Tina's Story
I'm a registered nurse, the oldest of four children, the mother of a daughter and two sons. I don't remember my
natural mother before I was five. I lived with my aunt until then.
Even as a young child of two or three, I remember having thoughts of death and hopelessness. I had a
great-grandmother, who I loved very much. One day I accidentally stepped on her foot and got whipped really hard. I felt
ashamed, as though I had meant to hurt her foot. That day, I wanted to die.
One day when I was five, a man I didn't know walked into our house and told me it was time I came home. I looked at
my aunt. She wasn't fighting to keep me. When I got into the car with the man, I recognized the woman in the back seat.
Somehow, I knew this was my mother. She had my younger brother at her breast. I've been angry with him from that day
forward; we fight like cats and dogs. As part of my recovery, I've had to let go of him.
My natural mother could be loving and nurturing. I remember her brushing my hair and doing all those girls - together
things. But nobody understood how traumatic it was for me to be taken from my aunt. My aunt made it worse by teasing
me, telling me that she really was my mother and that this strange woman had taken me away from her. One night when
I was six, while my parents were at a neighbor's house, I loaded the car with my clothes. When they came home, I told
them my real mother had called and said that I was supposed to come home right now. I got the beating of my life. My
parents told me that I was home and I'd better get used to it. I never trusted my aunt after that.
When I was about seven, my natural mother became severely abusive, physically and emotionally. That's when my
depression started. I started school around that time. I felt awkward there, as though I was inferior to everyone. I felt like
an outcast; I didn't fit in, and I was scared of people. I was also a very angry child. My grades were good, but I was a
tomboy, a real fighter.
One day a boy and his little sister climbed in the drainage ditch by our house, right after the storm. The boy got out,
but his little sister drowned. Later, when we were walking home from school, I was walking behind the boy, poking him
and accusing him of killing his sister. I thought I had power, and that I was hurting this boy because my parents were
hurting me.
When I was 11, my baby brother was born. He was the first real ray of light in my life. My mother was tired of having
kids, so I got to be his mother. I raised him and nurtured him, and we were very close. My life got better, until my teens,
but I was still depressed deep down inside.
My parents were protective. I wasn't allowed to go to concerts or to date until I was 16, and even that was a double
date. I still managed to get pregnant at 18, before I was married. I thought I loved the guy, and I was afraid that I'd lose
his love and attention if I didn't give him sex. I was pregnant and suicidal the last half of my senior year. My boyfriend
and I broke up once, and I overdosed on aspirin.
We got married, and the marriage lasted a year and a half. Feeling like a loser, I struggled hard, but my Roman
Catholic family and his Roman Catholic family swooped down and scooped me up, telling me that I wasn't the one at fault
and that I could go on. With their emotional support, I put myself through nursing school and raised my son while living
with my parents.
I met my second husband at a bar, we partied a lot. The two years after we married were the happiest of my life. But
then his drug addiction and alcoholism flared up. I turned into the Ice Queen and stayed that way for another three
years, through his addiction. After another year of hearing him say he didn't love me any more, I turned against God,
him, my family, my values, and my upbringing, and left him. By then, we had a two - year - old daughter.
Within two months I was partying every night, all night, from six or seven in the evening until six in the morning, while
working 12-hour shifts at the hospital. My family tried to intervene. My father was kind, my mother abrupt. I wouldn't listen
to anybody. I was spiraling downward into self-pity, loneliness, and a broken heart.
I was screwing up as a mother. My son got into trouble in nursery school at age three. He was going up the little girls'
skirts with one hand and punching out the boys with the other. As a scout leader, I failed to show up for a big camping
trip, which was canceled because of me. When my brother asked if he could help, I agreed. He offered to take my son to
live with him, and I said "Yes." My daughter ended up with my in-laws. My real motive wasn't their welfare; it was to get
them out of the way so I could drink and drug the way I wanted to. I abandoned them for four years.
During the second year I was on my own. I had a sexual identity crisis and became suicidal again. I thought I was
homosexual. I'd had two marriages fail and had no clue how to make a relationship work. But I didn't want to be
homosexual; I wanted a successful relationship with a man.
The first night I tried to kill myself - it was 1980 - I was trying to force myself to have a homosexual experience. Rather
than carry through with it, I tried to kill myself. There was so much about me that wasn't acceptable, and with a load of
alcohol and drugs on board, I couldn't live with myself. I was obsessed with sex. I was obsessed with getting power over
men and hurting them. I was obsesses with becoming a stripper, I was obsessed with homosexuality. These were all
ways in which I could have power over men.
At that time, I was living with an ex-biker. I believe God put this man in my life when I was drinking and drugging to
keep me from going places where I could have been killed. He had done a lot of the things I wanted to try. I was
desperately running from God and my own sense of what was right. If the good girl couldn't cut it, I would become the
baddest girl I could be. I hung out at bars, played sad country and western songs on the jukebox all night, and got drunk
on Old Charter and Tab.
