if you have OD'd i need to talk to you *su*

[Stellaria]

My view is that once I'm dead I'm dead - there will be nothing - no feelings, no emotions, no thoughts. So any guilt about making other people feel bad (which is their responsability not mine anyway) will not exist. What it costs other people isn't relevant for me - I won't be seeing it so there will be no guilt.

I'm not looking to argue with you whether you are right or wrong, I just want to give my personal view, ok?

I also think that when I'm dead I'm dead, but to me it matters if other people would hurt if I killed myself. It's not my feelings of guilt that are important, but their feelings of pain that they would still be alive to feel. I don't want people I care about to hurt. Whether or not I'm there to watch it.

Sadly, when I'm low enough to seriously consider suicide, my thinking is often distorted and I can convince myself that people wouldn't be sad but happy to be rid of me, and I would be doing them a service. So concern for others isn't a fail safe mechanism to stop me from ever trying to kill myself. But sometimes it has made me think twice before doing something rash.

[924gilman]

I guess it's not the same for everybody (nothing is though- we all have our own personal reactions) but reading this thread has definitely helped kill my urge to OD. I wouldn't consider myself actively suicidal, but I still get an urge sometimes because it seems like such an easy escape from life's problems.

For me, the worst thing wasn't the gross charcoal or painful stomach cramps or trip to the mental hospital. Those were bad. And thinking about my mother sobbing in the hospital still makes me shiver. But the absolute worst part is years later, the look on people's faces every time I have a bad mood or make a careless, desperate comment. It's been 5 years and everyone I love is still affected by it. The worst part is always being seen as unstable, even when things are going well.

My suicide attempts have never been based on a true desire to die though, I don't think. They were more of an impulsive, desperate attempt to escape. So thinking about the "afterwards" does help me stop myself from doing something impulsive. I know it's different for everyone though.

[Beasty]

I did once...not fun. At all. I woke up in the middle of the night feeling high. Literally. Everyhting was fuzzy and spinning and I had to pee like a mother. I went back to bed and sort of drifted off to sleep in a stoned sort of way. The next morning I felt like my stomach was going to explode. The rest of the day at school I couldn't walk right and I was puking every hour. It was terrible.

[bellamuerte]

(Trigs maybe? graphic)



i first od'ed in my first year of secondary school, and the one thing that i really remember was being a little girl on suicide watch...that will haunt me forever, seein the look of fear on my mothers face scared me so much, and i hate myself for that, because I still try.

I can remember the pain, the sickness. i wasn't given charcoal, but an injection in my thigh to make me puke and man did i...every time i opened my eyes the nausea came, wave after wave. i ended up being given a huge metal bowel from the kitchen

when i regained consciousness in the childrens ward, i realised that my bed was beside a girl that was in the same year as my brother. She was in for appendicitis. i was in hospital for two weeks, and by the time i got out, the whole school knew about it, and i felt like i wanted to do it all over again, but this time suceed

sometimes i feel like doing it again, and when i do, i change my mind and throw it all up again (saltwater tastes vile), because of my mother and her reaction the first time i did it

the last time tho, i told no one, i lay in bed all night with the most severe cramps ever, seriously thought i was going to die.
i went to school the next morning and spent the whole morning pukin blood in the girls jax...i couldn't stand for days, couldn't eat, wouldn't sleep...jesus i was such a fucking mess, and i hate myself for inflicting this on other people...but this is the first time i feel in a safe enough environment to tell my stories

Thanks BUS
*hugs*
Bella XxX

[pinkally4]

I guess i've OD many times...

I have this decorative bottle, and thats where I would hide my pills. Any pills I could get a hold of. Mostly over the counter painkillers, ones my parents wouldnt notice missing.

I always take too much, but when I decided it was enough i remember counting out too much tylenol, taking them, then pouring the rest of the pills out and taking them too.

I started getting dizzy, really dizzy so I laid down on the bathroom floor. Well more like fell. My breathing got really slow, and I dont remember much after that.

I do remember my mom, the one person who I always wanted to love me

(she does, and is a wonderful woman but during my depression I blamed her for not being able to fix me)

Banging on the bathroom door, yelling my name. Yelling my dad's name. I half sat up, fell back over & sat up again to unlock the door. They bent over and i remember not opeing my eyes, i was too out of it. I could barley think, but i remember them talking to me, shaking me. And that's it.

