-polar myself but there are times where I have ugly mood swings as well and its even worse when you don't have anybody to talk to about it.
The best advice I can give at present is that, all shall pass. As the saying goes, God will not take you to what he can't take you through. I know its hard to remain optamistic when you're going through an internal struggle, it's fucking difficult, believe me. But as long as you have at least ONE person who you can talk to, who understands what you're going through and God on your side, all will be well.
How you come out the other side is what makes you a stronger person. Don't feel that you have to restrict yourself from crying and feeling low - it is all a part of the healing process. In order to heal properly, you have to FEEL every single emotion..it's very hard and emotionally draining, but you WILL do this!
Do not let the bi-polar define you or your personality and just continue to shine as best as you know how! <3
southernlove89 (@) gmail.com
Hang in there. I'm going through a semi-similar motions where I'm questioning whether my friends really do care about me since they rarely seem to congratulate me when I post accomplishments or console me when I post challenges im going thru on FB. I have a sense of what it's like to feel erratically, and mabye we can both make it someday. =)
ReplyDeleteFriends are a great asset to have, they bring out the best in you, they’re there for you when you need them, etc. But, asking a friend to be there for you and relying on someone to “save” you, like you stated earlier, is unrealistic. The only person that can save you, is you…with the help of professionals.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me, like he/she should be angry with you…you don’t have the right to be angry with him/her. Unfortunately, by you saying “to me if I was really on edge, her turning her back on me would have pushed me over it…I am positive she doesn’t even know I was admitted” goes to show that you had no intentions of doing anything to yourself which is GREAT, because no one should feel like they have to take their own life…but it also shows that you did it for her attention, you want her to know that you were admitted to the hospital. You obviously weren’t a danger to yourself if they only kept you 3 days, and did not require a mandatory outpatient therapy program. I don’t know where you’re from, or what state you reside in…but in Michigan, where I’m from…that’s unheard of.
I’m glad to hear that some good did come out of the situation, my mom always taught me to look for the silver lining in situations. I’m glad that you were able to find it. Although I do urge you to go for a second opinion. Again, being someone who was hospitalized, I learned that a Bipolar diagnosis cannot be made over a 3 day period. It calls for intense observation, and quite a bit of counseling before an Axis 1 major mental disorder, like Bipolar/Schizophrenia diagnosis can be determined. I graduated with a Psychology degree and am in school for my Master’s, and it sounds to me that your “extreme uncontrollable anger and the smallest thing can cause me to snap and then 15 minutes later after I scream, break some stuff , and curse a couple people out I am my happy go lucky self again” is an anger management problem. Bipolar means you have incredible manic highs, and unbelievably depressed lows. Which means, you will go out and engage in risky activities, more like spending an obscene amount of money, or having many sexual partners as a manic phase, and not attempting to hurt yourself, but doing damage…in your low lows. It sounds like you would benefit from regular anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication, and an anger management class.
You posed a question to your friend, and I’m curious to see if he/she answered, I think that you would like to think that you “don’t care” as earlier stated, but by many of the things you’ve posted in this blog…you do care. I think that you think so much about what other people do and see, that you don’t really work on yourself. To go as extreme as you have, to threaten suicide on more than one occasion, shows that you are a needy individual. And that’s okay, but you need to know when the right moment is to be needy, and you need to respect boundaries. He/she has made their boundaries clear.
If you feel like a crazy person after your release from the hospital, then the medications they prescribed to you, are not doing their job. Your job as a person who should want to better themselves, is to reach out and have that medication looked at. Medication has the ability to alter your sense of self, as well as your stability. It takes a few medications to get the regimen right for you. Again, I understand where your boyfriend is coming from…but your “previous attempt” isn’t really a previous attempt if there was no hospitalization or an extended amount of therapy that came out of it.
I think that you should look into seeking help. You stated, “I don’t know if it would actually help…”, you need to make the decision that you WANT it to help. Nothing will help, unless you’re ready to accept that help with an open mind, and the intent of getting better and working through your relationship with your mom, and the issues with your dad.
