by M M Johns

Created on: October 25, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Surviving A Suicide Attempt

I have written about my feelings and actions which led me to attempt to take my own life. It was a lonely, albeit logical decision which I arrived at without too much thought and definitely no communication with anyone else. I have started at a point after I had been diagnosed by a psychiatrist as being depressed, as well as suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. I am trying to illustrate with this article the distorted thought processes which control the mind during this illness.

Feelings of hopelessness were prevalent throughout that day. I hated vehemently this inability to cope with the smallest task when I was like this. Even going to the bathroom was a mountain to climb on a day like this. I wanted to curl up in bed and pull the duvet over my head. I do not believe that thoughts of work were in any way involved. I do not remember thinking about work in any shape or form. I was too busy concentrating on my misery. I couldn't shake it. I couldn't control it. That is the worst thing, and I have referred to it often, lack of control. During the whole time of the illness I have never felt in control. I have been unable to control my mind, the thought process. I have been unable to control the anxiety and the physical aspect of it. I have been unable to control my sleep and my ability to relax. My lack of control over ineptness to cope with everyday, simple matters was perhaps the most worrying. My coping mechanism was sinking beneath the waves, shot full of more holes than George Bush's foreign policy.

Things were, for some reason, getting away from me. It felt as if there was too much to deal with. I couldn't rationalize that there was nothing in life which was insurmountable, which could be dealt with by a little application. Under "normal" circumstances that would have been the case, a bit of effort and all these petty little problems would have been resolved. Unfortunately that was not how I saw them. They assumed a significance far beyond the actual norm. Each was a mountain that could not be climbed and, together, they formed a mountain range that stretch as far as the eye could see.

Still I fought. I tried to seek solutions. All my efforts were put into pulling my mind together and working things out. It was to no avail. My brain would not focus. It would not provide me with any positive feedback. It produced negative response after negative response. This did not strike me as abnormal. I had become accustomed

• 1
• 2
• 3
• ...
• 9
• Next Page >>