Borderline Personality Disorder,  DBT,  Suicide

How I escaped suicidal depression

I had two alternatives. One was to kill myself, to end my struggle. The other was to find something rigorous and unorthodox to conquer this depression.

How I escaped suicidal depression
‘I had two alternatives. One was to kill myself.’

By Leslie Contreras Schwartz, special to the Houston Chronicle November 17, 2014

“You will mostly likely have several suicide attempts in the future,” the psychiatrist said, sitting across from me in carefully crossed ankles you may need to use an ankle brace amazon.

“And you will have severe clinical depression the rest of your life.” With a closed-lip smile, she closed my enormous patient file on her lap. “You must take medication the rest of your life. You have no choice.”

Since my freshman year in college, I had been confronted with overwhelming sadness. Except for a few close friends, I was socially isolated, and the more lonely I felt, the worse my depression became. I was self-admitted to a psychiatric hospital for a week my sophomore year, which made my outlook on life even worse and my emotions more numb.

After five years, I had tried dozens of psychiatratric medications with the hope that I would get better: among them, Wellbutrin, Prozac, Effexor, and Celexa. Nothing seemed to work, and I lived my life for the next ten years in a flux of anxiety or depressive lulls where it was hard to get out of bed, to carry out a semi-functioning writing career. I was told I had Borderline Personality Disorder, and was doomed to live a repetitive life of mistakes.

Through my course of therapy, help groups, and chance meetings, I met women of all ages, all of different socioeconomic backgrounds, races and religions with the same story: We were severely, secretly depressed and nothing was helping. I met lawyers, women with high-powered jobs, and high school dropouts, women who had a never held a job, adult women who lived with their parents. We are everywhere, hiding behind the secretaries’ desks, in the classroom, leading a board meeting, standing in front of you with a full set of makeup and a smile.

Therapists tried to help me, as they do a lot of women, of course, through talk therapy and rehashing the past or looking at specific issues and trying to change stubborn ways of thinking. But in 2010 I was done with depression and done with methods that weren’t helping — I just wasn’t changing.

I had two alternatives. One was to kill myself, to end my struggle. The other was to find something rigorous and unorthodox to conquer this depression. I was now married, with a one-year-old daughter. I remember the moment: I was on the bathroom floor with a bottle of aspirin, crying, while my husband begged for me to open the door.

Read the Entire Article

One Comment

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.