Fighting to Survive Suicidal Thoughts

By Crystal Lindell, Columnist

(Author's note: A year ago today, on May 17, 2016, I almost killed myself. It was such a traumatic experience that I have marked the 17th of each month since then, and last night, I counted down the minutes until midnight as though I was counting down until my birthday. I had finally made it a year.

I wrote the following while I was in the darkest part of it — just days after everything happened. I never shared it publically, because I was worried about how it would be received, and I did not feel comfortable telling people about something I felt like I was still working so hard to overcome.

But take heart. I am still alive. And I have gotten lots of medical help since then, and lots of love from my family and friends. There are good days and bad days and very bad days, but they are my days because I am still here.

I hope my words will help you know that it is possible to fight the good fight against depression and anxiety, and that doing so does not mean you are weak — it means you a strong. For anyone currently battling mental health issues, you have all my love. Don’t kill yourself. We need you.)

How do you get over a broken heart?

More importantly, how do you get over a broken heart when you’re having a bad reaction to your new anti-anxiety medication, BuSpar (buspirone), and it’s causing the cruelest of all side effects — increased anxiety and suicidal ideation?

How are you supposed to endure that when you’re barely standing upright in the bathroom stall at work, as your swollen eyes cry for an hour straight, and then another hour after that?

When your suddenly weak wrists are bracing your hands against the blue walls in the stall, because if they weren’t, then your legs wouldn’t be able to hold you up?

I’m actually asking. I really want to know. How do you get over that?

If you’re wondering what medication-induced suicidal ideation feels like, I will tell you. It feels like you’re planning how to kill yourself, and your brain is spinning, and you hear this voice in your head screaming, JUST DO IT. LITERALLY NOBODY WILL EVEN CARE.

It feels like the blue dress you’re wearing is suffocating you, and you just want to take all the medication in your purse, and lock the stall and die.

It feels like the pain of being alive is actually worse than death. It feels like the pain will never cease. And it feels like the only real choice you have is to kill yourself.

It feels like the hours are seconds, and at the same time, every second is an eternity.

But still, deep inside, in your soul, you hear a whisper. A piece of your heart you forgot existed, trying as hard as it can to remind you of the light. You hear the faint, barely audible voice of a little piece of yourself trying to fight it. Trying, with all its strength to remind you that maybe, just maybe there’s a couple reasons you shouldn’t kill yourself.

It’s the voice that you spent your whole life nurturing in case of emergency. Specifically, this emergency. The voice you spent years building up so that when the world is exploding it can remind you where the fire extinguisher is. And you never really think you’ll need that voice. You never really think that your life will depend on that voice.

But suddenly, there you are, suffocating in a blue dress and expensive mascara is dripping down your face, and you’re doing the math on how many meds you have in your purse, and whether or not it will be enough to kill you. And out of the blue, you need that little voice to survive.

Maybe it’s God. Maybe it’s the years of love from everyone I’ve ever known. Maybe it’s the universe. Maybe it’s all three. 

It took me three days of waging war on screaming suicidal thoughts before I realized that all of this was likely a severe reaction to BuSpar, my anti-anxiety medication. I should have called my psychologist right away. And I should have gone to the ER.

But the suicidal thoughts were too loud, too overwhelming, and all the little voice in my soul could manage was continually convincing me to give it a couple minutes before I did anything too drastic. And then the minutes turned to hours, and the hours to days, and here I am, still alive.

I’m off the medication. My heart is still broken. And I’m not sure I can bear the weight of that blue dress ever again.

But I’m alive. Today, I am alive.

Crystal Lindell is a journalist who lives in Illinois. She loves Taco Bell, watching "Burn Notice" episodes on Netflix and Snicker's Bites. She has had intercostal neuralgia since 2013.

Crystal writes about it on her blog, “The Only Certainty is Bad Grammar.”

The information in this column should not be considered as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It is for informational purposes only and represent the author’s opinions alone. It does not inherently express or reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of Pain News Network.

Opioid Pain Meds Rarely Involved in Suicide Attempts

By Pat Anson, Editor

Opioid pain medication is involved in less than 5 percent of the attempted suicides in the United States, according to a large new study of emergency room visits.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine studied a national database of more than one billion emergency department visits from 2006 to 2013, and found that antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs were far more likely to be used in an attempted suicide than opioid medication.

The findings appear to contradict numerous government and media reports suggesting that opioids play a significant role in the nation’s rising suicide rate.  A recent VA study, for example, found that veterans receiving the highest doses of opioid painkillers were more than twice as likely to die by suicide.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicides in the U.S. increased by 31 percent over the past decade and are now the 10th leading cause of death. In 2014, nearly 43,000 Americans committed suicide, three times the number of overdose deaths that were linked to prescription opioids.

The Johns Hopkins researchers were puzzled to find that while suicides had risen, there was no corresponding increase in attempted suicides. Their findings are published in the journal Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences.

"What stood out to us the most is that while the rate of fatal suicide has increased, the overall rate of nonfatal suicide attempts has not changed much over the years, nor have the patterns -- age, sex, seasonality, mechanism, etc. -- changed much," said lead author Joseph Canner, interim co-director of the Johns Hopkins Surgery Center for Outcomes Research.

Canner and his colleagues analyzed over 3.5 million emergency department visits involving patients who were admitted for attempted suicide or self-inflicted injury. Poisoning was the most common means of injury, accounting for two-thirds of all suicide attempts. Benzodiazepines, anti-anxiety medication, tranquilizers and antidepressants were the most commonly used drugs.

Codeine, morphine, methadone and other opioid medications were involved in only 4.9% of the suicide attempts.

The study confirmed that suicide attempts peak during the spring, dispelling the popular myth that suicides increase during the holiday season. Attempted suicides actually decreased in November and December.

Over 80 percent of those who were admitted for a suicide attempt suffered from a mental health disorder, a broad category that includes depression, anxiety, substance abuse and alcohol disorders.

There have been anecdotal reports of suicides increasing in the pain community since the release of the CDC’s opioid prescribing guidelines in March, 2016. But the guidelines – and their impact on suicides – did not fall within the study period. Johns Hopkins researchers also did not study the relationship between chronic pain and attempted suicide.

“The study fails to reflect, evaluate or acknowledge suicides after the crackdown on opioid analgesics to relieve chronic and intractable pain,” said Twinkle VanFleet, a chronic pain sufferer, patient advocate and suicide survivor.

“Chronic pain sufferers are at a higher risk in contemplation, ideations, and actual attempts on their lives due to the CDC guidelines being developed without consideration to the suffering… inflicting fear in providers to prescribe and fear in patients to live.”

Earlier this year, VanFleet said she became suicidal due to her own undertreated pain. She sought help from two doctors and also went to an emergency room – and was sent away all three times without treatment.

“I still don't know why I'm still here,” she said.