Suicide Awareness: Josh's Story Part 1

 This is part 1 of Josh's story. Josh is Brittany from YWC, little brother and he has courageously decided to share with us his own story of his suicide attempt in 2018 to help raise awareness and remind people that they are not alone. Part 2 will be posted on World Mental Health Day (October 10th).

I guess introductions are in order, so my name is Joshua Imperadeiro, I'm twenty-two years old and I live my life with depression. I was in denial about that last fact for most of my life and even to this day it's hard to accept, so I wanted to share my story to help others but to also help myself get over my own stigma.

For me my mental health problems started when I was very young, I just never realized it. When I was in junior high, I felt very awkward, I was short with a lisp, and wasn’t very good at sports. I would try to imitate those around me and while I was making new friends, I never really felt like I belonged in any of the groups I was in. I was always paranoid that people were talking behind my back so my coping mechanism became to shut everyone out. It was like I turned off the valve leading to my emotions causing them to just stagnate. As time passed I started to no longer feel happy or sad, I was just coasting through. I would look to others on how I should act in situations and at this point I felt like I lost my personality as a whole. By the end of high school and the start of university I was an empty shell and the thought crept into my mind, “am I even human without my emotions?”. 

At this point in my journey I found that I didn’t care about most things and problems started to pile up around me. My grades were slipping every semester of university, I didn’t get into the classes I needed, I was late on my student loan applications, I was ignoring a lot of friends, and skipping most of my classes. Winter semester of my second year (January 2018) was a tipping point for me. I knew all of my problems were going to catch up to me and yet I still wasn’t moved to try to fix them. Instead I contemplated my life and told myself that I lived a good life so far, so it was okay to just end it here. My rationale was that because I essentially couldn’t feel emotions and had no goals to complete in life anymore, this then made it okay to just end it here. For me it was better to die now while I was stagnated in this phase than to let it get worse and live a life through depression. Looking back at this rationale I realize how ridiculous it was, but at this point I was already at the height of my depression. Of course I was unhappy, I just didn’t realize it through my own mental gymnastics.  

By April of 2018 I was ready to set my plan in to motion. I was working towards saving up enough money to buy a lethal medication and my plan was to have my last days for the May fourth weekend since my parents would be in Ontario, so it would be easier for me to go unnoticed. During this final month I had two goals: the first to try and truly enjoy the last days I spent on earth and the second was to leave with no regrets. This was about me dying on my own terms, so it was important to me that I didn’t go to rest with hate or sadness. I reached out to a few people I had done wrong to or had situations I wanted to resolve and spent the rest of my time hanging out with the people I cared about.  I didn’t go to any of my finals since I saw no point and this was my saving grace. My parents had been on my case about my grades slipping every semester, especially after I failed a class in fall. So when finals season came in late April a week or two before I planned to put my plan into action they hounded me everyday for my marks. Eventually they had enough of me beating around the bush and forced my hand to log in to my school site where they saw I practically flunked every course. At this point, an argument broke out and I slipped out the words “you’re lucky you didn’t check my search history”. I ran to my room and my sister immediately followed me, knowing something was off. After talking for a bit she sat on my bed and looked me in the eyes asking me “Are you planning to kill yourself?”. It was at that moment that I finally broke and told her that yes, I was planning on killing myself (as remembered and told by my sister*). My mom then saw the suicide related searches and this is where I began to feel cornered and trapped. At this time my greatest fear was being taken to an institution, so I became frantic. I looked for ways to escape my house. My mother and sister tried to stop me, so I shoved them to the side and as I did this my mother jerked me back by my shirt, resulting in me ripping it off along with my glasses. This was and hopefully will always be my lowest point. I was outside running from my sister and mother, shirtless with no glasses (for those of you who don’t know me I’m practically blind) or shoes trying to hide. I finally was able to lose them in a walking path and I was ready to call an Uber. My mind was moving 100 kms an hour trying to make a plan for my next move. All I could think of was getting to the high-level bridge and ending my story there. It’s here lying on the grass where I stopped myself, because everything I told myself before about my suicide and my perception of it was crushed. My ideal of not hurting anyone and doing it on my own terms was no longer possible. I had to make a choice and while this wasn’t the best reasoning to stop my suicide it was enough. I chose to stick by my ideals of what I was doing this for and went peacefully back to my house. It was here I was dealt the final blow to my plans. 

