Opinion Column Sarnia’s suicides are personal to me 11 By Barbara Simpson, Sarnia Observer
Friday, May 18, 2012 5:51:50 EDT PM
I'll never forget the first time I had a panic attack.
Standing in the shower, I heard someone knocking at my family's front door. I was home alone, I was in the shower and I was terrified.
Thoughts started racing through my 15-year-old mind: What should I do? Should I dress and go to the front door? What happens if it's a burglar? (Of course, I do now realize that a would-be thief wouldn't be knocking politely at the front door.)
Adrenaline pumped through my veins. My heart was pounding a mile a minute. The pink walls of my parents' bathroom started closing in on me. I suddenly couldn't breathe.
This was the first of many panic attacks between my freshman and sophomore years of high school.
Even today, after years of therapy and with a greater insight, I can't pinpoint the source of my unravelling. I've accepted this much as the facts: I was a geek with few friends, I had trouble adjusting to high school and I was – and still am – a worrier, a perfectionist to a fault.
What I've never accepted is my parents' reaction. They initially didn't believe I was sick. My depression and anxiety was chalked up to just being a teen.
“You don't need help,” my dad told me when I reached out to him. “You'll be fine. You'll snap out of it.”
Of course, I never snapped out of it. At my worst, I couldn't get out of bed in the morning, paralyzed by a fear I might harm myself. I could hardly eat, I could hardly sleep.
As my weight plummeted, my father took me into the emergency room one afternoon. A doctor finally suggested I may be suffering from depression and anxiety.
Finally, I remember thinking to myself, someone acknowledges that I have a problem.
I was referred in a counselling service in the community. However, my parents couldn't afford the sliding scale payments based on their income.
So I waited and waited and waited for help.
Eventually, I received a helping hand from a community agency offering free counselling services. I remember speaking to the intake clerk myself because I was home from school thanks to my panic attacks.
After I sobbed through my story, I heard a pause and then these words:
“Oh dear,” the clerk said. “We'll get you in as soon as we can.”
Those were the words I waited months to hear. Those were the words that started my recovery.
While my parents initially turned a blind eye to my situation, I certainly don't blame them for their reaction. They knew very little about mental illness. Really, we, as a society, spoke very little about depression, anxiety and suicide back then. And by back then, it was only a little more than a decade ago.
I can't recall a single class discussion about mental health at my high school. We heard lots about body image and anorexia, but when it came to matters of the brain, students were kept in the dark.
That's why the grassroots movement spreading across Sarnia-Lambton about suicide prevention is so important. Not only does there need to be greater awareness about mental health illnesses but there needs to be change to the healthcare system.
Youth and adults in distress shouldn't have to wait for mental health services. They can't afford to be shuffled between doctors and counsellors.
When I was at my lowest, I could hardly sit in a classroom, let alone navigate the bureaucracy of the mental health-care system. Luckily, I held on long enough.
My story is no different than other tales of depression and anxiety told before me. Fellow Observer reporter Tara Jeffrey deserves a lot of credit for her collection of stories into the sensitive subject.
Even as I write this now, I worry how I'll be judged. What will my coworkers think of me? My sources? My readers?
But what I do know is this: these stories have to be told. We certainly can't afford to be silent any longer.
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