Hi All,

I haven't done one of these for this group at all. Some of you, know a little here and there. I guess if I ask for an into from others, it's only right that I should give one myself.

To know where to start is the difficult part. Pre diagnosis or at the time of. Ok, well, I was diagnosed in June of 1999 after my 1st suicide attempt. I will go into some detail as to why I made that attempt. The reason I will do that is because it pretty much is what has ruined the rest of my life and caused me my greatest pain since.

At 17 my daughter, Sabrina, came to me to tell me she was pregnant. No, she was not in love, it was a one time fling with a guy at a party. We do not believe in abortion, so she wanted the baby. Well, as it turned out, her father and I wound up pretty much raising and caring for this child (food, clothing and care) for the first 4 1/2 years of his life.

I will back up though to Austin, the child in question, at 2 1/2. Sabrina got into an argument with me one day, as she frequently did, and pulled Austin out of my arms and said she was leaving with him and I'd never see him again. She was very young at the time and only looking for a way to cause me pain. She pushed a button that was to be continued with for a long time to come. I was in a panic at that point. I began crying hysterically. I didn't know until then how attached I'd become to the child. It was as if he had become my own baby. We had bonded with him. He hardly knew her. I was unconsolable.

My husband took me away for the weekend to try to get me to calm down, but nothing worked. I then went on a drinking binge, I guess. (I say I guess, as I have little memory of that, this is as it was told to me). On the drive back home on Monday, I decided to kill myself. At this time, I was fine. I had no diagnosis and was relatively a "normal" person. I was 5' tall and 115 lbs, long dark hair, quite a lovely woman. But this is also when my mind snapped.

My husband, being oblivious to my plan and not in tune with me at all, took off on his way to work in an opposite direction and I went to our attorneys to sign my will. We had just had them drawn up. It was also the place I worked at. When I entered the office, I guess my friend and my atty did not like the looks of me, so they refused to witness the wills. I said fine, and took them down the hall and had them witnessed. I dropped them back off and turned and said goodbye to everyone. Well the girl I had worked with for 11 years picked up on something in my voice and she eventually tracked my husband down, that is how my plan failed. (backup now)

But....... I left the office, went home, very calm and ready to die. I had no reason left to live at all. I sat on the edge of the couch and pondered what to do. Finally, I would cut my wrists, but did not want them to find me naked in the tub. So I drew water in the tub and got in with my clothes on. I had a box cutter. I tried to cut, but it hurt so badly and I only could do superficial cuts, so I got out of there and decided to overdose on the pills I had from my MD, Xanax. Well little did I know that .25 of Xanax was not enough to overdose on *LOL*. I took the whole bottle, laid my head on my pillow and thought that was it. I remember I never felt more at peace. The next thing I knew I was having someone in the hospital shove a paper under my nose to commit me or they would take me to a horrible place and do it involuntarily.

Too long....... TO BE CONTINUED............