You can respond to me through here if you’d like to chat some more, I’d be more than happy to give you my e mail address, but like I said…you can’t put unrealistic expectations on friends and acquaintances. The majority of your help needs to come from a professional.
ReplyDeleteLauren I would love to more aout you should email me unstablecradle@gmail.com but I owuld like to say that I was not relying on the freind to save me, but I dont believe that turning her back on as been stated is the best way to help me either. I know that I need anger managment, I have stated that multiple time. And here in florida we have something called the baker act that allows someone who think u are a danger to urself or others to have u admitted for a minimum 72hr for observation. I was a observed yes and I disagreed for the most part with the results, my social worker was a waste of space that just tried to catorgize me beasue im black and come froma broken home, and my foctor asked me two question and had me discharged. And to be honest I dont really care if the reind know I was admitted or not, ot that of her posing like she cares about me but in my eyes she doesnt. and the pervious time i attepted to kill my self somebody helped me ands thats why i was admitted because i begged her not to take me because i didnt want to make a big deal about it so we didnt. and to your comment about attention, is bs, i could really caeless about her paying me any mind. but your intitled to your opininion.
ReplyDeleteI saw your blog, and since my dad died when I was younger…I felt that following you, would lead me to someone who understands how I feel. Although it’s different circumstances, we both have lived the majority of our life without our dad’s, and at times have had tumultuous relationships with our mom’s. I’m new to the whole interactive world, with blogging and tweeting…so the first post that I read happened to be your latest one, “Baker Acted.”
ReplyDeleteMy releases are also arts and crafts and painting, as well as reading…having the ability to get lost in someone else’s world, aside from my own is at times, the best thing I can do. I’m sorry to hear that your life has been a jumbled mess, going through tough times is never a pleasant feeling, but since you say that you’ve spent the majority of your life without your dad…then you’ve had a lot of time to go over things that you’ve gone through. I personally, went through many years of therapy, and was hospitalized over a 2 week period inpatient and 3 months outpatient when I was 18. So being someone who’s gone through similar experiences, I feel that I can be honest up and up front…and let you know what’s on my mind; just like you let others know what’s on yours.
Being someone who was hospitalized for an extensive period of time when I was younger, hearing you say that you “attempted to take your life” at 16 saddened me, until I read on...and then I found it quite disturbing. It’s not something people take lightly, and for you to follow that statement with “only one person knew of my attempt, and that was the person that saved me, so I started going to therapy but I didn’t stay in it long enough to make any true break threw” shows that you did not in fact, attempt to take your life. You see, since I’ve gone through it…you’re not able to fool me, like you’ve fooled many others. If you did attempt to take your life, you would have been hospitalized, more than one person would have known of this event, AND you would have been forced to stay in therapy for a determined amount of time, it wouldn’t be in your hands to decide when you could leave therapy, especially as a minor.
Your friend, though I know he/she angered and hurt you…in my eyes, did the right thing. To threaten suicide, whether you intended to hurt yourself or not, is not something to joke about. It puts a lot of strain on friendships and on an individual person. Unnecessary strain, and unnecessary stress. When you make comments like “I wanted to be gone. I did not want anything physical to happen to me, especially not by my own hand but I wanted to disappear off this earth…” it leads people to think it’s a cry for attention. If someone was truly suicidal, truly unhappy…then it’d be a long time coming, it wouldn’t just happen abruptly, and more often than not, it is not something that you confide in someone about. Your friend is right, unless he/she’s a licensed counselor, he/she can’t help you. And to expect someone to carry around that burden is not fair. The fact that you felt the need to defend yourself by saying you “could careless if she paid attention to me or not, most of time it didn’t feel like she cared about me anyway…” proves that you did care, which is understandable. To have a friendship, you do need to feel like they care, but being a friend, and trusting a friendship also means…you don’t put people in the situation that you put him/her in.
