Super Bowl Sunday

2/7/2016

Today is Super Bowl Sunday, and literally millions of people around the country, will be celebrating with wings, chips and beer.

Super Bowl Sunday means something completely different in our house.  It marks the third anniversary, if you will, of my being alive.  My first suicide attempt was on Super Bowl Sunday in 2013.  I was released from the hospital in June of 2013 and attempted suicide again in July.  I was behind locked doors of one kind or another for 9 months in 2013.  

I can't begin to explain what brings a person to the end of their emotional rope.  For me, it wasn't a spur of the moment idea.  I had an entire week to hoard pills and even saw my psychiatrist the Friday before the Super Bowl.  She didn't suspect a thing as I told her about all the wonderful things I had planned for the weekend, knowing that I wasn't going to do anything but swallow pills.

Clearly, I needed help that January and over the course of the next nine months received it.  My "crash and burn" exercise resulted in huge over-the-top medical bills and because of short term memory issues, among other things, cost me my job.  Understandably, it took a long time before anyone really trusted me to be home alone.  But my theory, such as it is, if I wasn't successful with my two suicide attempts, then something or someone wanted me to stay in the game.  

I regret my actions which brought on consequences that I hadn't even thought about. I was hurting in a bad way, and just wanted the madness to stop.  Depression is an ugly disease.  A disease not easily understood and certainly not talked about. While I'm in a much better place today, I'm not positive that the "wet blanket feeling" that is depression won't visit me again in the future.

Do I feel guilty?  You bet I do, but we I can't change the past.  Hopefully, I can learn from my past as well as the mistakes I made.  I hurt my family deeply in 2013 and I wish I could erase that pain for them, but I know I can't.  What's done is done.  For every action there is a reaction.  

I'm on steadier feet now, but emotionally fragile.  Progress is being made.  I only see my psychiatrist once a month now, but continue to take a lot of medicine to keep me mentally healthy.

Am I ashamed about 2013?  I don't know if I would call it ashamed, as much as I am sorry for what I did.  When a person decides it's time to take their leave of the world, you are in the moment insane.  There is a fine line between sanity and insanity.  On both occasions in 2013, I crossed the line.

Super Bowl Sundays will always be "that" day for Jeff and I.  If I live to be 100, it will still be the same, although distance through the years, will make the memory less alive. 

I don't try to hide from my suicide attempts.  It is, after all, what it is or was.  I believe that we should bring mental illness, with all of its ugliness, and per-conceived notions, out in the open.  Being "mental" (my term and certainly not my doctor's) is a part of me.    

Statistics say that 14.8 million people in this country alone, battle with depression.  And, there are approximately 34,000 attempted suicides in a year.  That's a lot of people.  People who need, and hopefully are getting, help.  People who need understanding about a disease that controls them.  And, no pulling yourself up by your boot straps is not a solution to the problem I assure you.

Stay well and I hope whatever team you're rooting for today, wins.

P