I dont think they realized how much I took, because they didnt call the ambulance. They put me into bed and the next afternoon, i crawled to the bathroom (i was still too dizzy to walk) and was sick. Lots. Lets just say throwing up may have been better than what i was doing.

I could still feel it for about 3-4 days afterward, and the next appt with my psycharist was not fun.

The worst part is the memory of my mom's face. Ive never seen her like that. It was a look of anger, devestation and extreme fear.

That look is enough for me to never do that again. That was in 2006 and I know that SU is never the right option.

[xmcrx37]

(**possible trigger?**) [words]






All I want to say is this:when someone is thinking about su their thinking about all the relief they will feel afterwards. Except you can't feel anything if your not alive.

[_MessedUp_]

(**possible trigger?**) [words]






All I want to say is this:when someone is thinking about su their thinking about all the relief they will feel afterwards. Except you can't feel anything if your not alive.

these words strike a chord with me, cos they're so true thank-you

[Arcana]

(**possible trigger?**) [words]






All I want to say is this:when someone is thinking about su their thinking about all the relief they will feel afterwards. Except you can't feel anything if your not alive.

G-d, that's exactly what went through my head last week when I OD'ed for the first--and last--time.

(*trig warning*)

I knew that you could die from an OD of certain over-the-counter painkillers.

But no one told me that I'd wind up vomiting my guts out, have muscle tremors, and not be able to walk in a straight line.

I did not want to spend the last hours of my life vomiting on the bathroom floor in my dorm. Or worse yet, into the trashcan by my desk because I was so nauseous I couldn't make it to the bathroom. No f-ing way. So I called 911 and went to the hospital.

After the 12 hours of vomiting-- I even vomited up the charcoal and the antidote they gave me in the ER (have you ever vomited charcoal? it's nasty)-- came the 24+ hours of solid nausea from the antidote. 1000 mL through an IV. I couldn't get up to use the bathroom, so I had to go in a commode (talk about humiliating).

Then I got moved to the psych ward. Then I got told I couldn't go back to school to finish up the term. I'm on forced medical leave. And I was doing really well in all my classes, too. So now I've got to fight to prove that I'm getting better asap, and that I'm happiest when I'm on campus and learning, with my friends.

But I will NEVER do that again. This is the worst experience of my life, I think. I mean, I now really know that I need to get better, but there were and are other ways.

I just hope that my family and friends, especially my younger sisters, whom I've sworn to protect and wound up hurting more than anyone else ever could when I OD'ed, can forgive me.

[Licentia Poetica]

yeah, vomiting charcoal is lots of fun

[amyfairy]

[butterflygirl348]

I've read this post a few times. And what strikes me as weird...as much as I read the misery and sometimes remember how messed up my body might be after a OD.... it doesn't stop me from trying to find the perfect combination- the one I won't wake up from.

I have two adorable nieces whom I love to pieces.... and when I'm depressed enough to try not even seeing pictures of their smiling faces changes that.

Maybe my friend is right, maybe I am lucky that my therapist took my despair seriously and sent me to the ER for evaluations.

That being said it's been 3 years this month since my last OD attempt... and even when I tried to get drunk enough to override the logical part of my brain this past November... I couldn't try.

Hopefully... one day, the pain won't threaten to drown me.

Thank you for this post because I need to be reminded about how serious OD's can be, and how the corrective measures are not always drinking charcoal. How I could possibly make my physical life as crappy as my mental health life. I thank everyone who shared their stories.

[Licentia Poetica]

Well said.

Your life is always worth it, and there's always someone wanting you and needing you here even if for the moment that's not yourself

[caged bird]

[Holi]

*deleted*

[caged bird]

and the horrible thing for friends and family is, that even if you didn't want to kill youself, you still flirted with it and tempted death (cos no one knows for sure right?).

you were ready to leave them. ready to take that risk. and however much they understand that you hurt enough to even risk your life, they will also be hurt. it's the human, two way thing. hurt *for* you and hurt *by* you.

can you tell i thought i might lose someone i love to an od? they were lucky. i was lucky. they lived to fight another day. it was not nice for either of us.

cs

this really hit home with me today xx

[Smeagol]

*bumped since many people have been asking about od-ing/reasons not to od*

[Chaocontrol6]

Since it's been bumped I'll put my view...