My suicidal thoughts were becoming more frequent and much stronger. I got involved with heavy drugs. One night, at
a party, I smoked a joint laced with PCP and took the trip of my life. I thought I was going to die. I managed to get to the
emergency room where I worked as head nurse. My friend and partying buddy was on duty and managed to talk me
down - it took about 12 hours. That was just God - awful. It probably led to my psychotic break the following year.
But I kept running, hanging out in bikers' clubs in a rough part of town. Things were getting so bad that I was starting
to risk the safety of my friends and family to keep my addiction going. I took my daughter to bars. I took my kid sister,
who was very naive and virginal, to a bikers club for her birthday. We both got wasted and ended up back in that same
emergency room.
After three years, my mind started racing all the time. I was obsessing so badly that I couldn't manage a coherent
thought. I could not make a decision without going back on it. Over a period of three weeks I got three hours of sleep. I
was becoming psychotic. When I looked in the mirror, I didn't know the woman I saw - this woman with the empty eyes. I
was smoking one joint after another, hallucinating wildly. In one hallucination, I had gone to heaven. There were a
couple of angels sitting around on clouds, and my two children were running around. The angels told me not to worry
about my children; they would be fine, and I would be forgiven.
One day, my boyfriend walked in the house, took one look at me, and phoned my dad, saying "Something's wrong
with her. Get over here." My dad was there in three minutes. They had me admitted to the hospital's psychiatric ward,
where they did a lot of testing. For the first time, I acknowledged feeling suicidal. They were concerned about this and
wanted to give me shock treatments. I would have done anything to fix me. Life wasn't supposed to hurt this much; if
God was real and good, He wouldn't allow anyone to be in this much pain.
I agreed to shock treatments. I did run into Alcoholics Anonymous meetings while I was on the psych ward, but
nobody paid any attention to my drinking and drugging. I found that disappointing. Nor did anyone mention
manic-depressive illness. I stayed there for six weeks, taking the shock treatments, and then got out.
Three weeks after, I surprised myself by driving up to my old bar. In my head I could hear some of the things they
said in AA meetings, but I went back anyway. I started drinking again and taking drugs, to change the way I felt. I wanted
that escape and that euphoria. I used to think that I went to bars for companionship, but as long as that companionship
had Old Charter in his hand, I was all right.
Things got worse. I was very sick, psychotic, talking about suicide all the time, and obsessed with homosexual issues.
I was seeing a therapist two or three times a week and a psychiatrist once a week. He had me on high doses of
Thorazine, and the side effects were awful. My tongue kept pulling over to the right and my face was contorted for days.
My nursing mind was looking at me and saying, "I can't believe this is you." I'd look in the mirror and think, with disbelief,
of all the things I'd done. I hated myself for all I was worth.
My boyfriend was afraid that the AA meetings I was going to were brainwashing me. They didn't help. The suicidal
urges were getting stronger; the homosexual urges were getting stronger; the urge to strip and the fear of doing it were
getting stronger. All of them went against my basic beliefs.
I started going to a women's treatment center to talk to some of the people there. I'd leave the center and go to work
in the emergency room - and oh, that was hard! I'd rescue other people from death when all I wanted to do was to die
myself. Resuscitations would roll in and I couldn't remember what the hell I was supposed to give them. I didn't want to
revive them. I wanted them to have what I wanted - peace. Why would anyone want to be brought back to life when life
hurt so much?
There were two men who I identified with in the AA meetings. I used to talk to one of them when I was on duty at the
emergency room. I'd slip back to the pay phone and call him, telling him how I felt - not wanting to save people because I
wanted so badly to die.
One day, all of a sudden, I decided I'd fought as long as I could. It was the anniversary of my second marriage. I just
gave up. I thought of shooting myself in the head with a gun, but once I'd nursed a patient who'd done that and lived. I
didn't want to be left with one eye and a horribly mangled face. I thought about driving my car under an 18-wheeler, or
stepping out in front of one, but again, I'd nursed a patient once who'd done that and survived. He'd had to be in a body
cast for ages and he still had to live.
I came up with the perfect method: I'd inject myself with a respiratory paralytic drug - one that would stop my
breathing. I knew it took only a dab of this drug to work on ventilated patients, so I'd take three times that dosage. I went
home and wrote a suicide note to my ex-husband, asking him to leave the kids where they were - I figured we'd already
screwed up their lives enough by giving them no attention. I parked my car two blocks from home, drew up the shot, and
gave myself the injection. Within three minutes I could hardly move. I grabbed a bottle of Thorazine and slammed a
bunch of pills down my throat. I wanted to go painlessly. I managed to crawl into my bed. I wanted a cigarette, but I was
worried about setting fire to the bed. I didn't want to burn - that was too painful.
