Last week I made the decision to flush my antidepressants down the toilet and that wasn’t the smartest idea, even though my doctor said I would be fine. (If you want the back story on why I did this, read my previous post that is titled, “flushed ’em”).

The next seven days that followed flushing them, my mental state gradually declined. That was due to the withdrawal. The first two days I was fine. I didn’t notice anything significant. I really didn’t notice anything significant till day three. Day three was when I started to get brain zaps. Brain zaps happen when withdrawing from certain antidepressants and it basically feels like an electrical charge is going off in your brain. So, day three was when the biggest side effects started to happen. That being the brain zaps and also irritability. Day four came around and I wasn’t any better. I noticed that I started to lose a lot of motivation. It was very hard for me to get out of bed that day. Throughout the day, I didn’t really want to do anything. I just wanted to sit around. Then night came. Nighttime is when it gets the worst. Everyone had gone to bed so I was up alone with my thoughts. I wanted to harm myself. I went to the bathroom and got my razor. I took it back to my room and tore it apart so it was just down to the blades with no guard on it. I began to cut my thighs. I would repeatedly slice across. I did this on both of my thighs. It got to the point where I had to stop myself so I wouldn’t cut anymore. There were so many cuts and I didn’t have any bandages big enough to cover them. They hurt so bad that I could barely move without cringing. I sat there for a few hours trying to get myself to tell someone. So, I told my housemate who lives across the hall. She was able to go to Kroger at 6 AM to get me some gauze pads to cover the cuts. I was able to finally fall asleep after I got the gauze pads on. Later on that day, my friends hid everything sharp so I wouldn’t be able to cut anymore. Day five was me recovering from cutting myself so much. I hadn’t cut myself that much at once since I tried to commit suicide almost five years ago. That just shows how much I wanted to feel the pain of it. On the night of day five, I was so tired from the previous night that I didn’t have the energy to stay up and do anything destructive. So, I was able to fall asleep and sleep through the night.

Now, I will tell you about day six. It is definitely up on the list of being one of the worst days of my life. It was the fourth of July. I woke up okay. But I woke up not wanting to do anything. I was supposed to go see my family later on in the day for a cookout but I just didn’t want to at all. And that is not like me. I normally love doing things like that with my family. I didnt want to be alone. I honestly didnt trust myself being alone. I knew that I needed to keep busy and be around people. I did a few different things throughout the day to keep me distracted. I went to Pickerington with my friend to see her family. After we got back, I went to a party that my neighbors were hosting. I hung around a few people and then went to see local fireworks. After I got back from the fireworks, I went with a different group of people to set off our own fireworks in a field. Throughout the entire day, you never would have guessed that I had a plan in the back of my mind. That was a plan to swallow a bunch of pills when I was finally alone that night. It was around 1:15 AM when I was finally alone in my room. I had an extra bottle of anxiety pills that I didn’t flush. I take this medication when I get really anxious so it will calm me down. I kept wondering what would happen if I took a handful of them. I was sitting on my bed pouring the pills into my hand. There were around 20 of them and they are 25mg each. So, that would have been around 500mg of Hydroxyzine. I proceeded to put them all in my mouth at once and in little groups they went down my throat. I sat there for about 30 minutes and started to get really scared after. I was pacing around my room trying to figure out what to do. About 45 minutes after I swallowed them, I decided to tell my housemate what had happened. After I told her, she called 911 and the ambulance came to take me to the hospital. When I got to the hospital, they ran a lot of tests on me. The doctor came to talk to me and he told me that the worst that could happen with me was constipation but they were still going to monitor me. After I was medically clear, it was about 7 AM. They decided to move me to the psychiatric area. I sat in that area until I was discharged at 5 PM. That is how long it took to get a psychiatrist in to see me. The wait was ridiculous but that is beside the point. Once the psychiatrist was in to see me, I told her about everything that had happened and why it happened. She wanted to admit me into the hospital but that was the last thing I wanted. I knew it wouldn’t benefit anything. I knew I just needed to get back on my medication to stop the withdrawal. She had me make a safety plan and she let me be discharged. I was so happy to be out of that place but I knew I had a journey ahead of me. That was to get back on medication and to also continuing counseling.

I attempted suicide that night and that is something I never thought I would do again. It is also something that is hard for me to admit to myself. I got to a point where I didn’t want to live anymore but I didn’t want to die either. I just wanted the pain to end. That is a July 4th that I will always remember. I downed a lot of pills and if those pills where something else, I could have easily died from it. Here is the thing though… I wasn’t meant to die that way. In that moment of me picking out a medication that I had no idea if it would kill me or not, was the very moment that Satan lost his grip. It is a tremendous blessing that I didn’t pick out a medication that could have easily killed me. I know I can’t stay in this place. I know I need to keep fighting. I honestly think that what happened needed to happen so I could get out of this daze. This daze of thinking that I could withdraw from medicine on my own and thinking that it is okay to do destructive things to my body. That only hurts me, the people around me, and the Lord. He feels what I feel. He knows my thoughts. He knows that I can’t end it on my own terms. He knows that my story isn’t finished yet.