Your friend was right to out you to your mom, imagine how you would feel if a friend confided in you that they had intentions of doing harm to themselves, how would you react? How would you feel if they confided in you, and you did nothing…and then they died? Could you live with that guilt? No. No one could. By him/her going to your mom, proves how good of a friend they are. I think that you need to understand, there comes a time in friendships where a line has to be drawn, and it seems like they drew it at just the right time.
I’m sorry, but I have to agree with your friend that it was the right decision to make. Though I’m someone who has been in your shoes, I’m also someone who has been on the opposite side. Having someone confide in you that they are thinking of harming themselves is risky business, and something no friend should have to hear about another…especially when that person, like you…has stated that you vocalized his/her not being caring enough or giving you enough attention. It just seems like the timing was off, and it also seems like it’s not something that you were serious about. Years ago, when I went through what you state you have gone through on more than one occasion, my friends were there for me…but that’s because they saw it coming before I did. I didn’t use it as a means to get attention; I didn’t even tell anyone what I was doing, etc. I think that he/she made the best decision for themselves. I think that until you’ve been put in those shoes, you can’t judge other people’s decision…which is essentially what you’re doing in your blog and in your comment back to me.
ReplyDeleteI don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to help yourself…if you know that you need anger management and if you’ve “stated that multiple times”, why not seek that help to make you feel better? It’ll be worth it, being able to reclaim your life, your feelings, and learn to work through most any situation.
That’s odd… I’m sorry, I don’t even know your name, but I am a bit confused. You wrote on your blog that you had a positive outcome, being diagnosed as Bipolar and depressed…but you just wrote that you disagreed with the results, etc. Which is it?
Being that I’m in school to become a Social Worker, I’m going to have to defend the poor woman/man and say that we are trained VERY well…and I can say I am POSITIVE that she did not categorize you because you’re black and come from a broken home. Most Social Workers are used to that. It’s not a racial issue, and these days…nearly everyone comes from a broken home, so I’m sure that’s not the case either. I think that you may need to look and re-evaluate some of your thoughts and your actions.
The doctor’s job in a holding mental institution is to make sure you’re safe for however long you’re there, and it’s your responsibility when you’re released to seek further help and guidance. Did you do that?
I believe that if they felt that you were TRULY a danger to yourself, they would have done quite a bit more for you. I’m not sure I understand why you think it’s okay to make a joke out of an issue that has plagued many.
I also think that you misunderstand the phrase, “attempting suicide.” When one attempts suicide, they do actual harm to themselves. Thinking about it, and acting on it are 2 different things. There’s suicidal ideation, which everyone goes through…and then there’s an actual attempt in suicide, where damage has been done…and you HAVE to be hospitalized to receive medical care.
Please, understand that it’s insulting to those of us who have had a problem, for you to make a joke about these things, and for you to continue on with this. It’s a serious matter, and one you should be thankful you’ve not had to deal with, on either side; the one who did actual damage, and the one who had to be there for friends who made that confession.
I do stick by with what I’ve said, I think you should seek help for anger management, as well as help for your depression. If it’s as bad as you say it is, you will need all the professional support that is available to you.
I’d love to continue talking to you, and telling you my story. But right now, I think the best thing you can do…is take care of yourself and work on bettering your life.
Much of what you have presented in your latest blog revolves around; unacknowledgement from those who are nothing more than circumstantial friends, and unacknowledgement from family members who chose not to listen to your voice, believing in stead that theit intentions were simply enough.
ReplyDeleteI too have suffered from these conditions, and depression is sadly still looked upon as a taboo subject within western culture, a sign of weakness. It is in fact, far more sympotomatic of the evils that continue to demoralise good people.
I really believe that you are being extremely positive in presenting what must have been a traumatic experience to the general public.
Talking will reveal those who wish to be present with you, who want to share, to help you heal. It will also reveal those who are scared, who do not really care for you sister.
I leave with these words for you...
There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.
Bruce Lee
... And for those who ignore your honest voice...
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
Mark Twain
Peace and love to you
I just signed up to your blogs rss feed. Will you post more on this subject?
ReplyDeleteTerrific work! This is the type of information that should be shared around the web. Shame on the search engines for not positioning this post higher!
ReplyDelete