My last thoughts were about Medusa - the woman who had snakes for hair. I dreamed that I was Medusa and the
snakes were biting my face. I started spiraling down. Suddenly I was terrified: the Baptists were right! I was bound for
Hell. Please don't send me to Hell, God. I've already been there. I'm trying to get out of Hell now, God. I couldn't move a
finger. I went under.
I woke up 14 hours later to the ring of the telephone. It was my boyfriend. He could tell by the tone of my voice that I'd
done something. He told me to get up and throw out the drug. When I did that, I had my first spiritual experience. As I
was flushing the medicine down the toilet, looking at the syringe, I heard a voice in my head saying You know, I'm not
writing the book. I don't know how this story is supposed to end. Before, I'd always known how it ended: in death. Things
were too bad; the pain was too great. I'd destroyed my children. I couldn't face the guilt. But I had lived through all this
shit. So I didn't know how it was supposed to end anymore.
I called my psychiatrist and he put me back in the hospital. There I came across a minister who started telling me
parables. The parables said that good things were happening in my life, even if I couldn't see them - nor did I have to
see them. I looked at my psychologist one day and said, "I need for you to tell me how to live when all I want to do is die."
He looked at me very lovingly and said, "How about this? It's your duty." A lot of lights came on inside my head. I had a
purpose!
I got out and started going to three or four AA meetings a day. I didn't go right back to work. God put me in the path of a
woman at another treatment center. She tried to get me to do the Fourth Step, but I was stuck - I was obsessed with my
suicide attempt. I couldn't get anything done. This woman turned to me one day and said, "Knock it off. I've tried to
commit suicide nine times. You're just an amateur." When she told me that, I knew that she knew what she was talking
about. She took my thunder away and brought me back to earth. About two months later, in the summer of 1980, my
suicidal thoughts disappeared.
Life didn't get easier, in some ways, I went through many traumatic events during the next 15 years. I was diagnosed
with manic-depressive illness in 1985. I chose to give up sex and stayed celibate for nine years. I went into a deep
depression, but suicide never crossed my mind. I swore I'd never take that path again.
I was stunned when, in November 1994, the thoughts came back - my first "mixed state" break. I was almost catatonic. I
couldn't walk or talk or write or eat. My whole immune system crashed. I had infections in every orifice. I lost 30 pounds
in two weeks and my hair started to fall out. I was bombarded by suicidal thoughts.
For two months, I hung in there with God's help and the help of friends in the program. I stayed on the phone all day. I
kept calling people and trying everything they told me to do. I did everything - I made gratitude lists, wrote out
inventories, called people, prayed my butt off. I lived for when I could sleep, because only then was I at peace.
One day I called a friend I hadn't talked to in years. She mentioned a hospital that saved her life. I went there the next
day. It was a miracle: the place specialized in alcohol/drug addictions and psychiatric problems. They knew what was
wrong with me and what needed to be done.
Today I roll out of bed, and before I get to my feet I take Step One and beg for another day of sobriety and the courage
to do whatever's in front of me. Then I say Step Two. I'm starting to see God restore me to sanity again. I feel the anxiety
lift as I take Step Three. I just turn it all over to Him, and whatever happens is what happens that day.
It's been several years since my "break" I'm stabilized, going to Alcoholics Anonymous and Suicide Anonymous
meetings, and mostly free of suicidal thoughts and urges. The program has worked for me again. It's taken me different
medicine, a new doctor, the right treatment center, a new minister, and a better definition of who God is. I've had to face
some scary things about myself. I'm taking it one day at a time, staying in close touch with people, trying to hang onto
my courage to let them know what's going on with me.
I've had to rethink things about sex and love. I started doing this in 1984, but I still feel like a novice. It's sort of like a
sexual anorexia - I'd starve myself until I was too hungry, then eat too much of the wrong kind of food.
Recovery goes slowly, but the light has never gone out. It was lit inside me that night when I flushed the drug down the
toilet and realized that I don't know the end of my own story. I learned then that there is a Something in the universe that
does give a damn whether I live or die. That's crucial to my recovery. It took a lot of help from a lot of people, but that
light has never died. That's crucial to my recovery. I can't tell you how grateful I am for that light.
And yet I think I always knew that I'd find something that worked, if I tried long enough - if I fished until I caught something.
People in despair ask me how I've made it through. I'm open with them: I share the story - the surrender, the asking, the
seeking God and professional help, and the willingness to go to any lengths until it works. These people are my purpose
in life today. I am deeply at home with them. We are one.
© 1stBooks; Bloomington, IN; Seduction of Suicide Understanding and Recovering From Addiction to Suicide;
Kevin Taylor, M.D.