1: Let Me Introduce Myself

Before I get too far ahead, let’s go back to the beginning. By “beginning” I mean, before I was certifiably nuts. I was born in Hamilton, Ontario, a city known for its steel factory and CFL team and not a whole lot else. Growing up, my family was your average middle class Canadian family �" my dad worked as a tradesman and my mom stayed home with us three kids, we were a chores on Saturday and church on Sunday kind of family. We had a mini van, and lived in the suburbs. My siblings, an older sister and a younger brother, and I participated in any sport or activity that we asked to play (of which there were many), taken out of the country on a vacation every year for as long as I can remember, and never left to feel that we missed out on anything. I had my own room, I got an allowance every week, and never had any doubts about whether or not I was unconditionally loved.  My dad used to build a hockey rink at the park every winter for us to skate on. It doesn’t get more middle-class Canadian than that. To be completely honest, I lived a charmed childhood. My parents defied today’s statistics and actually remained happily married, and my siblings and I liked each other enough to consider ourselves friends. I didn’t have everything, but I knew that I had more than most so I can’t complain. It was simple, it was suburban, and all of it was sincere.

 

As a young child I was strong-willed and happy. I’d had an active imagination and was as content playing on my own as much as spending time with my peers. In the early years of school there was no need to belong a group, at that age everyone was equal. I was of average size and weight and didn’t have any overly distinguishing features that would have made me a target for bullying. Back then we just called it getting picked on �" times change. Despite this I recall that one of my very first vivid memories of school was one of humiliation. I was in the first grade and had the excitement of a can of pop in my lunch. A grown-up luxury to a six year old in my home. When the bell for the lunch break rang, I eagerly opened it only to have it spray over the surrounding area. The entire class looked, and laughed. That was over two decades ago, and I have not forgotten the feelings I experienced from having a group of eyes on me in what I interpreted as a negative view. I wasn’t having fun, and it wasn’t funny. I burned inside with embarrassment and held back tears that would only have worsened my situation. I was acutely aware I had made a social blunder, and that it was at my expense my classmates were being entertained. It was from that seemingly minuscule event, at only six years of age, that I realized I could be strongly affected by what other people thought of me, and from that, the importance it was for me to be accepted by my peers.

 

Overall, my ten-year elementary school career passed without much issue. I went to a small enough school that most everyone knew each other and I was generally well liked by both faculty and my classmates. I played the starting line on the sport teams as well as participated in choir, and always achieved highest marks. In addition to this, in my years of grades seven and eight I also volunteered my free time in a kindergarten class and with a student with special needs running cross-country. It was around this time, the upper years of elementary school, that female students started jockeying for a position of social status amoungst each other. Decidedly one to blend in, I was able to position myself in the lower range of the upper echelon of girls, and at the top of those considered to be lesser in popularity. I could associate and assimilate with either group as required. Also around this time I became aware that my feelings toward being an actively social member of society were different that those of my peers. Where popular girls flourished, I shrank. The innocence of childhood ended, and I became a teenager.

 

High school can be difficult for most anyone. But with a goodie bag of yet-to-be diagnosed mental illnesses, I considered it a living nightmare most of the time. My school was large and overcrowded. Instead of knowing all thirty kids in my class, I had perhaps a hundred. Not only was there many more students to compete with for a social position, a spot on a starting line-up, and a perfect test score �" it also felt as though I had to physically compete for space in the hallway.

 

My sister was two years ahead of me in school, so at least there was a familiar face. She was a cheerleader �" beautiful, smart, and popular. So, naturally, no one knew we were related. Seriously, introductions were always a complete shock. I was more than content to coalesce with the crowd anyway. In public I always presented well and appeared perfectly normal - I had a tightknit group of friends, made excellent grades, and participated in varsity sports and theatre to ensure I could polish off my university applications when the time came. I was smart, funny, and athletic; any onlooker would naturally assume I was a “well rounded young adult.” Thanks mom.

 

Internally there was more that what was meeting the eye. When the period bell rang, five times a day, and the halls were flooded with masses of students, it was two and a half minutes of torture. Heart racing, hands sweating, stomach turning misery. At the sight of a crowd, or even in anticipation of one, and my mind would launch down a warpath of self-doubt �" Were people looking at me? Was I doing something wrong? Was there something on my clothes or in my teeth? Was I getting laughed at? Were my grades good enough? Did people think I was a weird? Did everyone think I was fat or ugly? This continual internal battery that I subjected myself to came from serious feelings of self-doubt. Although most teens likely question themselves in the presence of their peers; I was intensely aware that these situations bothered me perhaps more than the average person. It became obvious that the other girls that leaned on lockers and laughed when bumped into were not having as severe thoughts. I was sixteen and I wasn’t prepared for what was happening �" all the uncertainty and hate I had for who I was becoming. I had no idea how to handle it. If I’d had a Wise-Mind I would have known some coping skill to tap in to. Instead, I ignored it. I did not want to be associated with anything that could make me a social pariah. I kept what I now recognize as Social Anxiety entirely to myself. I packed it away tightly in a box at the back of my mind and avoided re-opening it for many years.

