A Moment That Could Have Changed Everything
*A Content Warning First:
If you are highly symptomatic in your mental illness or someone who is triggered by difficult content this may not be the right time for you to continue reading this post. Please find help and reach out to the suicide hotline (988) if you need to stay safe.
If you have mental illness and decide to continue reading, I hope the post speaks to you in a way that reminds you that you aren’t alone. You are not the only one with experiences such as these. There is hope for a better life.
For those without mental illness, you are the majority of the human population. I hope that reading my experience allows you to think about mental illness just a little bit differently than before. While memory is fallible, every effort has been made to maintain the integrity of these events.
Before “The Moment”
It was February of 2014 and the Midwest was deeply entrenched in the cold of winter. Despite being 20 years old and in college - aren’t these supposed to be the “best” years of your life? - I found myself as a patient in a psychiatric hospital. The misery of experiencing major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder was nothing new for me. I had fought suicidal thoughts for the entirety of my first year and a half of college leading up to this point. My situation had escalated such that I was sleeping at my parents’ house, located in my college town, rather than in the dorms. I found it extremely challenging to live amongst so many other guys while battling my brain disorders, so we thought it would be best to remove this stressor. While I felt this move was for the best, it was also embarrassing to move out of the dorms mid-semester and have to explain why I was doing so. The entirety of my inner chaos of thoughts and emotions, unbalanced brain chemistry, and difficulty navigating school landed me in a small regional psychiatric hospital - my first psych hospital stay in my life. Little did I know, the brief stay would make my mental health worse.
The staff psychiatrist met with me for five minutes the day after my arrival. She determined in this brief meeting that I was simply stressed from school, needed to return, and would release me from the hospital after the 24-hour mandate. The psychiatrist then proceeded to cease my current medications and switch them to a couple of different ones. An awful decision.
This short hospitalization wasn’t healing or beneficial in the least. I left under the impression I was mentally weak and just needed to fight back stronger against my dark thoughts and distressing mental illness symptoms. There was little compassion from the mental health care workers. There was no, “Nate, you have a sick brain and we are going to help you figure out how to feel and think better.” Thanks to the medication decision of this psychiatrist, I was thrown out into everyday life with the removal of two psychiatric medications and the addition of two different ones: A further biochemical travesty for my brain. With the limited experience my family and I had at the time, we didn't know how to advocate for better care.
Over the next couple of weeks, while back to attending college classes, my situation deteriorated even further. The cold-turkey medication switch wrecked further havoc in an already sick brain.
I stopped being able to sleep, which was my only respite from the hell of my waking life.
My anxiety was uncontrollable. My heart pounded, hands shook, and thoughts raced in a spiral of negativity and worry.
My depression escalated. The world was a scary place. It was as if a dark veil had been placed over my eyes to shade reality.
My body felt heavy and weak.
My cognition was hindered greatly. I found it impossible to focus, had trouble with short-term memory, and could not even read aloud a page of notes when prompted.
Life was horrendous.
A Moment That Could Have Changed Everything
The years of suffering, combined with the poor hospitalization and further escalation of my symptoms since hospitalization, soon culminated on an ordinary Sunday. With church time approaching, my family was upstairs in our pleasant home with white siding and large, white pillars in the front. From the street-view, our home displayed a seemingly peaceful environment. Well-kept. Polished. Much like the 6’2”, athletic, well-groomed appearance I maintained on the outside, hiding from others the inner chaos of suffering.
I had fought all of this suffering for years and by this time, I just couldn’t take it any longer. I was agitated, hopeless, and in significant pain. Although I expressed this agony to my family as best I could, there was only so much they could do. They had already taken me to my therapist the Friday prior and gotten a call into my psychiatrist. We were doing all the right things trying to continue finding care and support, yet it wasn’t enough.
With my mom, dad, and sister in our kitchen trying to console me, I eventually lost all sense of fight and control. I had to end my life and escape this suffering right then.
Not having access to guns (not an interest of my family) or my medications (my mom had them hidden), I thought the kitchen knives my mom had also hid were my best option. I bursted up on my feet and made a dart for where I thought the knives were. Crying and screaming, I exclaimed that I had to stab myself in the head to end this experience, to end this suffering, to end my life.
I didn’t get far before my dad grabbed ahold of me. Eventually he was able to get me to their bedroom. He held me in his arms as we both cried. My parents needed help. I needed to be in a safe environment. We made a call seeking another hospitalization and they got me to a different, larger hospital before I could do harm to myself. Once in the ward of this new hospital, I was safe from the suicide that threatened me so imminently. Thus began my second psychiatric hospitalization, with my story continuing…
Mom and Dad as heroes
My dad physically saved me that day. My mom’s presence further curtailed my fight to use the knives. Their love and actions saved my life. This was the first moment, a split-moment, that could have ended my life or altered it forever. It’s surreal, sitting on my couch under a heated blanket, writing this in 2025 - 11 years later - thinking about the alternate path those few seconds could have led to. Unfortunately, I would have many more “moments” like these in the years to come, which I will share in the future.
I don’t have to look far or think hard about two of my heroes. My mom and dad’s love, despite the challenges I provided with my mental illness, was fierce and saved my life. Their love is an excellent model for me to follow. I wish everyone could have the level of familial support that I have amidst my mental illnesses.