One month: A view of Desperation, Depression, and the Current Consequences of COVID-19

Trigger warning… Attempted Suicide (And please, if you don’t have anything nice to say… just keep it to yourself. Thanks!)

Yes, this is going to be a long post. Yes, it is personal experience. Yes, I’m still working on myself. No, I don’t have a ton of advice. No, you don’t have to keep reading. But please, think of others before you speak… it could impact their day more than you think. 

Alight… Here we go. Being home with a chaotic partner and an Autistic daughter isn’t the easiest thing even on the good days. Add to that that we are now under a “Stay at Home” order and are constantly with each other, and things are taken to another level. And just for kicks… Let’s add that exactly a month ago, I tried to take my own life. Needless to say… The past 4 weeks have been a bit tense.

I’m not entirely sure where I should start this… Maybe with the fact that the past two months I have felt like a failure as a parent. My daughter is progressing, but with her IEP meeting and an outlook of a third year in preschool, I was feeling like I wasn’t doing enough to help her. Brian and I have been working so hard to help her with the things that will lead her to succeed in school… I just felt like we weren’t up to par. Her IEP meeting was on a Friday.

Tuesday.
I received a letter stating we had lost/didn’t-qualify-for our health insurance. This made no sense to me… Ok ok, I may have been late on one or two of the payments for her insurance, but they were only a day or two late. I was already under the stress of the IEP, kindergarten/preschool, normal bill anxiety, trying to keep up with the house, maintain some sort of a ‘work’ schedule, and trying to hold on to the ‘fake it till you make it’ attitude. Remember I said I was feeling like a bad parent already? Well this letter pushed me over the edge. I mean, hell, I clearly couldn’t even take care of my kid… So what was the point?

‘She would be better off without me.’

‘Brian could find someone who would be able to take care of her WAY better than I can.’

‘I just cause more problems.’

Those are just a few thoughts going through my mind when I started taking handfuls of medication. No, my daughter was not home at the time, she was at school. I sent a text to Brian telling him that he had to pick her up from school and that I couldn’t bring him the car. He is way more intuitive than most men (just a guess here… sorry to generalize). I’m guessing it was that text that had him worried. So, he just clocked out of work and walked home. He kept calling me. And while I wanted his voice to be the last thing that I heard, I couldn’t handle listening to him and kept hanging up. He walked through the door minutes after I had taken another handful. When you are in fight or flight mode, it is hard to make rational decisions. When you are beyond panicked, it is hard to make rational decisions. He paced the floor in front of me while debating on calling an ambulance. He called one of my friends, knowing I would probably listen to her better than I was listening to him, and she was over in minutes. They decided to give me a choice: make myself throw up to get the meds out or they were calling an ambulance. (Hindsight and a lecture from my therapist, they should have called). I decided I’d rather not go for a ride in an ambulance and end up locked up, so I threw up. The rest of the night is not something I remember. Apparently they kept me walking around different stores and took me to get food as a way to keep me awake. Brian stayed home from work the following day, Wednesday, to keep an eye on me.

Thursday.
I was still feeling like I wanted to end it all. So we ended up going to the Emergency room. And boy, was that was a joy. I was put in a safe room and Brian was allowed to stay with me until he had to go pick our daughter up from school. I wasn’t supposed to be left alone so they had a nurse sit with me. Note to hospital staff, don’t put a nurse who complains about suicidal people in a room with someone who has tried to kill themselves. Super bad bedside manner from this lady. Also, don’t have a case manager who is beyond judgey be the person who does the intake forms. Seriously, I felt like I was on trial for things that had happened YEARS ago. I was waiting for them to find a bed at one of the facilities in the surrounding area (and by surrounding area, I mean all of the Upper Peninsula all the way down to Green Bay.). There are not that many placed for mental health care in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan so they were having a difficult time finding somewhere that had a bed for me. It got to the point where they were going to have to call a place that is over a 5 hour drive away to see if they could find me a place. By now, several hours had passed, shifts had changed, and I had a different case manager. She sat down with me and discussed an at home safety plan. We decided to go wth that. It stated that I should not be left alone for long periods of time until my therapist thought it would be alright. So, Brian took Friday off and wasn’t scheduled to work until Monday.

Monday-Friday.
The only way I made it through a week of him working was by being with friends throughout each day. Along with Marryn’s busy schedule at the time, I didn’t have much time to spend thinking. So that was a good thing. I also knew that my mother was coming up the following weekend to help with Marryn’s spring break. But half way through that first week, schools closed because of COVID-19. So it was left trying to work on healing myself while managing my daughter alone. It was a blur. She probably watched WAY too much TV and played on the tablet WAY longer than she should have. But I didn’t have much to give. I was in the room with her and she would read a book on my lap or cuddle on the couch. But I’m sure I wasn’t a very interactive parent. The only reason I got out of bed was to take care of her needs. So yes, she was cared for, clothed, fed, and given as much attention as I could actually give. But schools were closed, her therapy was cancelled, and we couldn’t even have her friends over. My mom coming that weekened seemed like the shining light at the end of the tunnel, especially with Brian being scheduled to work all weekend.

Saturday.
My mother made it up here around 4pm and I was so relieved to have some help. Marryn was super happy to see her. And they spent the weekend playing, reading, and having a blast. I had time to work through some of my thoughts and emotions… time to work on learning about self-care… time to readjust my mental state.

