The Staff Have the Key

Posted on by Astrid

I have a morbid sense of humor that has sustained me through the darkest times of my life. I remember when I was in a suicidal crisis in 2007, being held at the police station while waiting for the crisis service to assess me, telling the officers how I wasn’t all that creative, since I had thought out only a few ways to die. I think one of the officers tried to distract me by saying that I must be creative, since I have a blog, but I wouldn’t listen.

Once I had been admitted to the psychiatric hospital, locked ward, with no privileges (as they are called) to leave the ward unsupervised by staff, I started to crack jokes. They were rather lame jokes if you ask me, jokes I’d plucked off the Internet, such as those about the differences between the patients and staff on a psychiatric ward. First, the patients get better and leave; second, not all patients believe they’re God; lastly, the staff have the key.

This post was written in response to this week’s Six Sentence Story Link-Up, for which the prompt word is “key”.

Poem: The Monster

Posted on by Astrid

Sometimes
It screams
Loudly
Telling me
To give up once and for all

Other times
It whispers
Softly
Luring me
To take that final step

Sometimes
It seems silent
Just for a little while
But it always returns
The monster
Wanting me to die

This poem was written for Friday Writings #14, for which the optional prompt this week is to write about monsters. I am also joining dVerse’s Open Link. I’ve shared poetry about my depression and recurring suicidal ideation in both linkies before. I often refer to this state as “the monster”, so this theme came to mind when I read the Friday Writings prompt.

Suicidal Ideation in Childhood: Some Reflections

Posted on by Astrid

Earlier today, someone online asked a group of autistic women about suicidal ideation in childhood and at what age it started. It is common knowledge that depression and suicidality are near-universal among autistics. After all, we are taught, be it consciously or not, that our autistic way of expressing ourselves is unacceptable.

I remember my first autistic burnout at age five. I don’t have clear, verbal memories of the experience, but my inner five-year-old might and I do experience somatic and emotional flashbacks. The family story about the event is that I was ill with the flu. At the same time (coincidentally or not) my parents were making arrangements for me to start at the school for the visually impaired. I started in mid-May, before the end of the school year.

At the time, I wasn’t actively suicidal as far as I’m aware. I started having those thoughts when I was around age seven. I have a vague memory of telling my mother that I wanted to die sometime around that age.

Interestingly, I never made suicide attempts. Even the times I planned my “final day alive”, I never had any idea how I was going to go about actually doing it. This fact was later used to “prove” that I wasn’t serious.

I mean, when I was 21 and admitted to the psych unit, my parents came to tell the psychiatrist that I’d threatened suicide ever since I was seven-years-old, almost adding triumphantly: “See, and here she is, alive!” They said I just wanted attention.

Then again, is it somehow bad that I, deep down, didn’t really want to die? I just didn’t see any alternative. Of course I didn’t want to die by suicide. I imagine at least most people don’t really want to; instead, they want a better life. But I couldn’t get that at that time or so I thought. Does that make me a bad person? I don’t think so.

It’s so sad that, at least in my family, the red flag of long-time, severe suffering was ignored as a sign of “attention-seeking”. As if a seven-year-old even has the capacity to use suicide threats to manipulate their parents for mere attention without anything else going on with them.

Desperate Yet Determined #WotW

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. What a week it’s been. I’ve been swinging between despair and determination, sometimes experiencing both at the same time. Let me share.

Last week, I was in a very depressive, dysregulated, suicidal state. I finally managed to tell my assigned home staff about the nature of the “monster” in me, ie. my suicidal thoughts. She decided to E-mail the current behavior specialist assigned to my care home asking her for help in finding me someone to talk to about this. I mean, I have my nurse practitioner at mental health, but I cannot seem to get it through to him how I’m truly feeling.

I also E-mailed my nurse practitioner, only to get a response saying we’ll talk about it on the 23rd. Well, that was the final straw for me and I’ve pretty much decided I’ve had it with treatment with him. I mean, I know I should have called the team, but it’s not like this is the first time he doesn’t pick up on my signals, be it in E-mails, on the phone or even face-to-face. Our talks have pretty much been meaningless forever. Honestly, the only thing he’s helped me with is getting the right medication, the topiramate, for my nightmares.

This week, I’ve been swung back and forth between the thought that truly there is no hope for me and the thought that, maybe, if I stand my ground firmly enough, I will be able to access the right help somewhere.

