You have the Power to say "This is not how my story will end".

   This past week was suicide prevention week.   While I did not post much I can tell you each and everyday I had a thought and or a small mental breakdown.  While lots of other things were keeping my mind busy it was the constant thing at the forefront of my mind all week.  I couldn't talk about it without wanting to cry so I just ignored it.  Probably not the best coping method but realistically it got me through a rough week.  I have nothing going on the rest of this day so today I figured I would face it head on.  In honor of National Suicide Prevention Week I will share my side of the hardest days of my life.  I am the one that was potentially left behind.  I was the one that almost planned a funeral, buried my daughter and hit rock bottom.  Again her story is not mine to tell, but when a suicide occurs there are several stories to tell......here is mine.

     Pink, the greatest and most amazing musical artist of my generation (well at least for me).  I got to spend an amazing evening with my closest friends watching her SLAY on stage while staying in a 2 bedroom suite in one of the nicest hotels I have ever stayed in.  It was AMAZING.  I woke up that morning, March 28th and got on my phone.  I discovered that Claudia had made a "spam" Instagram at some point over the past few weeks and people were sending her messages that were pretty inappropriate for her age.  While I knew she had not even checked the messages yet let alone respond, I had questioned her days before this at whether or not she had a spam account.  I texted her and told her we needed to talk when I got home, I was not okay with the Spam account and that we needed to talk.  She asked when I would be home and I said around 3.

     After a fun car ride home I pull into my driveway at 3pm almost on the nose.  Braydon had already left for work and my father in law was washing dishes in the kitchen.  I called for Claudia and did not get a response.  I assumed that she was asleep, she had a sleepover the night before and I know they stay up late.  I knocked on her door and she did not answer so I walked in and the worst smell I have even smelled hit me in the face.  I get closer and notice there is a brown vomit everywhere.  Covering her face, bed, floor, everywhere.  I woke her up and it was hard, I had to physically shake her to get her up.  At this point I am panicked.  She finally wakes up and she is extremely confused, shaking and cannot stand up.  She tried and her legs buckled and she smacked into her dresser hitting her head.  My first thought is she is drunk, very drunk.  Shawn has a love for alcohol (a healthy one for the judgemental people in the group) and our unlocked liquor cabinet was full of lots of different drinks. 

    I make a few phone calls one being Shawn and after making those phone calls I decide she has alcohol poisoning and she is sick, very sick.  The new standalone ER in our town is less than a mile from us so I make the decision to get her in the car and take her to the ER.  I had to carry her.  We got to the ER and I pull up to the door and walk in to get a wheel chair.  I put her in it and wheel her to the front desk and say "Here is a drunk 13 year old, good luck".  Not my finest moment as a mom and the thing I regret the most out of the entire situation.  By the time I park the car and get back in they are feverishly working on her.  They start asking me a slew of questions, most of which I cannot answer since I found her this way not knowing what actually happened.  I am quickly informed that her heart rate was over 200, her blood sugar was dangerously low and she was severely dehydrated.

     At this point I am escorted out of the room so they could work on her.  They inform that they will possibly need to shock her heart to get her heart rate under control.   I make several more phone calls.  At this point Two of my Angels show up.  Carlee and Chelsie are in the waiting room.  So I was in and out of the ER room keeping them updated.  Then is dawns on me, my drunk child was with OTHER kids, there are other kids who could be in the state.  I immediately call the mom of the girl she was with, they also live in our neighborhood and she was at the ER within minutes as well.  At some point Shawn shows up.  Not sure what point but he walks in.  I went out to update everyone waiting and the mom of the friend hands me her cell phone and says my daughter has something you need to know.  I say hello and I immediately hear "When Claudia left my house she said she was going home to kill herself".

    I don't know how but I immediately went into "HOLY SHIT" mode when I realized she tried to kill herself.  I called the house and asked my mother in law to check the trash cans, she started pulling bottle after empty bottle out of the trash can.  So I run back into the room and tell the doctors it was a suicide attempt.  Secretly I think they already knew and did not have enough evidence to tell me that.  Shortly after my mother in law comes in with a Walmart bag full of empty pill bottles.  The look of disgust the doctor gave me when I handed over that bag and the laced with disdain questions he asked as he read each bottle was something my soul will never forget. 

