My Recent Hospitalization (Part 1)

This will be my first in a series of posts about my recent hospital visit. I will start with what led me to the visit. The ultimate decider in going to the E.R. was my suicidal ideations. I was very focused on the idea of no longer wanting to live. Every night I hoped I wouldn’t wake up. I would stare at my bottle of lithium thinking about just taking the entire bottle so I would not have to wake come tomorrow. I attempted suicide 6 ½ years ago at a time in which I was feeling much like I was feeling prior to going to the hospital. I was in a mixed state. A mixed state is when someone has feelings of both depression and mania at the same time. It is a very dangerous place to be when you’re having suicidal thoughts. When someone is depressed the suicidal thoughts may be present but the energy and motivation is often times lacking. When someone is in a mixed state the suicidal thoughts are present and so is the energy to act on those thoughts. This therefore makes mixed states the most dangerous state for an individual with Bipolar.

The suicidal desires are what brought me to the hospital but they were only one part of the problem. There were many other symptoms present that I had been fighting and denying for a long time. I was in a full-blown mixed state and was feeling entirely out of control. My symptoms started months ago. I honestly can’t think back to exactly when. However, they worsened with my recent discontinuation of Lamictal. I wasn’t aware of their worsening. In fact, I thought I was doing just fine. I blamed everything I was going through on subpar life situations. I had even become very resentful towards friends and family for they had what I could never seem to obtain but wanted so badly. Finally, I lost it one too many times and realized that I couldn’t go on like this anymore. There are many occasions in which I am amazed that I didn’t do something to take my life. I always thought about not wanting to hurt my family in these cases and it was the only thing keeping me alive. I felt so out of control and I knew I needed help. The night before I went to the hospital, I decided I would go to the ER after work the following day. I told my family of my plan, I packed a bag, and I prepared myself for the hospital. It was such a hard decision to make, to give up all control and trust to a locked facility. It ended up being a very good decision (which I will talk about more in days to come). The piece I wrote two nights before going to the hospital really allowed me to begin to externalize how I was feeling. I had been internalizing for so long and writing this piece gave me the insight I needed to realize how bad off I really was. The link to that piece is here: Tomorrow Is a New Day

To give you a small taste of where my mind was at, I am going to share some of the things I wrote down in a notebook prior to going to the hospital, both the night before and the day of. The things I wrote the day of, I wrote down to help me better express to the doctors and nurses at the hospital how I was feeling because I don’t do well at verbally expressing myself.

I jotted this down the night before I went to the hospital. 

I can’t go to the hospital. What about my dog? He’ll really miss me while I’m gone. If I don’t go to the hospital I may kill myself. I probably will. What about Caesar? He’ll be really sad! Mom and Dad will take care of him but he’ll never be the same. Too bad I didn’t succeed 6 years ago. What if I don’t succeed again? What if I end up a vegetable? Will they pull the cord? I hope so. Poor Caesar. This isn’t fair to him. My parents will be better off without me. No matter what they say; I just complicate their lives. They should have made me happy. They made my sister happy. Why didn’t they make me happy?

I jotted the following down shortly before walking into the ER while I was sitting in my car outside of the hospital preparing my thoughts. This was immediately after my company holiday party, which I attended and put on a happy face at. I did not share that I was going to the ER for suicidal thoughts right after with anyone but one person. I pushed myself through work until my 12 days off. After all, work was the only thing at the time that actually made me feel good!

I can’t find the worth in my life. I know it doesn’t exist. Everyone tells me there’s worth in every life but I don’t believe them. There’s not worth in mine. Every single day I want to die. I hope that I won’t wake up in the morning. I feel hopeless. I feel desperate to end the misery. I can’t see a positive future. I can’t see any other way than death for the misery to end but I don’t want to hurt my family. I just want to be happy but it seems impossible. It’s not fair. Why should I have to live in such misery? I resent my family, friends, and coworkers who seem to have everything I’m missing. I don’t know when I’ll just lose it and harm myself with plans to end it all. It’s nearing closer and closer and I don’t trust myself after my impulsive overdose 6 years ago when I felt similar. The littlest things in conversations will set my brain off. I need help fast!

I also jotted down a list of some sort related to my thoughts and feelings:

·      Sad

·      Discouraged

·      Hopeless

·      Alone

·      The desire to no longer live

·      Irritated

·      Agitated

·      Anxious

·      Trouble sleeping

·      Racing thoughts at times

·      Pressured speech at times

·      Restless

·      Hate and resent towards family and friends

·      Attention problems

·      Impulsive (i.e. spending)

·      Sometimes I feel hypomanic symptoms and sometimes depressed symptoms and sometimes both all at once

This is a small peak into where my mind was at prior to my hospitalization. I thought sharing some of what I jotted down could be useful as it is raw, straight from my brain to the paper, a real look at what was going on in my brain and why I went to the hospital. I will follow this up in a day or so with my experiences in the hospital, staring in the E.R. and all the way until discharge

Thank you for reading! Until next time…

Sara Breidenstein

Kissing Stigma Goodbye