depression and sucide

Are there words, a quote, or a phase that seems to mock you? There are words, quotes, and phases that can inspire, encourage us, and lift us up, but then there are those that seem to mock us. For me it is the phase “Sweet 16”. Everyone thinks that 16 is supposed to be the “sweet” age. There was the MTV series “my super sweet 16”, which made it look like being 16 was going to be super, and I couldn’t wait to turn 16, so that I could have my “ super sweet 16” party, I didn’t get a “super sweet” 16 party, I had to celebrate mine in the hospital as a combined birthday party for me and a late mother’s day party for my great grandmother because they believed it would be the last one she would see because she was dying. I remember instead of feeling grateful that I was the one who was healthy, wasn’t dying, and got to spend this time with my great grandmother and the rest of my family I felt upset that I had to share my 16^th birthday party and have it in the hospital because I built up my dreams of how turning 16 was going to be for me, but that isn’t the reason it mocks me. The reason it mocks me is because when I think back to being 16 it was not sweet instead it was bitter memories of depression, pain, hurt, and tears come rushing back to me. That age sticks out for me as the most depressing. I see myself laying on my bed after I had attempted to kill myself by taking half a bottle of super strength tynel and cutting. I see the marks on my arms legs that I made using a razor. I remember telling myself that If anyone asked me about the cut marks I would makeup a lie like my dog stretched me, I fell, or I burned myself cooking. I tried to hide the cut marks behind my clothing hoping that no one would notice because I was ashamed of those marks, and the damage I had done to myself through self-harm. People seem to think that people who cut or self-harm are crying out for attention, which isn’t true. I was cutting to try to get the pain I was going through to end. I was going through a lot my great grandma died, my first dog died, my first boyfriend broke up with me, and a roommate I was close to moved out. I felt like everyone was leaving me and no one cared about me not even God, which I know now isn’t true because if God hadn’t cared about me, he would have let me die instead of saving my life. He cared about me enough to save my life because I am his child, and he knew that there was so much more I needed to experience and to accomplish in my life. He had and still has a purpose for my life that wouldn’t be fulfilled if he had allowed me to succeed in killing myself. Instead of telling anyone how I felt I isolated myself, and kept my emotions bottled up which lead me to my suicide attempt. I wish someone had told me that they loved me, cared about me, and that I wasn’t alone, but how could anyone tell me that when they didn’t know how I was feeling, and if they had told me, I don’t know if I would have believed the words they were saying to me because I was in such a deep state of depression. I hear myself yelling out “please god forgive me, I didn’t want to die. I just wanted the depression to end.” I feel God holding me in his arms while I fell asleep. The day after taking the overdose of tynel, my grandma came home and noticed that there were pills missing from the bottle and that I wasn’t getting up. She made me get out of bed and go to counseling. I just kept throwing up the pills. She got my aunt and my best friend to come talk to me. We walked around the block discussing what I had done. My best friend asked me to never do that again and told me that if I needed someone to talk to that I can walk over to her house because she lived on the street above mine.  I am grateful that I have a supportive family, supportive friends, and my church supports me which is more than some people have, but there will always be people who disapprove of the choices that we make, the things that we do, the things that we say, and who we are. In the past I would try to change myself into who I thought others wanted me to be and tried to make choices that I thought would make others happy, approve of me, and love me.  Now I realize by doing that I’m not being true to myself, and who I really am. I know that I can never please everyone or have everyone’s acceptance, and not everyone will support me. What matters at the end of the day is if I love myself, accept myself, and support myself because if I can’t do that then I can never truly love anyone, or will they be able to love me. I must start by loving, accepting, and supporting myself. I feel bad for those people who don’t feel like they can love, accept, or support their selves and have no one to talk to about how they are feeling and must keep their feelings inside. When my time does come to die, I want to be remembered as an encourager, and an inspiration. I want to have lifted others up and made a difference in their lives. The one that they could come to if they need someone to talk to. I want to haven given them strength and have passed my wisdom onto them. To do that I am writing and reading encouragements at church. People have told me that my writings have touched their hearts. I have always had a passion for reading and writing which is why I have received all a’s in my English classes and joined the writing club this semester. Their club president Rhea Jenkins is one of my friends. She, and I were in two classes together in the past, the first was art appreciation, and the second was American literature. I was worried about her when she got sick one day in American literature. She got up and ran out the door slamming it. She came back and said she wasn’t feeling well. The professor was concerned about her, and dismissed the class calling an ambulance. Later it turned out that one of her meds made her blood sugar go down too low. I told the professor to let Rhea know