I'm really upset about onestepforward.

[hunter]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024941244

I've had too much of this.

In my own deepest darkest places the OCD always carries me through.

If I'm dead I can't do whatever I NEED TO DO, even if it's something trivial like picking hairs out of my face, feeding our dogs, or seeing that some minor open source software bug is fixed. The "must have to do this!" has always overcome the black hole of my empty place.

One of my childhood friends killed himself. He was a brilliant kid in an Alan Turing kind of way.

When I was in college a friend of a girlfriend tried to kill herself in my bathtub. She survived but I still have terrible nightmare doubts about my first response, nightmares last night, even though I broke open the bathroom door. I should've called the paramedics, but I called her girlfriend instead who did. OD young woman, I touched her, she was naked, I had to so she wouldn't drown.

And I've got worse personal history.

I'm in a complicated place.

My basic mentally healthy optimist place isn't so bad. I do believe I've got the proper meds and deep time optimistic outlook.

But some days are just hard and I have to push forward.

[TexasTowelie]

1. I understand and can relate to how you feel.

She sent me a couple of DUmails at the end of last month to provide some encouragement after I overdosed. Be grateful that you are receiving the proper meds for your MH issues.

Please check your mail for I message that I'm sending.

[hunter]

2. Thanks for the PM.

[Tobin S.]

3. It makes me wish I could have done something, but she was just here with no hint of anything wrong.

I didn't know her beyond the board, but the event seems to have taken her husband by surprise as well. It suggests to me something that a lot of people don't understand about severe mental illness. The depth of the disorder is not always apparent. It may not be apparent at all. These people suffer in silence and terrible loneliness. Nobody knows how bad it really is for them.

[No Vested Interest]

4. Is it possible that sometimes this is done on the spur of the moment?

Maybe not planned?

[Tobin S.]

5. I've heard of that, and that may be the case here, but it is unusual.

Usually, people who have committed suicide had been thinking about it a long time and had a specific plan in their minds as to how they were going to do it.

[hunter]

7. It's hard to describe the pain.

If my meds fail and the last smidgens of OCD or curiosity fail me then I'm dead.

It hurts too much to eat, to move, to live.

It's my good fortune, and in spite of my "natural" brain chemistry, that overwhelming suicidal urges haven't overcome me.

In my most empty places I'm running with bloody bare feet, or not eating, or both, a skeleton man, 6'4" and a 150 pounds. But I've always had things I need to finish, even when they are crazy irrational things and I'm living isolated in my car in a church parking lot.

There was a time in my life when my university post office box and my Science News subscription were my only anchors in the "real" world. Everything beyond was painful madness. The campus police accepted me as an entertaining break from their usual sordid routines, "mostly harmless," and they would take me home, wherever that was.

I think my Army Air Force officer grandfather was a similar sort. He wanted to fly, he wanted to build airplanes, he often suffered the "blue meanies." But the Army put him to work keeping people indispensable to the world war II effort out of trouble. He was the handsome captain in a crisp uniform with the big black car and driver carrying the "get of jail free card." An Air Force officer who didn't fly.

Somewhere in that time he learned the mysteries of titanium, and was later hired as an engineer. His proudest moment was when men landed on the moon using bits of metal he had designed, supervised the making of, and held in his own hands.

I'm a bit more private than that, but maybe some things I've written, and bits of software I've created, are important. Even if I'm not significant, my wife and kids are.

[polly7]

6. Yes, it really hit me hard, too.

Apart from the most important things - the terrible loss, how loved she was, how tragic it is that depression takes so many really good, beautiful people, I had a few flashbacks thinking of finding my Dad. It's been over three years, but just knowing how horribly torturous the decision to do it must have been for him, nearly splits my heart in two and I can barely breathe if I think about it too much. I cried for onestepforward and her family. Just such an awful thing. I hope they get all the support and comfort from others possible right now.

[get the red out]

8. Her loss made me sad too

And I always understand when I hear of a suicide. I know what suicidal thinking feels like.

I've been there, too recently. I was lucky, I told people what was happening to me, I told my doctor and went to see her right away and my meds were changed around and are working better.

I am sad for the people who aren't lucky and sink into it too far to reach out for help. I am sad for their families and hope they understand that their loved on died because of illness, not because they didn't want to be with them.

When I got super-depressed about 6 weeks ago, I laid in bed and cuddled my dog as much as she would let me. She matters to me, my husband adores her but she would miss me and not be able to know why I was gone.

[postatomic]

9. It's a reminder of just how close some of us are

I suspect that there were 'signs' but they weren't recognized or they weren't deemed significant enough to be a cause for concern.

One example of a possible sign, that gets ignored, is that someone who is depressed and struggling does a 180 and appears to be doing better - is happy. What can really be going on is that this person has decided to die and there is a feeling of comfort in knowing that the pain will soon be gone.

Like you, my meds are what keeps me alive. Right now they are starting to poop out so I'm going to have to switch to something else. I always dread this. Doing the phase out - phase in thing with meds is always hit and miss and takes awhile. Not looking forward to it.

I can't talk to my therapist about these feelings because if I cross a certain line I know she'll be on the phone with the police. Can't discuss it with my SO or anyone else. When things get really bad I just take a handful of Xanax and shut down. Not exactly a permanent fix but if it keeps me alive a little longer I guess it's not so bad.

But then, I think about the whole WHY thing. It sucks.

I really feel for onestepforward's husband. He must be struggling with a thousand horrible thoughts right now. Trying to make sense of it all and wondering what he might have been able to do to prevent this.

I hope you have someone in the 3 dimensional world that you can talk to. It sounds like you have a keen awareness of your situation which is good, even though the process sucks.

Be well.