I remember on my OD being "minor" but I still had to be sick, and getting my friend to help me, seeing my in tears breaking down, I felt so bad seeing his face there...he'd rather have been with friends but also wanted me to be happy...it's something I know I wont be doing again...

Jason

[glass angel]

I work with people with physical disabilities, mostly, as a social worker. sometimes i work with people with cognitive impairments who don't 'fit in to' other teams' remits. and at least two of my clients have been women over the age of 40 suffering the long term consequenses of overdose. obviously i can't give many specifics for 1) client confidentiality and 2) giving anyone ideas. but in general...

these people have either attempted suicide by overdose and 'failed' or taken multiple non-fatal overdoses as a form of self harm. they suffer long reaching consequences - liver damage and liver cancer being the obvious, problems with the absorbtion of nutrients, and most devastatingly, severe cognitive problems. by which i mean, severe memory loss (a short-term memory of around 10 minutes), word-finding difficulties, anxiety and some failure to relate to the people who love them.

let me stress, i see the worst case synario. but let me also stress, this can be the consequence of any ONE overdose. overdosing is never, ever safe. sometimes the urge is there (i have felt it, i have given in to it, and i have faced the consequences of seeking medical attention) but if you give in to the urge to overdose, there is no real choice except to get help.

[Stellaria]

somewhere <<<<<<<<<<<< back there is a post I made about my OD. I just wanted to come back and say: Things got better and I am glad I didn't kill myself. I never thought things would improve. I never thought I could be in a place where everything wasn't black and bleak. When I took my OD I felt like there was no where to go and no options. It's taken a long time and luck and hard work but it was all worth it compared to not being here.

I would like to second this. Like for most people, there hasn't been a quick fix for me. I had to keep putting one foot in front of the other when it seemed like there was no hope of ever stepping out of the dark. I had to ask for help when I couldn't do it on my own, over and over. I don't believe I'm any stronger or better than anyone else, just a bit stubborn at times, and lucky. I still ask for help at times, and have a thousand things I need to work on. But I don't wake up in pain every morning.

And I'm intensely happy and grateful today that my OD's didn't kill me. They could have. Or permanently damaged my heart and liver. Or brain damage. I didn't even decidedly wish to die, I wanted to do something drastic to kill the pain. But pills are pills to your body, the body doesn't care what your intentions were when you took them, it's still poison.

To think of all the stuff I would have missed out on, the pain I would have inflicted on other people - to be alive is so much better. Far from always easy, but more beautiful, there is poetry in every moment if you look hard enough. Being suicidal was mostly just messy.

[oakwren]

I read in this book about A&E how taking small overdoses are a way of seeking attention. at first I thought that's awful and not me - and then I thought of how that's what I was doing when I did it - not on purpose but underneath it was there. it's hard to admit that and not sure how this helps if you're thinking of doing it. but somewhere there is this truth inside of us that knows that no one will be able to give us the attention we are seeking and need; it has to come from ourselves. It's really strange because you think it would be the other way around.

But there's this part of you that is able to listen and work out what it is you really need. Not being attached to results means that you can let go enough to live - to find out what you want and not what others want you to do. It's all tied up perhaps in needing attention from others. Because we're separate from others: totally separate. And that is hard to deal with if you are scared to live and face up to things.

But in it, in this being separate is a great chance and opportunity to create what you really want to create. and if you want to create misery, then go ahead. you'll do great at that. but what if you want to create something yellow and sunny and inspiring? others' may help you to an extent but they can't replace the effort and journey you'll take. it's strange growing up is more about how you'll deal with growing alone.

I just hope that anyone who gets to page 9 of this thread will just think twice - because there's hope. like Stelleria mentioned. depression, su etc just creates this huge mess. it's not real. it's not the real you but it's forming you to some extent but it's importance is tiny in comparison to who and where you're going to go. pills ain't going to figure that out for you. it's all a choice - i can't escape from that. you really do choose what you create.