      I went out to the waiting room to tell everyone that Claudia tried to kill herself.  At that exact moment I had a one minute melt down and I curled up into a ball and sobbed while Carlee and Chelsie held me.  It was the one and only time I let myself break down.  I immediately wiped my tears and went back to being Mom and doing what needed to be done.  

     It was shortly after they informed me that there was nothing more that they could do for her and that they were transporting her to Vanderbilt.  My sister showed up and agreed to handle talking to the family, mom and sister and she got a hold of Braydon's boss and got him off early.  My in laws were heading to him to tell him what was going on.  The two besties went to the gas station and filled my car with gas so we could make the trip down to Nashville.  The nurse then came in and told us this was a critical transfer and that they would be going very fast with lights and sirens to Nashville.  Usually transfer take hours to arrange and within ten minutes of them telling us, she was being loaded up to go to Vanderbilt.  The ambulance staff took my cell and said they would call if any issues came up but also told me lights and sirens on the interstate can be more dangerous than helpful and that while they would be going fast the lights and sirens would only come on if she crashed.  So we loaded up and followed the ambulance the whole way down. 

    We arrive in the ER and she goes through the ambulance bay and we go through the front door where we are met by a slew of people asking questions and needing us to follow them.  We get back to her critical care room and the ambulance is handing her off.  Keep in mind since I woke her up she was extremely confused, making no sense, and delusional.  She said lots of funny things in the ambulance to include telling the driver she knew exactly where they were going, they were on their way to the ramen noodle factory.  Its ok to laugh, it was funny and made us all laugh.  This started several hours of her not sleeping, she was in and out of lucidness and all we could do was wait. 

     When we finally got in a room, it takes a while because you need a sitter, everything was zip tied closed, all cords and wires were removed if they were not attached to her and we had to remove all of our own personal items.  There was a cabinet outside the room where we kept cell phones, chargers and my purse.  AT this point the life specialist came around and told us what would happen next,  Luckily I have a sister that semi deals with this on a regular basis so she had already walked me through best case scenario and worst case scenario.  So honestly I was already prepared for the "She has to go to an inpatient care facility".

     The next day I am informed that she is stable enough to transfer and that they have a bed across the street in the Stallworth rehabilitation center.  So we pack up all of our own belongings and get ready to take her over.  My heart was crushing and I was just as lost, scared and confused as Claudia was.  We walked her across the street and they gave me a list of what she could not have with her while in patient and let me know that twice a day I could visit her for an hour.  2 hours a day in an inpatient facility was all I had. 

    After I left her I realized I needed to go to the grocery store, we had no food.  I also needed to get her some pajamas with no drawstrings and some travel toiletries, etc.  The thought of facing people was making me physically ill, I had no desire to run into any person I knew and feel the need to discuss with them why I looked like I had been hit by a freight train.  So I went out of my way to go to different cities to shop.  It was at this point I decided I needed to return to work.  I needed normal and I needed distractions.  So I decide to go back to work on Monday, using long breaks and leaving early to get my 2 visitations.  I lasted 1 day and I am not sure that it was even a full day, for the 1st time in my life I was truly broken. 

     The visits with her were grueling and watching other children never get a visitor was hard.  We would bring her a snack each time which was allowed and we tried to bring stuff for the kids who never had visitors and they would not allow it.  Not only was Claudia in the scariest place I have ever been but so were other children who were having the worst days of their lives and they did not have someone to visit them.  One little girls dad was on his honeymoon with his new wife.........  while I want to judge this dad the one thing this has taught me is you never know someones else's story.  But my heart still very much broke for the kids in there. 

