The turning point for her mental health came for Susan when she felt a deep love for her daughter and realized she needed to focus on getting better.

Transcript

So I went back on it and my support nurse who was coming to the house, she would always do the depressions scale with me. And she came, I think it was later that week, and she did the depression scale with me and she asked if I’d had thoughts of suicide. And up until then she had maybe done three or four with me and every time I’d said no. And this time, I don’t know why and I don’t know what came over me feeling like I could open up to her, but maybe it was just the fact that I’d known her for a month or so, but I felt comfortable. And I hadn’t told anybody yet and I told her that, yeah, I have had thoughts of suicide a lot actually and that I hadn’t told anybody and she said, I kind of thought so for the last couple of weeks but I never pry, I didn’t want to pry. She said just the things that you would say made me wonder if maybe you did.

And they were just passive thoughts. Like I’d walk past the garage and I’d think about, you know, how easy it would be to pull the car into the garage. And I knew what time of day I’d do it. [crying] I would have done it late in the day then because her daddy would have been home pretty quick, you know, or if I was walking out for a walk with her I thought about how easy it would be to step off a sidewalk, or when I was driving I wondered what would happen if I just let go of the wheel right now. But then I’d think about the consequences of it for my daughter and my husband. I mean yeah, I wouldn’t be feeling it anymore but it would be so much worse for them.

And it was really scary to think that I was that close and when I realized what I was doing I started crying so hard and I just went back out into the living room and I picked up my daughter and I started hugging her. It’s almost like that was the turning point for me when I realized how much I really loved her and how important she was to me and how I needed to get better for her.

And I remember telling the girls in my support group about that and the support that I got from them was overwhelming and I still to this day haven’t told my husband about that and I’m not sure why. I think it’s because I’m ashamed of it. Didn’t feel like maybe he’d understand or maybe that he’d think I was, you know, a bad mom. Even though the girls in the group told me you really should tell him, I still haven’t. Someday I will. Someday when the darkness passes completely. You know, I’m doing pretty good now but when I think back to those times I’m reminded of how awful it was and how I wouldn’t want to see anybody go through what I went through.

---

Go back