 

It makes sense that fight or flight are the only two innate physiological responses when presented with stress or threat. Evidently, fight, flight, or forget doesn’t really pan out well long-term. Who knew?

 

I proceeded on with my life as a young adult on an even keel, I took great measures to avoid any risks or social obscurities that I could, and focused my attention on my priorities which consisted of checking off items on what I considered to be life’s to-do list:

Be a Good Daughter                       check

Make Sure People Like you                                               check

Be a Good Person               check

Participate in Multiple Extracurriculars              check

Excel at Balancing Responsibilities                                check

Excel in the Classroom                                           check

Get into a Good University           check

I thought if I did all of these things perfectly right I could ensure myself a perfect life. To me, this theory was absolute. I would even go as far as to say it make perfect sense. Unfortunately, this was where I was perfectly wrong.

 

There is no harm in having goals, and naturally you’d be compelled to try your best to achieve your goals, but one critical flaw was that perfection was all I was willing to accept of myself. If someone had achieved higher, or done better, there was always a chance they would point out my flaws for everyone else to recognize and ridicule. Good enough was just never going to be good enough for me. As a protective factor, I needed to be the best.

 

The one facet I didn’t give appropriate consideration to as I approached these goals of perfection was that life itself is not perfect or even predictable for that matter. With such a strict definition of success, I was unwittingly setting myself up for failure at every turn. In hindsight I believe it was around this time that my Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder became evident, although not diagnosed until nearly a decade later. OCPD is just that, a disorder. Striving for perfection is not necessarily negative; there are many A-list celebrities that would be described a perfectionists �" homemaker Martha Stewart, director/producer James Cameron, and ballerina Karen Kain. But when this need to achieve perfection overtakes your ability to have a fulfilling life, is when it becomes a problem. As luck would have it, I was one of the ones with the problem, not the ones that got rich and famous for it. Damn.

 

Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was aiming for something that didn’t actually exist. Perfection was like trying to catch the wind. Theoretically, it existed, and it was often so close I could feel it, but I could never quite reach out and grab it. It had never occurred to me that perhaps no one else was achieving perfection, I was much too consumed by avoiding my own errors, especially those that could have been made publicly. I spent years subconsciously berating myself whenever I missed perfection and allowed the sinking feeling of failure wash over me. OCPD wired my brain to think 99% was not good enough when I could have, and should have, had 100%. If it wasn’t perfect it might as well have been nothing at all. And amoung all of that conceived failure, I allowed myself to feel like I was worth nothing at all. The tyranny of my own mind continued - I was not smart enough, I was not pretty enough, I was not good enough; because if I was, I would have been able to achieve that perfection.

 

In an effort to cope with the pain all of this caused, I turned to self-harm with the delusional thought this would release some of the pent up anguish I was carrying. It started small, only a tiny scratch with a pushpin or a tack, but when that no longer released satisfactory levels of endorphins the injuries I inflicted grew larger or deeper, leaving scabs and then thin white scars, like a roadmap of pain, on my body. I always harmed myself in places where it was highly unlikely to be seen in healing �" my horrible, hidden habit. I couldn’t explain it, but it was all I had at the time. It was a strategy that was bound to fail. Physical pain would never cure my mental misery. The brain and body can only take so much. That box in my head that had harboured all the bad feelings for so long finally exploded. And sent shrapnel flying all over my life.

 

After years of suppression and avoidance, this was essentially, my “coming out” with mental illness. December 2007, at the age of 18, I had my first breakdown. I could no longer handle things alone. I was away at university and I called my parents from a stairwell at my residence, in the middle of the night, sobbing with panic and gasping for breath. Within minutes, in their pajamas, they got in their car and drove two hours to bring me home and kept me there to recover. I started seeing a psychiatrist, was diagnosed with major depressive disorder. I was put on an antidepressant medication, and slowly things improved.

 

My mood elevated and for a long while, years even, it was regulated. In a small white pill that I took daily, I had found my miracle cure. Although I made a change of Major in University in order to finish and return home with a degree sooner, depression and anxiety no longer completely defined every decision I made. Life wasn’t perfect but I was able to manage things on my own again. I had found my way back on track with life’s to do list and felt the pride in accomplishing what I had set out to do. By the time I was 25, I had my degree completed, successfully landed a job with room for growth, paid off my student loans, bought myself a car, and then purchased my own home. I took time to travel, and enjoy simple pleasures. Life was happening all around me, and I was living it.

