Suicide Helpline
I mentioned in my post yesterday that I phoned the suicide helpline…
…it is not the first time I have ever called them. The very first time I dialled this number was in April 2006 as I was having an incredibly bad day and didn’t know who else to phone. I was having relationship problems, my best friend had just celebrated her 21st birthday and I didn’t want to upset her, and my other friends…I just didn’t want to burden them.
So I dialled the helpline, which I had on speed dial since my suicide moment the month before. It rang…and it rang…and I cried…and I cried…and it rang…and it rang…and I threw the phone across the room because the bloody thing just kept on ringing and ringing and ringing and nobody answered! There must have been a lot of suicidal people that night! Suffice to say I was able to remain safe and well until those urges had passed, but not before resorting to self-harm for the first time in over a year.
The other most memorable being a moment in March of this year when I was incredibly close from slashing my wrists following my breakdown but was able to be talked down from my mood with their assistance and that of a friendly conversation with a friend.
I have phoned them on several occasions since then, not however before my attempts in May and October because on those occasions I just needed the pain to stop and was not willing to phone for help.
Things however got incredibly bad yesterday. After my atrocious Christmas Day and self-harm session that night (Ouch! Is all I can really say about that, still smarting) I wasn’t coping either Boxing Day or yesterday so after more self-harm which wasn’t achieving the desirable outcome of relief and oh-so-very nearly phoning someone I haven’t spoken to for months I pulled up the hotline’s number on the phone and dialled.
I knew the drill, would no doubt hit an automated queue first, so logged onto YouTube to download a video guaranteed to make me smile and have doubts, and waited for them to answer. It did take a wee while, but eventually I was chatting to a calming lady who listened to me through fitful sobs and occasional caterwauling as I explained my plans. She told me to get rid of the knives (which I didn’t do) and remove myself from the balcony area (which I did).
Once retreated inside I just sat on the floor and waited for the inevitable question. The one I dread and fear in equal heart pounding measure:
Do you have anyone you can call? A friend who can come and be with you?
NO!
I DO NOT!
I have no-one in my life. There is not a soul who could come and be with me to distract my mind from it’s suicidal urges! I fracked up you see and lost everyone!
Frack! I hate that question. I really do. It just serves to remind me how lonely and useless I am, how worthless and forgotten, which just doesn’t help the whole ‘maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if I stayed alive’ argument my head was racing through.
You see this has been the problem this year, this is what caused everything to go wrong.
When my relationship ended in February it basically isolated me. Even though I could still contact some people I knew I couldn’t really talk to them because they were friends of my ex. As I had made the decision to not tell my ex what had happened (i.e. being kicked out of college as an indirect consequence of a text message she sent and also being diagnosed with CLL) out of a desire to protect her from any guilt, I was unable to talk to my friends about these things because I did not want her finding out indirectly. I also didn’t want to bitch to these same friends about my ex because I didn’t want to affect or influence their friendship with her. Does any of this make sense? Seriously, nothing makes sense to me any more! But then it didn’t really then either because Mulholland Drive makes more sense after a breakdown than anything going on in your head! The problem that I was (and still am) in love with my ex didn’t help either!
Isolation is a killer. It seriously fracks you up! With my social circle, network and group in tatters I had to seek out new friends - which after a breakdown is nigh on impossible, let alone for someone who suffers from social anxiety disorder and who’s had a breakdown.
So I have been without any real major human contact since March.
Anyone who has spent several months alone and isolated will know what I mean. You go nuts! You end up talking to yourself to keep yourself sane, or in my case, I talk to myself and Meadhbh which is seriously weird at times. I believe profoundly that had things been different in February and I not been isolated, then what I’ve been going through this year would not have happened…
Anyway.
So I don’t have anyone to call, so the woman chats with me for a while. Asks about my Christmas…self harm, loneliness and desperation. Asks about me…I’m a worthless lunatic, what’s there to say? Until we eventually agree to make a spoken contract, whereby I promise to phone her back tomorrow - i.e. today - which I am just about to do.
Whether or not I will speak to the same woman I don’t know, but she did seriously help yesterday. Which I guess brings me to a kindof point to this somewhat bizarre and rambling post: they are called helplines for a reason.
