To start my journey we must begin with where I came from. I am 31 years old and my journey began 16 years ago. At the age of 14 I was diagnosed with depression. I was told I was depressed and had anxiety and even told that they wanted to diagnose me as bipolar. The only thing I remember was I was terrified and that I did not think anything was wrong, I thought I was a 14 year old girl struggling to fit in and find my way, as well as dealing with normal female hormones. This was not the case, as I soon found myself sitting in psychiatrist and psychologist offices with my mom and being told I need to take all these different medications. At the time, being only 14 I thought my mom understood more than what she did and we trusted in what the doctors were telling us. I had, had tons of blood work done and they doctors were saying these medications were going to help me feel better. This is where the next 12 years of hell began.
I remember that it began with Prozac, the doctor said this would help my moods and that I would be happy. I was an athlete and all I was focused on was being able to compete and not being so anxious and upset so I started taking the medications. I remember things going well for about 6 weeks and then I started feeling bad again, anxiety was high and I had no control over my emotions. From crying, screaming outbursts where I would say anything and everything to then feeling numb. The doctors increased the dosage and after a week or two I stabilized. This pattern continued for months, after 6-8 months of a roller coaster cycle I had gotten to the highest dosage of the medication and I was quickly put on another medication.
Over the next 12 years I played this roller coaster of a game with anti-depressant, anti-anxiety medications, I would go 6-12 weeks feeling okay and then I would drop off and become severely depressed again, there were even moments of mania. I hated how I felt. Unfortunately, I do not remember everything, only brief moments and major events. There is a lot of my high school and early collegiate years that are foggy and that I do not remember at all. My mom has more than once brought up things that I have done and said that I have absolutely no recollection of even occurring. What I do remember is the torment I felt.
What made things even worse, was being in high school and not fitting in and people finding out I was on these medications and that made it all worse. I was teased and bullied and made fun of. I had people tell I do not need medications, I just need God. I went on and off the medications cold turkey more than once over those 12 years. Especially in high school. I also began drinking heavily to try and cover up what was going on and to try and fit in with what everyone else was doing, but the reality was, it was only making me worse.
Some of the things I do remember scare me today but looking back I realize I was sick and needed help but that I had to find what was going to help me most. My brother was home from college it was either the summer after my freshman or sophomore year of high school, I was so out of control, I remember screaming and crying and carrying on until I found myself on the floor with a meat machete in my hand making threats towards myself. Another instance, New Years of sophomore year of high school, New Year's 2000, I had just turned 16, I got to go to my first New Year's party with a very good friend of mine. I drank myself straight to a hospital stay, but in the back of my mind I was hoping not to wake up. I did not tell anyone how I was feeling before, I just went to the party, had 20 jello shots, ironically, I hate JELLO! I had 2 shots of Goldschlager, 1/2 of pineapple soaked in Parrot Bay for 2 days and several red solo cups of champagne at midnight. My poor friend, he saved my life, he stayed right by my side, he got me home despite me puking out the car window and staying the side of it with jello throw-up. As he struggled to get my limp body to the door, my brother heard him struggling, he sent him home and told him to get his younger brother home and he would take care of me. He only lived around the corner and as he pulled into his driveway, he heard the sirens and knew it was me. He came back and stayed by me at the hospital until I woke. Alcohol poisoning, is awful. The one thing I never told anyone was that I was trying not to wake up. This was a pattern I repeated more than once, not putting myself in the hospital but over drinking to numb the pain. I continued this pattern through college.
I was so over-stressed and anxious that it kept me from a collegiate career with my swimming and that only made things worse. I did not know who I was anymore, not to mention with the medications I was numb and did not remember a lot. I hated life. Because of my lack of confidence in myself and who I was I met all the wrong men and had bad relationships which on made things worse. I was fighting a vicious battle. I was lost and wanted to die.
In May of 2009 I met a guy that supported me in wanting to go off my medications, after he found out that I was on them, after an incident with alcohol that July, he believed I did not need them, even though he did not know much about me or my situation. I began yo-yoing with them and finally went off of them for a while.
December 01, 2009 my life changed forever in a way that I never thought it would. I had a major car accident, a man cut me off on my way home from work, he made a left-hand turn across 3 lanes of on-coming traffic between 2 green lights. I had no where to go and no way to avoid the accident. I t-boned his car on the passenger side between the front passenger and rear passenger doors, right in the middle splitting the frame of his car and totaling my car. All I remember was somehow getting out of my car looking at the front and seeing the transmission and part of the engine on the ground and collapsing. I never fully lost consciousness but was in severe shock, I remember as I came more aware in the hospital being in excruciating pain, I had no feeling in my left pinky and ring finger and had a fire burning sensation all the way up my arm to my neck. I had airbag burns on my right arm that also felt like I was burning from the inside out. They found no internal damage or broken bones and sent me home 12-16 hours after the accident and to follow up with any continued issues with my doctors. I never thought what would happen next was possible but the accident forever changed my life.
I was so distraught and struggling with continued issues after the accident I had gone back on my medications for the depression, by May of 2010, I was feeling out of control and crazy. On May 07, 2010 I left work and went to my doctors office wanting to talk with them and titrate off the medications, stay off of them for 6 months and start over. Apparently, I was so distraught and out of control the psychologist and psychiatrist called the hospital and had an ambulance come take to be evaluated. As I sat in the hospital in front of the fish bowl of nurses, they kept telling me I was going to be there for 24-36 hours on a hold until the hospital Psychiatrist could do an evaluation. I was still taking the Depakote, I was just feeling like it was not working. At that point, I was snuck out of the hospital after taking up a bed for someone who was truly sick for 12 hours. By the time I got home, a police officer was at my home doing a wellness check on me and cleared me. By the next morning, as I arrived at my now ex-boyfriend's parents home, I was being arrested and hauled down to the county Urgent Psychiatric Facility. They told me if I wanted to go home after the 72 hours I had to take the medications. On top of the Depakote that I had already taken that morning I was given 3 other medications. After a 48 hour hold, I was released. I could not talk or hardly walk, it was like I was drunk for several days after. I never went back on medications after that experience. The medications were not helping and I felt they were only making me worse. I worked really hard to keep myself controlled, despite all the pain that I was still coping with from my accident.
December 10, 2010, it had been confirmed that there was severe damage from the accident, I had been diagnosed with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, the brachial plexus of nerves in my arm had been impinged and that the only relief was to surgically remove my first rib on my left side. December 10th the surgery was performed. I had been in pain for over a year and had lost function in my left arm and hurt all the way down to my hip, it was my only hope, all I wanted was to get back to living. I had been through therapy and numerous injections that showed no extended relief. I was keeping hope to get back to normal and this the surgery would get me back there.
I remember waking up screaming after the surgery was complete. I had a chest tube, as expected, they had slightly collapsed my lung, a risk I knew going into surgery and they had the blood pressure cuff on the same arm. That was taken care of quickly. 16 hours after surgery I was being released, my insurance refused to cover a hospital stay, although I had a chest tube and a collapsed lung. I was sent home. Within 6 hours of arriving home I was being rushed to the local heart hospital unresponsive, vomiting and in unbearable pain. They controlled the nausea and vomiting and rehydrated me and sent me home once again. The next 2 weeks were hell. This is where the next journey begins.
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