Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. I choose to post today because the help of family, friends, doctors, therapists, and nurses that I’ve met along my journey are the reason I am still here today to share with you.
I’ve been in and out of the hospital five times over the last ten years. I have what my psychiatrist considers remission and relapsing severe depression. So some years I’ve been rock bottom and others I have been great and function just fine. My depression started when I was about 17 after the rape I had experienced with an intimate partner. My way of coping with it instead of medication was food. I commonly used that as my coping method, even with medication, which eventually led to me weighing over 400s when I was 27 and right before I started on my journey to lose weight. My first hospitalization was in 2004, I honestly can’t tell you 11 years last what even triggered it. All I remember is that I felt like I had hit rock bottom and that life wasn’t worth living anymore. Suicidal ideation was strong. I knew when I started to feel that way I needed help. All five of my hospitalization were because of suicidal ideation. Most of the five times that I went I already had a plan thought up and had never attempted and I didn’t want to get there so I either had my husband (boyfriend at the time) or my parents take me. I once spent an entire week on the psych ward. My last visit to the psych ward was only last September and once again for the same thing suicidal ideation. The stress of last year’s horrific hospitalization, steroid medication, and relapsing depression brought me to the edge again. I am happy to say a year later I am the best mentally that I can been in 16 years. I credit a lot to my therapist of five years and my psychiatrist that I met last year after my hospitalization. But not everyone has been as lucky as I am.
The statistics in relation to depression and suicide are troubling. Depression is the most common diagnosis associated with suicide. The lifetime risk of suicide among patients with untreated depression ranges from 2.2% to 15%. and about 15% of patients with treated depression eventually die by suicide. Depression is present in at least 50 percent of all suicides. Lastly 2% to 9 % of people that have been diagnosed with depression in their lifetime will go on to complete suicide. Those rates are too high and very scary especially to someone with depression. Until we can get past the stigma of mental illness and suicide those rates will barely go down.
Those with suicidal thoughts are urged to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