They help! Use them! If like me you don’t have anyone to talk to or there is no-one to be there with you to help you get through a bad moment - call a helpline!
Simple as that.
December 28th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Addy–
I have to disagree with you on several counts!
First: You are not worthless! It’s 2:16 am, (insomnia again) and I am sitting here riveted to what you have written! Probably because I identified with all those feelings at one time.
Second: So you messed up! Wup-de-friggin-do! Anybody who can’t accept that you are HUMAN (to err is human) probably wasn’t fit to suck up oxygen in the same room with you anyway! You really needn’t worry about their forgiveness, you need to forgive yourself!
Thirdly: Until you learn to accept yourself, it’s going to be highly improbable a relationship will work. Instead it will only add to the downward pressure. Sometimes we seek relationships as a distraction from what we really feel about ourselves, but does it work? Never!
Have fun in a non-destructive way, and learn you DO have worth! That I am writing this to you is PROOF! I don’t waste my time on people who have no value!
David
December 28th, 2007 at 10:13 am
David,
I thought you were going to disagree with my belief suicide helplines are worthwhile for a moment there…but then I read the rest of your comment :)
I have used a similar phrase to you many times this year, about how human it is to make mistakes and you need to be able to accept the mistakes of others - and your own.
I’ll admit I do have trouble forgiving myself, that’s fairly obvious, but I have become much better at it over the years, esp. this year, if you can believe that :)
It sounds strangely unbelieveable to say that this time last year I knew who I was, what I was capable of, and my self worth was the strongest it had ever been. I would never have entered into my last relationship otherwise as I agree, and have always agreed, with how you cannot love someone until you love yourself. The relationship you have with yourself is the most important one you will ever have.
My self-esteem was however chipped away by a very damaging emotionally abusive relationship I was the victim in - which I know I didn’t deserve or bring on myself - but it has however, in conjunction with the breakdown and events earlier this year, affected me greatly, and it is this I am working hard on rebuilding.
It’s a tough battle especially wrestling with bipolar, self harm and meds but I do (deep down) believe I will get it back eventually.
It’s bloody hard and confusing sometimes but I’ve kept on fighting all year and I always seem to find something to keep me plugging away :-)
Thank you for your wonderful comment, it brightened my day :)
December 29th, 2007 at 2:52 am
Strange…. yes, it’s strange how the same things happening in life can have different interpretations.
I understand what you’re talking about (so I believe) as I’ve been there (doesn’t really mean I’m completely out either) but for me, it worked to get someone’s help in the crucial moment. Who? The person which I know cares the less: this is the point: I need to find someone who I can share all my demons with, let them all out, shout and holler, course and cry; someone that is not going to run away scared or push me back (making me feel I’m jeopardizing their own balance).
And when I can let myself go nuts I feel that very moment I’m regaining balance, or starting to.
After all, this “band-aid friend” already knows not to take me that seriously or think I’m too weird, just open enough to let the bad feelings out.
What do I keep? It’s simple: some hope.
And although it’s a “one day at a time” thing it has been working fairly well.
The fact that you can’t see people caring about you, doesn’t mean you’re all alone, probably means you could start trying to watch better… to search better.
I do care about you!
December 29th, 2007 at 4:14 am
Addy, Ann,
I hope you both see, what I am just learning myself: that there ARE people out there whom we don’t even know, willing to lend a helping hand.
Glad I could brighten your day Addy, ever since my own gradual recovery, I have had this compulsion to do something with all this new-found knowledge.
But what to do? I have no degree, no string of letters behind my name to give instant ‘authority’ to what I have learned….
So I find myself tag surfing, hoping to find a place I can leave a good word, blogging about it, (http://morambler.wordpress.com) and finally I have formed a group called “Overcoming Depression 101″ (http://www.apsense.com/group/103445).
Will any of these efforts do any good? Well they sure make ME feel better!!
That’s another thing I learned…. helping someone else certainly makes my own troubles disappear into the background for a while!
Ann I think you have it right… going thru the experience opens up something inside you that gives you the capacity to love total strangers! COOL huh?
David
December 29th, 2007 at 4:16 am
PS Addy the breakdown will just make a strong person stronger! Trust me on this one!