Friday, November 02, 2012

Walking the Broken Road

This isn't an easy post to write, so I'm just gonna get some stuff out of the way before I start.
1. I'm writing this to try and quell gossip and rumors and general untruths.  In my experience the best way to fight gossip is to put the truth out there in an indisputable way.
2. I am not looking for pity or sympathy or anything like that.  I simply want the truth out.
3. Nor do I need anyone telling me that I was a failure, that I should have prayed more or sought after G-d more...My inner critic does that enough.
4. This post would be easier to write if I were writing about a broken arm or broken leg or having cancer, but that's not what I've been given to write about.  What I do have to write about is the horrible truth that on Sunday night I broke the one promise I said I would never break - I tried to end my own life.

Nothing happens overnight and neither did this.  As any of you know who have been reading my blog for awhile there were a lot of huge changes...getting married, moving, new school, etc, etc.  Kinda sorta big things that were causing me to feel a little out of control. Then an "oops" happened.
David and I got pregnant.  I've been on Depakote to help control my seizures and if there is one thing to know about Depakote is that Depakote and babies don't mix.  At all.  So as soon as we knew we were expecting I started coming off the Depakote, and coming off it fast. What I didn't know was that Depakote was also a mood stabilizer.  Coming off of it quickly threw my moods for a loop.  I was up and I was down and I was all over the place.  Then, just before Thanksgiving, we lost the baby.   Enter crazy hormone adjustments from loosing a pregnancy.
Things got bad and I went to my family doctor and through a long and round about course of events I was admitted to a psychiatric facility and spent about a week there.  However, during the long and round about course of events my anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication, Cipralex (Lexapro) was completely discontinued and I was not started on my new one (Zoloft) until 2 days before I was released from the facility.
The dose I was on was very low and very ineffective. And Zoloft is an SSRI, which means it comes with the black box warning that the risk of suicide increases during the initial adjustment phase, especially in teenagers and young adults. Three days after I was released from facility #1 I swallowed three bottles of pills, with the intent of going to sleep and never waking up.
It was no one's fault and no one could have stopped me. It was a decision that I made.
David found me shortly afterwards and him and my dad took me to the hospital.  I don't remember anything after that until about 2-3 days later.  Once I was medically stable I was transferred to the Emergency Mental Health Unit (EMHU) in Guelph, which in general was just a bad idea (there may or may not be a blog post on that subject alone later).  EMHU actually did more harm than good for me and everyone agreed that it was in my best interest to be discharged today.
My meds have been increased to a more effective dosage and precautions are in place to keep me from doing anything stupid if my moods go crazy again.  I'm set up with a counselor and lots of follow-up.   I have dropped out of school for the semester as it was just getting to be more than I could handle.  We'll see next semester if I try again. Or maybe next year.
That's where I've been and what's been going on.  If you want to be supportive, please pray.  Pray especially for my husband. Pray for our marriage.  It's really been through the wringer.   If you ask me how I'm doing, be prepared for the truth...and for the fact that the truth might not be very pretty. Be respectful if I don't want to talk or need some space. But most of all, be willing to be there, to pray and to listen and maybe even wipe some tears.
I've got a long road ahead of me and I'm going to do my best to walk it.  It will be slow, it will likely be painful.  But it's the road I have to walk.

Bluntly yours,
Joellen Ayala

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Lots of prayers, lots of love.
~J-Mo