There is help for depression and trauma leading to suicidal thoughts
Four years ago, I moved back to Nova Scotia from Toronto. After a few months, I began to experience symptoms of depression and anxiety, which kept worsening until I began to feel suicidal. I started drinking and taking too much medication to try to stop feeling so depressed and anxious. I didn’t really want to die but I didn’t know how I could go on. So, I went to the hospital for help.
They admitted me to the psychiatric unit and started to take charge of my mentalhealth care. My medications were changed and the care team created a care plan for me. But I was not included in the development of a treatment/ care plan, even though it was supposed to be for me. Not even my family doctor was included in creating the plan. I felt I had no say in what I thought was best for me. After two days,
I was discharged. I didn’t feel ready to leave and I was scared, angry and anxious. I came to the hospital because I wanted to save myself and return home safe. Where can I get help when I am feeling suicidal if not in the hospital? I had tried to die by suicide before because my life was awful, especially when I was a child and youth. I didn’t want to have to feel so awful again.
I was so fortunate to have the support of my family doctor because, if a person has support, they turn to that support like I did with my family doctor. It is with my doctor’s help that I was referred to a psychiatrist and a social worker who have been working with me over the past two and a half years.
I am now in a program called Dialectic Behaviour Therapy (DBT), which provides support and teaches me how to change my thinking and to use tools to change my behaviour and reactions so that I don’t have to panic, be afraid, get depressed and discouraged.
Now I have more skills to try to ask for what I need and not fall into feelings of despair, depression and hopelessness. I want to end this repeated path of self-destruction and the people in this program provide me with a lot of support and encouragement. They understand the impact that traumas have had on me and that understanding is so important. But it is not easy to reach out and break the destructive cycle of the past.
I have also joined an organization called Survivors of Abuse Recovering (SOAR), and this group of childhood abuse survivors has provided me with support and friendships. In fact, I have taken an 18-week peer support training course so now I am able to provide support to others. It feels good to be able to help others and I really understand where they are coming from. I still have difficult days but as long as I am focused on recovering, I stay connected to people who care about me — and isn’t that what we all need?