by Melanie Halcomb

Created on: December 29, 2008

Thinking back on my most lethal suicide attempt, I didn't fear death. I'm not sure I wanted to be dead, but I know I didn't fear being dead. What I did want was for all the internal emotional pain to stop. I'd been in a terrible depressive episode for over five years, and I saw no end in sight. I wanted out.

I was living in South Florida, I had a good job working in the child protection field, but I wasn't sleeping, I couldn't feel anything but numbness, and my therapist knew the time was coming when I'd be successful in a suicide attempt. In October, 2006, I cut myself up and bled all over the place. It wasn't a suicide attempt by my standards, but the hospital saw it that way, so I ended up in a psychiatric facility for a few days. Unfortunately, my immediate supervisor found out what happened, and by December, 2006, I had no job, no money, and no prospects. I had no idea what to do, but the depression was getting worse. I was feeling things as the numbness slipped away, and the pain paralyzed me and left me in bed for days on end.

A friend of mine who lives in Chicago, convinced me to move up to Illinois, get some help, and move on with my life. I still couldn't find a job, I couldn't get any assistance from the state, and I'd re-applied for disability. I'd become immobile. My family in Kentucky didn't want me anywhere near them, my friend in Chicago had become a batterer and I kept waiting, even praying, for the day when he'd kill me and this mess would be over.

By August, 2007, my friend still hadn't killed me, I had no one to reach out to in the community, and I rarely left the bedroom, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. On the night of August 17, 2007, I injected myself with 220 units of insulin, swallowed over 250 metformin, glyburide, and avandia (all anti-diabetic agents), a month's supply of high-blood pressure medication, a handful of Neurontin, and 10mg of Ativan "just in case." I fell asleep, waiting for all the medication to take effect. At some point, I woke up to use the bathroom, and I ended up falling over and crawling to the bathroom. I don't remember how I made it back to the bed, but I remember my friend coming into the bedroom asking me if I had taken all the pills from the bottles strewn all over the bedroom floor. I don't remember what I told him.

He told me later, and some of it I remembered later, that he couldn't wake me up later in the morning. He said I had a blood sugar of 35, and he exclaimed he was taking me to the

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