Dealing with Mental Health Concerns in Recovery
“When I tried to quit, I was shaking, I felt like I was going to have a heart attack all the time. I put myself on the waitlist for a place called Beaver House in Montreal and I took a sick leave from work. In that time, just being on a waitlist and being prone to depression I felt like I’d thrown my life away. I took all the Ativan I had with wine one night. I don’t even know what my intention was, I was so out of it, I just remember waking up in an ambulance. Then I was in a detox ward, and they said, if you stay here for a week and detox we’ll fast-track you to rehab. So that’s when I ended up in Beaver House for 4 weeks.”
“Back in 2017, my partner and I split up… I went into a really deep, dark depression. It felt like either I was going to die, or something else. What I sought was numbing – a way to not feel the feelings. I remembered being prescribed Percocet when I was younger as pain medication. I used it properly, and as any good nurse does, they keep the extras just in case they need it for later. So I started taking a pill at night, just so that I could go to sleep because at night the rat race is going constantly: all the things that you could’ve done, should’ve done, all the guilt and shame.”
“After a while the effects of it wore off, and I was waking up with the same feelings of depression, loss and suicide ideation, then the shame of using. But I could only think, “if I don’t do this, I am going to kill myself.” I think in the moment the only option that I saw because of the blinders of depression and anxiety was a way out- suicide. I knew that my son could not live without a mother. He was already living without a father. So it felt like a protective factor, something that was good for me. I started to get these feelings of withdrawal afterwards. After my morning pill, I would start to feel some icky withdrawal feelings: nausea, sweating, anxiety and depression would come back tenfold.”