that if she needed someone to talk to that she could message me, because I knew what it was like to struggle with your blood sugar due to being diagnosed as a diabetic at age 23, which is another time that I suffered from depression. I hear the doctor speaking those dreaded words “you have diabetes.” I see myself sitting in the waiting room after while the doctor spoke to my grandma. I feel the tears rushing down my checks. The daughter of the woman working behind the desk asked me “what’s wrong”? I told her I have just been diagnosed with diabetes. She came out from behind the desk sat with me and talked for a while about how it didn’t mean that I was going to die soon, but that I had to manage it with exercise and changing my diet, but I was so upset I could barely hear the words of comfort she was trying to speak to me. I took books out of the library and read all the effects of diabetes. I was scared thinking they were going to happen to me, and that I was going to die soon. I saw getting diabetes as getting a death sentence. I felt scared, and hopeless. I laid on my bed, and wouldn’t get up to eat, use the bathroom, change my clothes, or take a bath until my grandma made me get up. My dog Little man laid beside me the whole time. I am thankful that I started talking to sister Donna in church about my diabetes because she knew what it was like to struggle with diabetes. She gave me my first blood sugar monitor so I could check my blood sugar, but for a while I was afraid to check it thinking that I would cause too much blood to come out. I had to make changes in my life in order to manage my diabetes. I had to start exercising more which I did by walking my dog, and I have recently started working out at the YMCA. I also had to cut down on sugar and carbs which is still a challenge for me because I tend to eat sugar and carbs for comfort when I am feeling down, stressed, worried, scared, anxious, mad, angry, or bored. I am what they call an emotional eater. After I emotional eat I then beat myself up for eating it. It is a vicious cycle for me. My doctor isn’t happy either that I am eating sugar and carbs to deal with my emotions because my blood sugar is up. Last time I talked to her she told me I have three choices 1 I could bring my blood sugar down; 2 I could increase my medication or 3 I could go on a new medication. I told her that I will bring my blood sugar down, but I am noticing myself still eating the sugar and carbs to deal with the emotions of losing my grandpa to liver damage, struggling to pass my classes this semester, and ending my relationship of two years with Monica. My grandma thinks that I am doing good because she doesn’t see me eat those things, because I am eating them in secret. I know that my emotional eating isn’t going to help me deal with the loss of my grandpa or Monica, and it isn’t going to help me pass my classes instead it is going to create more problems because eating those sugar and carbs will raise my blood sugar, and then when I go to get my labs the doctor will see that my blood sugar hasn’t gone down, and I will be leavt having to choose if I want to increase my medication, or go on a new medication. I don’t want to have to rely on medicine in order to be healthy, so I am making a promise to myself that I will 1) allow myself to feel those feelings instead of trying to cover them up with sugar and carbs, 2) find other ways to deal with those feelings instead of turning to sugar and carbs. 3) I will not beat myself up for eating those sugar and carbs in the past instead I will forgive, accept, support, and love myself because the past is the past today is a day now is a new moment another chance to do things right. I know that I am more than those past feelings, emotions, thoughts, actions, choices that I had in the past. I am a child of god who is going through life the best way that she knows how, and yes sometimes I will think incorrectly make wrong actions and choices, but I won’t beat myself up over them because I am doing the best that I know how to do in the moments that I am experience them. 4) I will allow myself to talk to those that I trust about my feelings and my emotions instead of bottling them up to a point that I harm myself, or someone else because no one can help me if they don’t know how I am feeling, and it is freeing to let those feelings and emotions out instead of bottling them up. Some people see asking for help as a weakness but the truth is it takes a strong person to humble their selves and to admit that they need help. Think back to when you helped someone didnt it make you feel good to help them? Didnt it make you feel like you were needed?When we allow other people help us it makes them feel good to know that they are needed. Everyone wants to feel like they are needed and wanted. We all need help at sometime or another with something in our lives for example i have struggled with math alot going through college and had to have the help of a math tutor.I am grateful that I didn’t succeed with my suicide attempt at 16 because if I had I wouldn’t have the relationships that I have now. I wouldn’t have had the accomplishments and experiences that I have had since then. And I know that there are more dreams and goals for me to accomplish, and experiences waiting for me to have. I am going to work hard in my life to make those dreams and goals come true for me, I know it won’t be easy, but nothing in life that matters comes easily it takes a lot of hard work, time, and patience. I don’t always feel like being patient because I want those things to happen overnight, but I know that isn’t realistic. There are people in my future waiting to meet me, and if I kill myself now then I am robbing from the chance to meet me, and be encouraged, inspired, and uplifted by me. I won’t have the chance to make a difference in their life’s, to give them strength, or my wisdom.