The People Who Saved My Life
I owe it all to them
The beginning
I sat alone in the tiny locked room on a hard plastic chair. My leg bounces incessantly as I take in my environment. My only company was another plastic chair to my right, a machine for taking my vitals, and a small desk. The white walls were bare and there were no windows to tell that it was around 9 o’clock at night.
I’d been there before.
Six times.
The room was always the same.
A middle aged woman enters and smiles at me as she sits behind the desk. She had a laptop in her hands that she set on the desk and opened so that she could put her fingers over the keys, ready to note down everything we talked about.
My leg bounced faster the woman worked her way through basic information. My name, age, where I worked, blah, blah, blah. I recited my answers impatiently, wishing she’d hurry up and get to the real questions.
Finally she asked it.
“Why are you here?” She looked up from her laptop and watched me straight on.
“I want to kill myself,” I said as if we were having a normal conversation.
The woman didn’t blink. “Tell me what’s going on.”
In rapid fire I told her that I had bipolar disorder and that I’d worked my way through the severe depression stage where life seemed hopeless, but I couldn’t get up the motivation to do anything to the manic stage where I didn’t sleep for days, decided to buy a car even though I could barely afford the one I already had, and started self-injuring again for the first time in seven years and then into the mixed stage.
The mixed stage of bipolar disorder has always been my downfall. In that stage, I have the severely negative thoughts of depression mixed with the impulsivity and energy of mania. Since I don’t sleep during these times, I have a lot of time on my hands to contemplate those negative thoughts and act on impulses.
Depression makes life difficult for me. Mania is severely disruptive and sometimes dangerous. But my mixed states are the most dangerous and push me towards risk of acting on suicidal thoughts.
A short time later the woman put a band around my wrist so everyone could know who I was and then escorted me to the elevator that would take me to the adults ward where I’d spent five out of the six times at the hospital (the first time I was hospitalized I was a teen and went to the teen ward). This trip was the third time in two months. The lady handed me off to a nurse and then she left, the door to the ward locking with a finality. Once again I started the process to try to save my life.
Professional support
The first people instrumental in starting to save my life were the nurses on the ward. Although there were some nurses that seemed jaded, most really seemed to take their work seriously. The nurses weren’t there just to keep an eye on us. They were there to be whatever the patients needed whether someone to listen to an issue or even just to talk about day-to-day topics. I quickly bonded with a couple of nurses the first time I was hospitalized that fall and got to know them well over my multiple hospitalizations.
One nurse in particular that I’ll call Joe was there for me multiple times when I was really struggling. He took my concerns seriously and offered good advice. When I had the urge to try to find a way to self-harm, Joe helped me work through the problem. I knew I could go to him even in the middle of the night, and sometimes did.
After the nurses got me settled I headed into the common room to meet the other patients. Although some patients were too sick or disruptive to talk to, most of the patients were eager to socialize. Here I was able to create the unique bonds of talking with someone who understood what I was going through.
I exchanged stories with some of the other patients and talked about what things helped us cope. We supported each other and urged each other to work towards getting better. I developed friendships that continued after we were discharged.
The first time I was admitted that fall, I met someone even more important in my recovery. While sitting in a therapy group, an Indian woman with long black hair and brown eyes came to get me. We headed into another small room with just a desk and a large picture window to the outside. I stared out the window as my knee bounced again. At my angle I could only see the side of the building, but windows were in short supply on the ward so I liked seeing outside. Getting back to outside seemed so far away.
The woman introduced herself as Dr. Barr (not her real name) and we went through the same conversation that I’d had with the intake nurse the night before. We also discussed a much longer history of my mental health journey beginning with depression in young childhood that transformed into bipolar disorder with my first hypomanic episode in my last year of high school and ending with my current situation. The list of medications I’d been on took up a good fifteen minutes to run through alone.
I’d been through a number of bad psychiatrists over the years so I was a bit wary. One psychiatrist told me she thought I had nothing wrong with me despite my long history and the fact that I was suffering from severe depression and anxiety at that point in time. Another treated me like a guinea pig, throwing medication after medication at me like she was a pharmacy even though I never improved. She also missed that I was hypomanic for six month straight.
The psychiatrist I was seeing outside the hospital at the time of my first hospitalization that fall had a severe manner and lectured me every time I went in for not having enough social outlets. I always left feeling worse than I did going in and didn’t feel safe enough to admit how much I was struggling until I hit my crisis point.