 

Fast-forward a couple years, to a final pressing item on the list, Get A Husband. September 24, 2016 �" check. Friends and family even described him as the perfect match, so I knew it was right. Just like that, I had everything on the To-Do List completed. My ducks had all hatched and were lined in a row. I was all ready for my perfect life. Stupid, stupid girl.

 

Unfortunately, when I stepped back and looked around I realized that, I had been working the same mediocre job I had been at for five years, which kept me pressed against the ropes of my mortgage, I was driving the same crappy car I had bought right out of university, and although I smiled through it, I felt only anger and sadness the majority of the time.

 

Individually each of these things appeared pretty bad. And as a unit that culminated into what was My Life, well, that seemed to be pretty s****y as well. My general outlook was bleak.

 

In an attempt to resolve these negative feelings my psychiatrist and I assessed the facets of my life individually to look for an opportunity for growth or change. With each aspect I could think of neither something that could better or worsen the situation. At this time I did change jobs, mostly to no effect. In this instance I was offered a diagnosis of Dysthymia - chronic, low-grade depression. I had heard a handful of different theories on the cause of my mental state by this time and it felt hopelessly like I was grasping in the dark for answers.

 

My life was far from perfect. I could not understand how this could happen. I had completed the whole To-Do list. This was not how it was supposed to look at all. I was overwhelmed at the failure I had felt with myself and how far away from perfection I had obviously brought myself. There was no one else to blame. I hated the situation, and I hated myself for allowing it to happen. My depression was back. It snuck up on me and it hit hard, and despite continuing medication, this time it was relentless.

 

For someone who has never experienced depression, I’ll put it into physical perspective for you. If mood is the weather, than depression is a thundercloud that is raining just on you. You look around and everyone else is perfectly dry and the sun shines on them. But for you �" its constant and torrential downpour. Except, the rain is not made of water, it’s manure. And you have no umbrella. And the faster you try to run for cover, your cloud just follows you and manure comes down only faster still. And then the ground gets really slippery, so you fall, but you can’t get up and everyone is watching you fail to rise. You’re alone rolling around in the manure struggling just to attempt to put one foot in front of the other. And then you realize, you’re covered in so much manure that you might as well give up, so instead of trying any longer to pick yourself up and carry on; you just lay there wanting to die because you’d actually rather be dead than be in that mess of a manure pile for even a second longer.

 

I was 28 years old and I was completely lost. Metaphorically, I was drowning in a shitstorm. I needed out and I needed it fast. In January 2017 I made my first serious attempt at taking my own life. I kissed my husband of four months goodnight, left him on the couch watching television, went down the hall to the bathroom and swallowed every pill from our home medicine cabinet, save for the laxatives (for obvious reasons). I knew this was suicide, and without another word I went to bed with no intention of ever waking up again.

 

But that would make for a terrible ending and a very short story.

 

I did wake up, an entire day later, and in the emergency room of the Juravinski hospital. I was moved to the Medicine ward and the doctors kept me there for a couple of days to ensure that my liver and kidneys were functioning normally. They had me talk to the on-call psychiatrist, and after a brief meeting he sent me home to rest and follow up with my family doctor. It felt as though my limbs were falling off and he was offering the discharge care to a patient with a stubbed toe.

 

It had been nearly ten years since mental illness had cast its shadow across the entire forefront of my life. A suicide attempt changed everything. Now, my family was shaken, they had no idea what had gone on, apparently so suddenly, to bring me to want to end my life. No one understood why I felt I couldn’t have communicated myself to avoid this. My depression was no longer my own secret; I had caused my family so much pain. Similar to the aftershock of an earthquake, those closest to me were feeling the collateral damage. They wanted to help me, but had no idea how, and many of them were now suffering themselves. I knew they needed reassurance that I was okay, I had wreaked havoc in their lives, and I was the only one who could give them that reprieve. Internally, I felt as though I was back where I started, still in the middle of a life I had no appreciation for and now burdened with an enormous amount of shame and guilt.

 

I made the decision then that I would grin and bear it, I was tough and I could try harder. I promised my family that I’d never attempt suicide again, that I’d reach out and ask for help, and that it was all just a mistake. At that time, I made efforts to be, but more importantly, to appear happy, and with the help of my family doctor I sought out a new psychiatrist.

 

It’s not over until the fat lady sings. And whoever she was, as far as I could tell, her lips were still sealed tighter than a new jar of pickles.