Chapter 29 Suicidal
Suicidal
I KNOW IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE, BUT WHILE DUMB BLONDE was exploding upward, my mental health was still spiraling downward.
I was sober from pills and cocaine, but I did continue to drink—even if it made me feel terrible.
I still needed some sort of vice to get me through coming off pills.
But drinking only made my hangxiety (the fucking killer anxiety/hangover combo) the next day that much worse.
I didn’t have Xanax to bring me back to baseline.
By the time J got onstage, I was beyond drunk. It wasn’t like me. I was a professional drinker, and alcohol didn’t affect me like that. By the time my husband finished his set, I was totally gone. The lights were on, but nobody was home.
It was so bad, he decided it was time to get me home.
The drive was a blur and I don’t remember any of it.
The memories start again when I got home and stripped off my clothes and climbed into bed unshowered.
Anyone who knows me knows that I’ve got major OCD about such things—and that’s a complete no-no.
But clean or not, I next tried to slither my way all over the bed, being sexy for my husband.
He watched in horror as I started puking all over our bed while crawling on all fours, butthole-in-the-air naked.
Common sense me would have run to the bathroom, but not this sloshed-up orangutan.
Nope, I happily relieved my nausea all over our pillows.
My husband somehow got me from the bed to our living-room couch, where he placed a trash can for me on the floor.
Next thing I remember, I opened my eyes and found my husband sleeping on the living-room floor next to me.
This was pretty unusual—he’s a big dude, and sleeping on any floor is so uncomfortable for him.
But when he finally woke me up the next morning, he told me why he’d slept down there.
He said I was so messed up that he was scared I’d stop breathing in my sleep.
He wanted to be right next to me in case anything happened during the night.
I truly believe I was drugged that night—it was so far beyond my usual drunkenness.
And the sight of him on the floor, checking my breathing, on top of the image of me on all fours puking, was enough to make me swear off drinking alcohol forever.
I was sick of myself. It was the last vice I needed to check off my list.
When I got sober from alcohol, the real battle of healing my brain and body began.
I’d been pill-free, but alcohol is just as damaging.
That newfound sobriety piled onto the existing stress—the affair and my father-in-law passing.
And those stresses had been piled on top of what I was already dealing with: the intense anxiety I had battled with my whole life because of my childhood, and PTSD from my abusive relationship.
The affair pushed me toward a nervous breakdown.
By the time I got fully sober, I was scared to drive. I was scared to leave my house, and I couldn’t even meet a friend for dinner. I was a prisoner inside my own mind and body. So I started looking for answers.
Research on breast implant illness had started surfacing.
Women were getting their breast implants removed to relieve pain of all kinds.
My left implant was swollen and lumpy. It hurt like hell to the touch, and it was three times the size of my right breast. I knew something was wrong, and I desperately wanted to blame all my mental-health issues on my implants. I just wanted to feel better.
So that year, I had them both removed. Afterward, the surgeon told me that when he went in to remove my implants, he saw that my left implant—the swollen, painful one—had folded itself in half and caused scar tissue to form.
I am certain that being kicked in my implants—and all the abuse I endured—played a part.
Pictures showed the scar tissue was pretty much the same size as my 36 DD implant.
That had to have contributed to how terrible my mental health was and how I was feeling, right? I could only hope.
As I was healing with my new Franken-titties, I started researching vitamin regimens and holistic wellness.
I was trying to figure out how to heal my body from the inside out, but I could still see how broken I was.
I’ll never forget looking in the mirror after my ex-plant and being in shock at how mangled my breasts looked.
But somehow, I just knew they’d heal. They did—they’re beautiful, perky, natural Cs now.
In January 2020, I was about to turn forty.
I was finally learning how to heal—spiritually, physically, and emotionally.
J and I were rebuilding our marriage and our family.
Therapy was giving me tools to cope with my past and create a different future.
I was sober, experimenting with vitamins, and being better to my body.
But two weeks later, tragedy struck our house one more time.
* * *
WE GOT A CALL ON the morning of January 16, 2020, and jumped into our car.
By the time we found the hospital where my husband’s best friend, Chizzle, had been taken, we were too late.
He was gone. It was another moment of seeing the sadness fill my husband’s eyes while he only offered a quiet reaction: “Oh.” But he was in so much pain. We both were. We were devastated.
The whole way home, we sat next to each other in silence. This death would be another dark cloud we’d have to walk through unwillingly. Chizzle’s funeral was scheduled a few days after my birthday, and we went hand in hand.
We approached the open casket. It would be the last time we ever saw Chizzle. Overcome with grief, I touched his lifeless body in the casket and just sobbed.
“Oh, Chizzle,” I wailed. I stroked his chest. It was just automatic—I didn’t think about it. I didn’t realize the spiritual mistake I’d made.
* * *
A FEW DAYS LATER, I woke up with a feeling of heaviness in my body—and a sadness like I’d never felt before. But sitting with my thoughts was so overwhelming, I made myself venture out of the house. I made an appointment to go tanning. It was worth a shot.
As I lay in the tanning bed, I was overcome with this feeling of eternal sadness. It was like I’d died and knew I’d never be able to come back. Lying under those lights, I saw myself in a vision. I put the barrel of a gun in my mouth. I pulled the trigger.