     Suicide is a decision that affects everyone.  It affects every person around you.  My heart has still not recouped from this and my mental status is still on edge.  In between visits I went to the dr to get medication to numb the pain and make it through.  If you or someone you know wants to end their life get help.  Know you are important and loved.  I was told multiple times by multiple doctors her case is a scary one.  That she truly wanted to die.  This was not a cry for her help or a half assed suicide attempt to get mom and dads attention, she truly wanted to end her life to avoid the pain.  Again to us suicide is selfish, this whole post from me is about me and how I felt, which is also selfish.  We are humans and we do what is best for us, suicide is no different.  

  

Tears are words that need to be written 1-800-273-8255

     This will be the hardest blog I ever write.  I am about to give you the rawest form of me, the weakest and the most broken.  I have written this no less than 10 times and deleted it.  I am going to paint a picture for you.  Do not judge as it will not do what this blog is intended to do.  This blog is to inform parents, grandparents and anyone who loves someone on the dangers of anxiety, depression and raw emotions.

     March 28th of this year I came home to find Claudia unconscious and covered in her own vomit.  She was incoherent, not able to stand and delirious.  I rushed her to the nearest emergency room where they informed me that it was very serious, at one point I was escorted out of the room.  They thought they needed to shock her heart to get the rhythm in control (her heart rate was in the 200's), her blood sugar was dangerously high, severe dehydration and those were just the worst of the problems.

     What seemed like a lifetime later we discovered that she had taken a lethal dose of pills with the intention of killing herself.  7 prescription bottles and handful of Benadryl.  She wanted to die.  She was immediately transferred to Vanderbilt where she was admitted to the critical care unit and remained there for 3 days.

     While in critical care we wanted no one to come around.  The only ones allowed in the room were us and her sitter.  A sitter is someone is required to be in the room at all times.  While we were sleeping, eating, going to the bathroom, etc.  We could not have cell phone cords, everything was locked and taped up so that there was nothing in the room that could be used for her to harm herself.

     While in this room I began to make my phone calls.  Luckily my sister and friends had taken care of the key players and allowed me not to have to tell everyone, I still needed to tell those who have loved Claudia and who have watched her grow.  One special person needed to know, someone who recently had her own loss of epic proportions, someone who had been to the rock bottom and leapt back to the top.   Without hesitation she let me know she was getting in the car and would be to us within the next 7 hours, because that is how far away she lives.  At this point Shawn had gone home to comfort Braydon and decided he needed to return to work.

   A mere 6 hours later an angel showed up in the middle of the night and comforted me.  She allowed me and Claudia both to sleep.  While I went down to the cafeteria to eat breakfast they talked, to this day I am not sure about what but they talked.  A short time later we discovered that Claudia's bed was ready across the street at the psychiatric hospital.  She walked with us over there and held me while I cried as I let Claudia go.  I was only allowed to visit her twice a day for an hour a piece.  I had to leave her in the scariest place she had ever been and walk away.

    She spent 7 days there before she was able to come home, the day before her 14th birthday.  She was diagnosed with severe anxiety that led to a single depressive moment.  She is doing well and weve made some changes within our family.  While life around me continues my world is still standing still, on March 28th.  While I don't blame myself I replay the day over and over again attempting to figure out what went wrong. 
   
      So why is this the rawest thing?  I am PETRIFIED of being judged.  What do we as parents do?  We protect our children, we make sure they are always ok and I failed.  We all fail as parents at something, sometimes its little and other times it is epic.  Instead of supporting each other at our fails we tend to talk about each other and belittle those mothers who have failed their children.  Why?  Usually because it makes us feel better right?  I spend everyday and every night afraid to fail again, next time will she be dead?  She came awfully close this time.

   Things you need to know as parents, grandparents and caretakers......  Benadrly is used in more suicides than you probably realize.  LOCK IT UP and ALL other medications.  Learn signs of depression and anxiety in children.  Claudia gave us no known signs she was struggling, not a single one.  All the doctors told us she truly wanted to die, talk to your kids.  We do all the time and did and sometimes there is nothing that can be done, however I know this was not our fault.

   If you have questions, just ask.  We do not want any other family to have to go through what we have been through.