My first memories of dealing with mental health or even realizing something was wrong was when my grandmother passed away. I was 17 and from that moment, I started to have panic attacks, depression, anxiety, and depersonalization.

Depersonalization is when you suffer a trauma that’s too much for your brain to handle, so it detaches you from the emotion of it. This made me dissociate for days and even weeks, it felt like my life was a movie I was watching but I wasn’t a part of and I was just 17 years old.

I decided to open up to my high school boyfriend at that time, I told him how I felt like I was watching my life through a movie, and he told me I was crazy. His words made me curious, so I started googling about my symptoms and that was when I was able to put a name to what I was going through. I decided to share my feelings with my parents and of course, the first thing they wanted to do was put me in therapy but I wasn’t open to therapy at that time so I didn’t go. 

What triggers depersonalization?

Like other dissociative disorders, depersonalization disorder often is triggered by intense stress or a traumatic event — such as war, abuse, accidents, disasters, or extreme violence — that the person has experienced or witnessed

Source: Web MD

I went through this suffering for an entire year again before I decided to seek help.

For over 3 years I slept for only 2-3 hours because I was having frequent attacks in my sleep so I was scared that if I slept, I would have them. It was during this time I went to college and started regular therapy, I was learning to control my thoughts so I could stop the panic attacks or make them lesser than they were. When my grandma passed, I had my first serious suicidal thought, I was driving home from my stupid boyfriends’ house, and somewhere in between I just wanted the whole thing to end, I sat down in my car for a very long time.

There was a word wall there and I just wanted to drive into it but I didn’t do it, I ended up driving home. After this scenario, I never really got to this point again until I was 24 years old. 

The next time I dealt with this was when my sister was sexually assaulted by my boyfriend at the time.

My sister was graduating and I was living with my boyfriend who was 38 at that time. We went to the graduation together to be with her and celebrate.

During the celebration, she was under the influence, we were home at my parent’s home so we took her inside. We are at my parent’s home, it’s family so she should safe right? Everyone else remained outside by the pool. While my sister was passed out my boyfriend went there and sexually abused her, my younger sister witnessed the whole thing and decided to make a video right there. 

This sexual assault triggered my mental health and made me question so many things internally. Although I was not responsible; I wanted to blame myself.

The entire thing was so difficult for my family and me especially to process, I started to remember how he neglected me and also sexually abused me throughout the relationship, I felt guilty that I had brought him into the house, that my younger sister had to witness the abuse and that my older sister had to go through it. Coupled with all of this, in the blink of an eye my whole world was turned upside down, I left my friends, my home, I had no job and I was just sitting in my parents’ house where the whole thing happened. 

The situation affected us all and there was a lot of guilt around that. These things brought me back to this place where I was suicidal. This happened in 2018, after this I went to therapy and in 2020, I started working out and discovered cycling which is so much fun! I do it like 4 to 5 times a week. I also love my alone time, time to just be with myself and do what I love, these days I’m just trying to get myself in tune with my emotions knowing what’s coming. The trial for my ex-boyfriend is upon us and so mentally I’m just trying to prepare myself for the trial. I know my mental health triggers that may trigger anxiety or depression, so I am working on my mental health in advance, I know in the past dealing with suicide ideation I had to get my mental health together.

HOW TO DEAL WITH GUILT AND SUICIDAL THOUGHTS 

Surviving a traumatic experience can put you in a place where you feel guilt and enter into a deep depression. Survival guilt is often associated with mass attacks, genocide, and acts of terror but commonly it appears in other circumstances like when you live through a natural disaster when a sibling or loved one experiences abuse. These feelings often keep you in a loop, an unending cycle of guilt that leads to you having suicidal thoughts. 

You will then begin to see yourself as a terrible person deserving of some kind of punishment. You might also find it very difficult to trust anyone again. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition: DSM-5, underlying mental health conditions, including depression and anxiety increases the risk of guilt. 

To deal with guilt and suicidal thoughts, you need to work towards accepting what has happened and understand that it wasn’t your fault, you couldn’t have done anything to stop what happened. Some ways you can do this is by meditating, exercising, expressing your emotions often. Try grounding and mindfulness exercising, and talk to your loved ones about it. All of these little things can go a long way in helping you deal with feelings of guilt, once that is dealt with, suicidal thoughts can be curbed. 

9.7% of youth in the U.S. have severe major depression, compared to 9.2% in last year’s dataset. This rate was highest among youth who identify as more than one race, at 12.4%. The number of people looking for help with anxiety and depression has skyrocketed—mental health care matters. Do not neglect it if you see signs of it. 

References: Healthline; https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/survivors-guilt