Lindsey Gelwicks is a senior magazine journalism major and writes “I Am a Process” for the Daily News. Her views do not necessarily reflect those of the newspaper or The Daily. Write to Lindsey at lbgelwicks@bsu.edu.
My mind was numb as I lay curled in a ball on the tiny hospital bed of IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital. Pure exhaustion had taken me over. Joining it were fear and loneliness. I couldn’t imagine anything worse for a suicidal patient than being left alone in a stark white room where the only things to do were sleep or think about how alone you felt. Eventually a nurse brought me magazines. I read a lot of TIME articles that day. It was Feb. 26, 2012.
Even a year later, the 24 hours prior to when my boyfriend at the time and I checked myself into the hospital are crystal clear.
I remember going to the Franklin Central show choir competition with my younger brother, hoping that time with my family doing something I used to love would cure me. I just ended up crying in the middle of a group’s cover of Jessie J’s “Who You Are.” The line “It’s OK not to be OK” got to me. I cried again over pizza during lunch. This time unprovoked.
I remember convincing my parents that I would be OK to head back to school later that day. Twenty minutes into the drive I felt out of control; the urge to run my car off the road and end everything I had been feeling the past few months was so strong that I started shaking. I called my boyfriend asking him to talk to me the rest of the way to Muncie. “I can’t. I’m hanging out with friends. We’re taking a shot in every building on campus,” he replied. Frantic, I called several more people before finally reaching one of my sorority sisters.
I remember the rest of the evening was filled with shouting fights, a smashed cologne bottle and a break up. A brief calmness settled over me as I spent the next few hours with sisters, pretending it was just another break up and that I would be OK.
I wasn’t.
On the walk home and as I sat alone in my room, images that had been haunting me over the past months came flooding back into my head. The time I sat in my boyfriend’s kitchen, knife to my wrist. The time he had to pull the car over before I could fling myself out. Over the past month, I had vividly imagined every way to go: hanging, pills, did I know anyone with a gun?
Later that night, I ended up back in my now ex-boyfriend’s bed, afraid to be alone because of what I would do. “I need you to take me to the hospital first thing tomorrow morning,” I whispered.
At the time, I was admitting defeat. I had failed to take care of myself. But looking back, it was the strongest decision I had made in years.
Asking for help is hard. Since sophomore year of high school, my brother was the only one who knew I was struggling with depression. Even then, I was able to convince him, and myself most of the time, that things were OK.
Through most of college, I held it together, keeping secret from my friends the time I poured the bottle of ibuprofen on the floor, counting the pills to see if it would be enough. It wasn’t. I would have just ended up getting my stomach pumped.
Eventually, I opened up to a few more people. But only those I was closest to. If others knew, they’d see me as this flawed creature incapable of taking care of myself. Once you tell someone you struggle with depression and fight the urge every day to kill yourself, you’re viewed differently. You’re fragile. You’re broken. “Crazy” was a word I heard a lot.
That’s the problem with depression in this society. It’s not viewed as just another disease. Somehow this disease affects your character and how people view you as a person.
But it shouldn’t. An illness is an illness. When you’re sick, you go to a doctor without the fear of feeling ashamed. Those suffering from depression should not have to feel ashamed to ask for help. They shouldn’t have to worry about what others will think about them.
I’ve come a long way since a year ago. I’ve done so much that I wouldn’t have been able to do had I ended my life.
But despite being stronger, I’m terrified that when others read this, they’ll see me differently, especially if they didn’t know me a year ago. I’m scared that when they see me, all they’ll see is the broken girl lying on the hospital bed.
I won’t say that girl isn’t me anymore. It’s a part of me but it’s not all of me. I’m so much more. And so is everyone who has battled depression or is still battling it.
We’re survivors. I’m a survivor.