When I arrived at my house. My mother was balling her eyes out and our roles had reversed, where now I was the calm one and she was frantic. We had a long heart to heart with my sister present and my mom made a stand saying she would come with me to the afterlife if I left first. She then reminded me that my sister was in a critical time of her illness and stress could destroy any progress she’s made. It was then I knew I couldn’t go through with my plan. While I know this doesn’t make sense now, I truly didn’t want to cause anyone pain with my death. I had no hate towards anyone and I love my mother and sister. I promised then that I wouldn’t do anything that night and we all slept in my room. The next day I was taken to my family doctor where I was given three options: I could go to the ER with my mother, peacefully with a police officer, or forcefully with an officer- I chose option one.  When I got to the ER it was packed. It took a few hours to get a room and another hour to see a doctor. I was asked basic question like what drugs I've tried in my life, how much alcohol I drink regularly, and some simple things about why I think I'm at the hospital. I did my best to explain my point of view but through my ER visit I felt like I wasn’t really being understood. What I didn’t know then was that doctors were genuinely confused. I guess I didn’t present typical suicidal and depressive symptoms. My demeanor, as described by my sister, was calm, content, and at times even elated and euphoric. At first doctors thought maybe I was under the influence or that maybe I had undiagnosed bipolar disorder, but we would later find out that this all wasn’t true.

My overall ER visit was a total of four days and this time was probably some of the hardest parts in my long journey. In the ER I always felt like a burden. I was put on a stretcher in the middle of a hallway in the ER and I couldn’t have felt more isolated. My mind was still racing, processing how I ended up in this situation while being thrown into the chaos of the ER. Watching all these patients come in with critical physical injuries made me feel ridiculous for taking up space and time in such an important place. From time to time the nurses would check in on me to make sure I was alright but these interactions were few and far between. At this point all my mind could focus on was the fear of what was going to happen to me. I had never looked into the suicide prevention programs in Edmonton and I had no idea what to expect. For someone who was high on the idea of having the free will to choose when was the right time to live or die, nothing was scarier than being locked up with no freedom at all. As days passed waiting to be moved, I found that each day was becoming increasingly harder as my anxiety reached new heights. When the ambulance finally arrived on the fourth night to take me, I met the first person in my journey who I felt like truly listened to my story- my EMT driver. She was a calm voice in a crazy situation and to this day I thank her for how incredibly empathetic she was to my situation because she was the reason I arrived at the hospital relatively calm compared to the last few days.  

My first impression of the hospital was all over the place. By the time I arrived it was some time past nine. I was tired and exhausted from the past four days spent in the ER so imagine my surprise when I saw a young girl dancing ballet as I walked out of my ambulance. Again I think it's important to stress I had little to no information on the place I was arriving at. When I left the ER I was only really told it was a suicide prevention program for 16-28 year-olds and that I would be staying at the Alberta Hospital. I was swiftly directed into my home for the next three weeks, which was building twelve, and was taken to the office to have my things searched by my nurse (for privacy reasons I will call the nurses, staff and other patients just by initials) E and psych aid J. For those of you who don’t know me I’m a massive nerd, so when I knew I was going to a suicide prevention program I made sure every portable game system and laptop I had (priorities am I right) was packed. Needless to say, they had a field day searching my things. By the time I finished up in the office and got my quick briefing of the building and program, it was past ten PM, which believe it or not, was past bedtime in this program. This ended up making my first night experience terrible for so many reasons. For starters, I'm a night owl at heart so I always went to bed super late meaning feeling tired at ten PM was practically impossible. On top of that I was shoved into a room with two roommates without meeting them beforehand. Now let me tell you how scary it is to spend a night in a psych ward with two patients who you know nothing about. Your mind starts racing worrying about the most unrealistic scenarios possible like being choked to death in your sleep by a crazy person. On top of all this, I was already very anxious about being put into the program to begin with and to no one's surprise, I got no sleep the first night. 

To be continued in part 2on October 10th