I am a suicide attempt survivor.

When I was a teenager, during college, I was involved in a car accident. My family doctor prescribed Percocet and Xanax to me for my pain and stress/anxiety.

I hated the way these “medicines” made me feel, so one day I just decided to throw them away.

No one warned me about any possibility of an adverse effect from abrupt withdrawal.

A few days later, without any fore thought or planning, no note, or sense to reach out to someone for help, I got out a big butcher knife and opened up my veins.

When that seemed to be taking too long, I found a Texas mickey of rum and guzzled down as much as I could straight up. For good measure, I found 100 Tylenol 3’s in the medicine cabinet and downed the whole bottle with the rum. I was numb. I felt no pain.

I lay down on the bathroom floor to die.

But the Universe had other plans for me.

I was found……one synchronistic event after another saved my life.

I flatlined.

I saw my still body on the hospital bed and thought “Wow, there is my body, and yet I’m up here in the corner of the ceiling watching this scene unfold”.

That was May of 1983. I was a 19 year old girl.

I had no idea what had come over me that gave me the idea to try and kill myself.

The doctors wanted answers, but I had none.

I lived in fear for the next ten years, not knowing why I had gone “insane”.

Roughly 10 years later I saw a news program….I think it may have been 60 Minutes, or W5….but they were informing the public that Xanax patients were needing to be hospitalized for the withdrawal of that drug, as people were experiencing suicidal ideation.

I was outraged.

This was what had happened to me.

I was a guinea pig.

I spent several years being furious and indignant.

I had no longer trusted doctors, or the “establishment”.

Basically I’ve spent the last 35 years of my life TRYING TO STAY SANE IN A CRAZY WORLD.

I recently heard that Xanax had made its way to the streets and teenage kids are using it recreationally. I fear for their lives.

I hope that by sharing my experience, more awareness will be in the public conversation about the dangers of “psychiatric medicine” and the potential pitfalls of withdrawal.

Thank you to Brene Brown and Glennon Doyle for inspiring me to be brave and vulnerable.

Love Lori

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