With this history, I wasn’t expecting much from this Dr. Barr. I assumed she’d throw medications at me after five minutes of talking and send me back to my therapy group. Instead after she got my history she spent the time to go over her rational for her plan and addressed all my concerns. She allowed me input into the plan of what medications to take, change around, or stop. She was very straight forward about what I needed to do to get better. At the end of the meeting I felt a lot better and she promised that she’d help me get stable again.
Throughout all three of my stays, Dr. Barr remained a strong support. She spent time helping me with concerns and explained her plan along the way as she carefully changed my medications to return me to stability. When I was finished being hospitalized, she became my doctor on the outside. I see her to this day and she’s still just as supportive.
On the second day of my third visit to the hospital, another woman came to find me in the common room. I’ll call her Elizabeth. Elizabeth was my social worker for all three hospitalizations. She was tall and had blond hair and she was quick with a smile.
She took me to her office which was small, but cozy. There were pictures on the wall, her desk was decorated with pictures and knickknacks, and there was a couch to sit on instead of a hard chair. On that couch I poured out everything I was going through and thinking while she listened, her attention never wavering. She offered advice where appropriate and offered comfort at other times.
Where my doctor was instrumental in working with me on fixing my medications, my social worker helped me work through the some of the issues that had contributed to the whole cycle. The biggest culprit was a series of bad jobs and my issue with needing to be perfect at a job and seeing my job as my identity. Elizabeth helped me see that my health comes before any job and that it’s okay to not be perfect at a job or to not have a job at all.
Together with Dr. Barr, Elizabeth, the nurses, and the patients all contributed to my improvement to get out of the hospital. Although outside the hospital I’d lost a lot of friends and had to distance myself from a lot of my extended family, my immediate family members have been my biggest supports. Of those family members, my mom and husband particularly stand out.
My family
My mom has been there since the beginning of my journey. She understood depression and anxiety having suffered it herself, so she was able to empathize even as she made sure that I got the treatment I needed. From the age of twelve she took me to psychiatrists and therapy to help me get better. After my diagnosis changed to bipolar disorder, she read about it and went to the National Alliance of Mental Illness’s Family-to-Family program to understand better what was going on. She continues to strive to understand when I struggle even if she’s never been through it herself.
My mom was there to take me to the hospital the first time I became suicidal and she has been there for every hospitalization since. Twice she had to drive hours to get to me so that I could be admitted. She held my hand and sat by my side through the process for as long as they’d let her stay by my side once we got to the hospital.
Throughout my life, my mom has been a shoulder to cry on as I sobbed through the negative thoughts pouring through me during my deepest depression. She’s listened and been a source of great advice through the years. When needed, she provided distractions to keep my mind from spiraling.
My mom has been my rock through my journey, always there and ready to support me and take care of me. After having some of my relatives state that I wasn’t really struggling with my mental health and others avoid me because of my diagnosis, I’m all the more appreciative of what my mother has done for me and love her all the more for that reason.
After my mother, my husband is the most supportive person in my life. He has been there for me since I told him that I have bipolar disorder on our third date. I wasn’t going to waste our time if he didn’t want to deal with my mental health struggles. I found out that his own mother has bipolar disorder and he said that he was prepared for possible problems in the future.
His words weren’t tested until two years into our marriage when I had the worst episode in my life which was the one that landed me in the hospital three times that fall. I half expected him to cut and run after seeing me so sick. Instead he stood by my side the entire time. He came to family sessions to learn more about what I was going through and how he could help. He was readily supportive when my treatment team and I determined that I needed to take a break from working for a while even though it meant sacrifices.
I loved my husband before I got sick, but I love him even more now that I know that he’ll stand by my side for anything. I love that he checks on me if I seem to be struggling, but doesn’t pester. I love that he’s ready to listen or distract me when needed. I also love that he’s willing to tell me when he has concerns that I’m not doing well.
Myself
There’s one more person that has been instrumental in my recovery. Myself. Part of my mental illness has been thoughts that I am a horrible person. My thoughts also told me that I’m nothing if I’m not able to be one of the best people at my job, let alone if I don’t have a job at all. I had to work past those thoughts and learn that working doesn’t have to define me. With therapy and the support of others around me, I learned to find my self worth in other places, to prioritize taking care of myself, and to love myself. If I hadn’t learned to love myself, I probably wouldn’t be here.
There have been many different relationships in my life that have helped save me when I was suicidal. Some of these relationships have been driven by love for me. Others, while not driven by love, are driven by the desire to help which is powerful all on its own. Whatever the motivation, these important people have saved my life.