Then came Monday. The Governor issued a stay at home order. My mother and I had talked about it being a possibility on Sunday. My mother panicked, thinking she wouldn’t be able to get back home if she continued to stay the week. Instead of waiting a bit or talking to my brother to see what he wanted to do, she packed up her stuff and left. Brian’s work was claiming they were essential and demanding the employees continue to come to work. So it would be back to me and Marryn… Only this time, it was official that we couldn’t even visit with friends. It would be just the two of us all day. While this doesn’t normally sound like a big deal, I was still trying to fight the urge to disappear. It was all too much.

Brian went to work on Monday and Tuesday. I didn’t handle the rest of Monday very well. And Tuesday, I don’t really even remember. Brian’s company had offered a few programs in response to the COVID-19. One of those plans was five days to find emergency child care coverage . It covered time for him to stay home and find child care. So he asked to take those 5 days. It was during these 5 days that the local police were called and his work was shut down. Which was good for us because that meant I wasn’t being left alone and had someone here to help to manage my emotions and process what was happening. Also, he would still be getting paid because of being a fulltime employee and the COVID-19 policies. We thought we were going to be ok for the first time that week. That was a nice feeling… while it lasted.

Unfortunately, the following Monday, the store was reopened. The company found a loophole in the governor’s order and was going to squeeze every bit of life from their employees in the name of profits. He was being required to go back to work. And while they had implimented a few safety precautions in response to the spread of COVID-19, they aren’t an essential business. So here we are, right back to throwing me and my mental health overboard again. Yay for capitalism…. Yay for corporations being people and getting more rights than actual human beings. 

We talked about so many different options. What was going to be best for my mental health? For Marryn? For the family in general? Quitting? Voluntary short leave? FMLA time? All those options left us with no income. Does that even make it an option? So then what? Have him go back to work and risk me breaking down again? Is money really worth risking someone’s life for?

Risking his health, and consequently, the health of my daughter and I; while risking my life because there is a good chance I can’t mental handle this right now. That’s the only option that doesn’t have us loosing something; like the house, the car, our meager way of life. Is a life or your health really less important than material items? In today’s society, yes… Yes they are less important. Go to work and pretend everything is fine. Then catch the virus, infect countless people because you’re still working, then bring that sickness home to the family. Corporations will only take care of you AFTER you’re already sick and dying. (Super cool of them BTW 🙄). He informed his boss that he was going to take some FMLA time so we could figure out what we should do.

So here we are. Brian on voluntary leave because he is worried about me, my mental health, and catching the virus. Here we are, no income and under a looming mountain of bills. Here we are, debating what’s the best choice out of a pile of negative choices. Lesser of two evils? How do you choose? We’ve spent the last two days debating if my mental health is worth loosing the house. We’ve talked about looking into the cost of putting a tiny home out at his parents’ and selling the house. We’ve talked about bankruptcy. We’ve talked about if there is a way we could get him working part time while not sacrificing me. We’ve talked about what it might look like if he went back full time, or even half-time at the store and half-time at home (if they would even allow that). We’ve talked about starting to put out his fantasy game world and seeing if we can make any money from that. We’ve entertained the idea of selling songs, editing content for others, using his communication degree for some kind of editing or production work. We’ve even talked about how we could sell about everything we can as a way to pay a few bills before they become past due.

We have been spending time trying to figure out how to get a routine set up for Marryn. What would be best for her and keeping her on track to start kindergarten in the fall. What kinds of challenges will we have to deal with because the schedule she had been accustomed to will not be coming back until next school year? How can we stop any major regression in behaviors (which we have already seen a few in the last two weeks)? What can we do to help keep her social during a time like this? She has already been sad about missing her friends and her teachers. One of her preschool teachers has already done a video chat with all the kids, which Marryn absolutely LOVED. But afterward she was so sad because she didn’t want to see her friends go.

I know this is a struggle for people everywhere right now. There are probably thousands and thousands of stories about families in crisis. And while I empathize with them, I currently have to focus on the one that impacts my life the most. My own family. Trying to navigate my autistic child and her needs, the health of the entire family during a pandemic, financial difficulties, and the normal everyday household needs, all while trying to get better mentally… is just a challenge I’m not sure I have it in my to face. We have been trying to rewire my brain by doing things that are supposed to combat depression. Getting outside daily. Taking walks in the sun. Working on a self-care workbook. Cleaning and organizing our house so the physical environment isn’t chaotic. Keeping in touch with friends. Doing video calls. Making sure I sit down and work on some music every day. Working on being mindful. Learning to ask for help. 
(If you would like to help, we could really use funds to help pay bills. Anything would be a help and greatly appreciated. One place is here at CashApp and another is here at PayPal . Thank you!)

If you are feel hopeless or are thinking about suicide, please talk to someone. I’m not the best person to give advice right now, but I am trying to see that every day is worth being here for. I’m learning that the world may go on without me, but this small part of the world… 

would not.

Feeling down, depressed, and grieving the loss of a life you used to live, is natural in a time like this. Isolation isn’t going to help with those feelings either. Be kind to yourself. Take time to do something you love. Reach out to family and friends. Do what you need to do to care for yourself and your family. Here is a great resource from the Anxeity and Depression Association of America. Try to keep your chin up. Sending love to y’all. ❤