The day I tried to end my life

LAST November, 22-year-old Melanie Shaw tried to kill herself. This is how she survived, and went on to turn her life around.

I NEVER imagined one day could change my life so drastically. In hindsight it was no different to any other; I felt depressed and suffered suicidal ideations.

However, after I had been to visit my psychiatrist who I was in regular contact with I felt particularly down. Just like any of the other times I felt this way I took the train and then walked the short distance to a well know Brisbane bridge.

I enjoyed going to the bridge because in a strange way it made me feel relaxed and at ease. I felt strong walking across the bridge, I always thought it helped put my negative thoughts at ease because I was well aware of those who had previously jumped and plummeted the 70 odd metres to their death.

By being up there I felt I had control over my thoughts — I could calm myself and know that while I had overdosed plenty in the past, I was strong enough to keep myself safe here.

On the 3rd of November 2014 this went terribly wrong.

I had not gone there to make a suicide attempt but in a moment of impulsivity I grabbed onto the railings, hauled myself over the edge and all within a 30 second time-frame I let go and fell off the bridge into the water.

I didn’t die, and thinking back it’s really quite amazing I am still alive. On impact I broke my pelvis in two places as well as my tailbone in two places and had quite a bit of internal bleeding.

My memory after this comes and goes but I will never forget the pain of landing, being picked up by the City Cat and the days in ICU while I waited for surgery to piece my pelvis back together again. However, I am eternally grateful as this experience changed my life. I’ve been diagnosed with several mental Illnesses over the years, most prominently depression, anxiety and Borderline Personality Disorder.

I would say the impulsivity of the BPD was what drove me to jump off the bridge that day. I am most certainly not promoting like-minded people to jump off bridges, but what I am concerned with is people’s lack of understanding.

Many say there is so much stigma against mental illness, however I do not believe that people’s moral perceptions and ‘stigma’ is the real issue. Stigma to me is lack of understanding. If you haven’t gone through it yourself, I can see how people don’t understand, but the only way to fix this is to talk about it.

Talking about it normalises the issue and helps people to understand that the person does not choose to have mental illness. In particular what has driven me to talk, normalise and create understanding has also happened since I jumped.

In January two days in a row the bridge was closed due to ‘police incidents’ and when reading about this I noticed a lot of people commenting ‘why can’t these people choose a more convenient time or place to jump off?’ or ‘another day of traffic due to attention seekers’. I can assure you that for those unfortunate enough to get to that point they are most certainly not doing it for attention and are definitely not in the frame of mind to be concerned with holding up traffic.

I, myself am not trying to be an attention seeker by writing this; all I wish to do is to encourage people to rethink their opinion on such issues.

There are two quotes I most value: ‘you never understand a person until you walk a mile in their shoes’ … try to imagine the heartache this person and their family are experiencing to watch them struggle. The second is: ‘people do not die from suicide, they die from sadness.’ Next time you meet, hear or see someone experiencing mental illness — please try and understand.

Together we can beat the stigma. As for those experiencing mental illness, I hope that you do not have to undergo such a harsh event to be able to feel the determination to give life that second shot.

If you would like to speak to someone about depression or mental health call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 or visit the Headspace website.