How It Started

Why I’m writing my story…

At the beginning of August, I was finally honest with my psychiatrist about the suicidal thoughts I had been having. He insisted that I take time away from work to be assessed at an inpatient facility trained to treat depression.

It’s essential to explain the suicidal thoughts in greater detail. As an adolescent, I had suicidal thoughts where I consciously thought to myself in anger or frustration that I wanted to die. Looking back, those thoughts were a cry for help and attention, to get something that I wasn’t receiving at the time. The more recent thoughts were different. These were thoughts that would come to mind involuntarily, causing me to physically shake my head, hoping they would go away. They started as thoughts like “You suck. You really shouldn’t be here anymore,” then evolved to “You know you can end it all, and this goes away” to eventually detailed thoughts of how to do it. The terrifying part of these thoughts was that they weren’t like before. I didn’t need attention. I was too ashamed to share that I was having these thoughts with anyone in my life. I felt disgusted for even thinking about them. I love my children, husband, and family, and I would NEVER hurt them by choosing to leave them by taking my own life! I started thinking about how we really don’t know when someone finally takes their own life what state of mind they are in. Is it a breaking of emotions or nerves and entering into a sort of psychosis? I started to worry about what if the day came where I carried out these actions involuntarily, the same way that the thoughts were entering my mind involuntarily.

I was admitted to a Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) and started therapy on August 13th, 2021.

#shareNIMH

XoXo – Monica