Posted by Shar on March 10, 2002, at 14:08:34
In reply to Trouble, draw back, posted by Gracie2 on March 9, 2002, at 19:31:48
Thanks, Gracie, for talking about your experience. I have suicidal ideation out the wazoo, almost continuously, since I was a little child. My feelings no longer seem like a big deal to me, but just like something that's gonna happen at some point.
I wonder, are you pleased that they revived you? Or do you wish you had succeeded?
xoxo
Shar/Rosebud
> Trouble-
> Don't go down my path. When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
> Here I am drinking one of the two beers that I'm permitted to have. At least they're longnecks.
> I'm taking a drug called Naltrexone, it's supposed to eliminate cravings for alcohol. So far it's been as effective as baby aspirin.
>
> A couple of weeks ago, about 3:00 in the morning, I drank a bottle of wine, ate about 20 Xanax and sat down on the couch to watch TV. I don't remember anything else until I woke up in ICU. It was pretty close - the doctor had warned my husband that I might have to be put on a respirator.
>
> I don't remember why I did such a terrible thing, but I imagine that I was feeling a lot of pain, like you. The psychiatrist said (after concluding that I wasn't a hopeless fruitcake) that such a thing didn't just happen, that there had to be events leading up to the suicide attempt, maybe something traumatic. No flies on that doctor.
> I told him about my brother's death and how it had ripped a hole in my heart. I told him about nursing my aunt, whom I loved dearly, while she was dying of cancer at home, and how I used to sit in the bathroom with a washcloth in my mouth so she couldn't hear me crying. I told him about the death of Ralph, my son's best friend, who spent so much time at our house that he called me "Mom". Ralph aspirated on alcohol and Ativan.
>
> So the doctor latched onto that. He said that my son was probably very angry with me - first his
> best friend died of an overdose, and then his mother tries to do the same thing. He said that no child (he's 20) should have to watch his mother have her stomach pumped. He just kept hammering on this point until I was crying. I said, please let me out of here so I can make it up to him. He said, "No. You're too dangerous."
> I told him I would never hurt anyone else, but he said that when I hurt myself, I hurt other people.
>
> There has to be a point where you close the door on all the hurt. I don't understand psychotherapy, dredging all that muck out of the sewer...once it's out in the open does it just evaporate like morning dew? Doubt it. Your own childhood memories are alive and well and they don't seem to be doing you any good.
>
> But since you have to deal with them, I suggest you look at yourself as someone special. Kids hate anyone different then themselves, and a lot of us creative/imaginative types were labeled as nerds. I imagine that Bill Gates was considered a nerd. (Once I told my husband, jokingly, that I had been a cheerleader in high school, and he snorted and said, "For who, the Cripps?")
>
> Andy Warhol said, "You have to do stuff that average people don't understand, because those are the only good things." Damn right. I bet those kids that tortured you are living out their average little lives - normal, common as dirt,
> untouched by the fire.
>
> I would rather be like us, even if we feel compelled to look into the abyss.
> -Gracie
poster:Shar
thread:19502
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020305/msgs/19565.html