I’ve also been ruminating over those two years I’ve been in treatment with my current mental health team. My nurse practitioner told me a year ago that “we could search half the country for a suitable therapist but that wouldn’t make sense”, adding that we’re stuck with each other (as if it was something he hadn’t just decided on himself). Half a year earlier, he wanted to refer me to the specialist autism center, but that got shoved off the table for a reason I was never told. I have been saying for all of the two years that I’ve been in treatment with this team that there are two things I want to work on: my trauma-related symptoms and seeing if I can lower my antipsychotic. Neither has even remotely been started yet. After two years, I’m done.

I am not so naive to think my nurse practitioner is actually going to give in and actually help me find someone else this time around. I have a tiny bit of hope focused on the behavior specialist for my care home, but not much. Even so, I’m pretty sure I can get by with no help from any mental health professionals at all. It won’t be easy on me or my staff, and that’s one reason my staff might pressure me to stick with mental health. Thankfully, so far they don’t.

On the physical health front, I’ve also been swung back and forth between despair and determination. After thinking kind of wishfully that my abdominal discomfort was almost gone last week, it returned on Saturday and has been pretty bad all of this week. Nonetheless, my GP wants me to stick to my current regimen of one magnesium tablet (laxative) per day for two more weeks and have the staff call back to evaluate then. I was pretty upset yesterday when I heard this. Now I’m more resigned to the idea that there’s no hope for improvement of my symptoms.

Overall, right now, despair is taking over, but thankfully I’m not actively suicidal right now. There must be some tiny flame of determination in me somewhere.

How was your week?

Word of the Week linky

Not the End

Posted on by Astrid

My mind is exploding with chaos. So many thoughts, feelings, wishes, voices, dreams and visions float through it. It is so overloaded I am tempted to give up. Through the chaos, I can hear the monster speak. “Give in,” it lures, “go to the clouds.” I can almost picture the heavenly realm, the place the monster is trying to get me to go to, in my mind’s eye. I cry out: “No!” I am bombarded yet I stand. I won’t give up. This is not the end.

This piece was written for yesterday’s Prosery. The idea of this challenge is to use a given line of poetry in a piece of prose. The line we were asked to use is: “I am bombarded yet I stand.”

In the above piece, I try to capture what it is like to be overloaded with depressive and suicidal thoughts. Yet, I also aim to make it clear that I am fighting back. After all, this is not the end.

Working On Us Prompt: Suicide and Suicidal Thoughts

Posted on by Astrid

I have lots of things I want to write about, and yet all I do is sit behind my computer and try to figure out which feed reader would be best (or least bad) on my Windows PC. I’ve yet to make a final decision, but I’m frustrated with it for now.

I’m joining in with Beckie’s Working On Us Prompt again. This time, the topic of discussion is suicidal ideation and suicide attempts.

As regular readers of my blog know, I do experience suicidal ideation on a regular basis. I have in fact lived with re-occurring suicidal ideation ever since the age of seven or so. My most severe suicidal break however was in 2007, when I was 21. Ironically, my parents thought that, since I had had suicidal thoughts on and off ever since age seven, I must not be serious and it all must just be “for attention”. Well, let me be very clear on this: suicidal thoughts are no fun and, if they ever happen “for attention”, there probably is a very good reason the sufferer is seeking attention.

I had never attempted suicide when I had my break in 2007. This break too involved “just” threats. However, it doesn’t mean I wasn’t genuinely struggling. I genuinely thought death was my only option. Same when, in 2002, I wrote a goodbye letter but had no idea how to go about actually taking the final step. People commonly say that, if you truly want to end it all, you will and, if a suicide attempt fails, it must not have been serious. That’s not necessarily true. People die from impulsive suicide attempts and people who’ve tried to kill themselves many times and are adamant they want to die, may still be alive.

In 2007, I was hospitalized, because my suicidal ideation was so serious that I needed help for it. That is, because I was suicidal due to be overwhelmed living independently and going to university, it helpd already to be taken out of the situation. That doesn’t mean my suicidal thoughts were gone immediately. That took at least three months and they’ve returned frequently since.

I did not actually get much help overcoming my suicidal thoughts. When I was on the locked unit, I had no therapy and no medication other than PRN oxazepam. I started therapy at the resocialization unit, but it was mostly just supportive.
In 2017, after my discharge from the psychiatric hospital, I made two suicide attempts by overdosing on medication. I am hesitant to call them suicide attempts, because both were impulsive and I’m not sure my intent was to die. I was most definitely depressed though. My suicide attempts were “for attention”, yes, but I had a very valid reason to seek attention.