What I saw was so graphic and overwhelming that I jumped out of the tanning bed.
I threw my clothes on as fast as I could.
With tears in my eyes, the only thing I could think to do was drive to the nearest hospital.
I knew that I was about to hurt myself—and if I didn’t go to the hospital, my life would be over.
In the hospital lot, I parked and reached into my purse for my emergency bottle of Children’s Benadryl. I took a sip and called the only person I knew wouldn’t judge me. My mom.
I bawled and screamed to her in fear, and she calmly talked me down.
She listened to me. And in that moment, I finally realized why girls say “I need my mom.” For the first time, finally, she showed up as my mother.
She calmed me down enough that I could drive home.
I went straight to my bedroom and lay down in the dark.
At some point, I’d called J to tell him what had happened, but I didn’t know where he was or when I’d see him.
When he made it home, he quietly came into the room, lay down next to me in the dark, and held me.
Just him, the silence, and our heartbeats.
It was everything I needed, and I don’t think he even realizes how much that meant to me.
How much it still means to me. The two people I needed to show up for me in that moment did.
And there’s nothing more beautiful in life.
* * *
I HAD NEVER EXPERIENCED DEPRESSION—only anxiety—so this was a new monster for me to meet. I had always prided myself on having anxiety and not knowing what depression felt like. I even thought maybe depression was fake—until the moment I felt that eternal sadness for myself.
At the same time, I began having excruciating pains during my period and blood clots just falling out of me, so I went to my gynecologist for an ultrasound. I lay on the table with my feet up, and when she looked at the screen, she raised her eyebrows.
“It looks like you’re trying to pass a sac of some sort,” she said, and instantly I just knew. I was having a miscarriage. At this point, nothing shocked me anymore.
Can I prove that touching Chizzle’s lifeless body sent me on this downward spiral? No. But I do know that my depression didn’t start until after I did—and given how spiritually in tune I am, it seems entirely logical that his body would have an impact on mine.
To this day, I refuse to touch an expired body for fear of having those same feelings come through me.
But I also know that I’ve experienced enough trauma to lead me down the depressive path—I’m not delusional.
Maybe Chizzle’s death was the straw that broke the camel’s back and sent me into a nervous breakdown.
The darkness stayed with me for years. It was so bad that I had to make sure we didn’t have guns I could get to, because I was so scared of picking one up and blowing my brains out. To this day I still won’t allow guns in our house unless they’re carried by our security team.
I don’t wish depression on my worst enemy, and I’ll take a panic attack over depression any day.
I’d rather be scared to die than scared to be alive.
It took years and years of research, going to therapy, and taking vitamin cocktails to get my brain feeling better.
I went on an extreme spiritual journey—but a truly rewarding one.
I’ve learned that bloodwork is the road map to health. So now every December and January, I do multiple bloodwork panels to check my hormones, vitamin deficiencies, and other things—so I can stay on top of my mental and physical health.
I also learned that the gut is your first brain and that depression starts there.
If you’re not feeding your body the correct foods your mind will feel like shit too.
In my journey to understanding my body, I even found out that I have the MTFHR gene mutation—which means my body can’t really process folate and B vitamins.
No wonder drugs always made me so damn sick.
Because of the mutation, my body doesn’t metabolize things properly, and my nutrient absorption is affected.
Before I knew anything about my mutation, I went and overdosed on B12 and vitamin D trying to make myself whole.
Don’t say this journey didn’t have wrong turns.
But most importantly, I spent a year working intensely with my current therapist, Glenn Cohen.
I met with him weekly and he taught me how to meditate and redirect my thoughts.
He guided me as I worked through much of the emotional pain I carried with me as a child, teenager, and adult.
He also taught me how to create new neural pathways in my brain—which I desperately needed after the abuse.
That battle was long and hard won. It meant healing my body, my mind, and my spirit—and committing to healing for the long haul.
Remember: It doesn’t matter how healthy you try to make yourself. If your soul isn’t sitting right, everything else is null and void.
Through the years I’ve changed my mental health significantly and I praise Jesus every day that I don’t feel that darkness like I once did.
Not to say it doesn’t show up occasionally here and there when I’m stressed or my hormones are out of whack.
But the suicidal ideation has slowly turned to OCD and obsessive thoughts I’ve learned to control.
OCD has always been a part of my life. So it’s like a second skin to me.
But by accepting this about myself, I have learned to harness my thoughts and redirect them.
This doesn’t mean I’ve conquered them. I’ve done full-on meet and greets with gloves and masks on because of my fear of germs and sweaty hands.
But I’ve slowly opened myself up more and more to things because I’ve learned that for me, the exposure helps me to change.
I cut out sugar almost two years ago and it’s made a vast difference in my anxiety, depression, and OCD.
Trust me, some days a big chewy brownie would make my day.
But then the panic attack that ensues after would make it all a lesson learned.
I’ll leave you with this. I don’t ever feel like I am fully healed.
I feel like life is a journey of healing and undoing trauma that we never asked for.
But the beautiful part is once we learn to harness our power and take back control of our emotions and thoughts, it’s like a butterfly spreading its wings for the first time.
You get addicted to the feeling of learning, applying, and achieving.
I truly believe everyone deserves to feel this way in life.