My Suicide Attempt and My Struggles to Get Help

“To the woman I love with my whole heart and soul: You are finally free of the terror I have caused in your life,” I wrote. “I am sorry for everything I have done to you. I deserve every bit of sorrow I feel.”

“Never forget how much I love you and cherish the times we spent together,” my letter continued. “I’ll hopefully see you on the other side.”

Writing a suicide note to my wife on Dec. 28, 2012, was much easier than I thought it should be. I was also surprised at how easy it was to then swallow an entire bottle of sleeping pills. But lying down and accepting my fate was the easiest by far.

I stared intently at my grease-stained pair of Marine Corps-issued boots strewn across my bedroom carpet. I locked my gaze on the debossed eagle globe and anchor on the outside of each heel. I wondered if asking for help for my post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury was the smartest decision – after all, it had ended my career.

 

Thomas James Brennan Thomas James Brennan with his wife, Melinda; daughter, Madison; and service dog, Luka, at Ocracoke Island in North Carolina.

 

The way my leaders had treated me tore me up on the inside, and their words haunted me. They had convinced me that I was not a Marine in pain, but someone looking for free benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs. At work, at home, in bed, all I could think about was how my career in the corps had ended in such a terrible, tasteless fashion, with my peers and leaders turning their backs on me because I had enrolled in treatment.

I felt worthless.

I lay back again, closed my eyes and began to wait. Thoughts began rushing through my head. How had I gone from being a strong and supportive father to this? How had I fallen so far?

Deep down I knew the answers to my questions.

For nearly 10 years I identified myself as a Marine, but in the wake of my medical retirement in December 2012, I had no identity. Things couldn’t have been stranger for me. I had come to accept my retirement and was excited for the future. But now, two days before my retirement date, every ounce of shame, fear and sadness that I thought I should have felt during the two years I waited for my medical board to come back came rushing down upon me.

I thought about standing on the yellow footprints at Parris Island. I remembered the endless sand dunes of Kuwait and Iraq as I flew to my first deployment in 2004. I thought about the pride I felt when the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James F. Amos, awarded me my Purple Heart in Afghanistan on Christmas, 2010.

Lastly, I imagined my daughter’s tears and shame years later once she found out her father quit on himself because life proved too difficult. I couldn’t be a failure in my daughter’s eyes. I couldn’t leave her to a life without me. I couldn’t have her think I was a failure.

My eyes sprang open to the thought of her crying at my flag-draped coffin. I immediately felt the stomach acid inching up the back of my throat with each crack of the 21-gun salute. As I rushed to the bathroom, my mouth began to fill with vomit. Dozens of little white pills floated atop the water. I could hear taps playing in the back of my mind.

But had I gotten them all out? Violently driving my fingers down my throat, I vomited more and more, trying to rid my body of the poison while tears rolled off my face.

I fell back onto the bathroom floor and wondered what I had just done. Staring up at the ceiling, I wanted to hear my wife and daughter’s voice. I needed to find a way to smile.

As I told my wife what I had just done, she pleaded with me to get help.

I called my psychiatrist’s office, but it was closed. Next, I called Fort Bragg, a local Army base, and after being transferred half a dozen times to various offices across the base I was told to call my local Veterans Affairs hospital since I was two days from retirement. They didn’t provide me with any numbers to call. They did, though, tell me to enjoy my weekend. The woman on the phone for the V.A. hospital in Fayetteville, N.C., was “sad to inform me” that because I was still on active duty, the Department of Veterans Affairs could not assist me. Silence ensued as I heard the phone click.

I just wanted to get my emotions off my chest.

Speeding down country roads and feeling the crisp December wind blow against my face felt nice – so nice that I don’t remember exactly how I got to the Southeastern Regional Medical Center parking lot in Lumberton, N.C. I walked toward the red letters of the hospital’s entrance. They mesmerized me as I took my last drag from my cigarette, flicked the butt to the ground and walked through the revolving doors on my way to the front desk.

For more than three hours I sat on a hard plastic chair in a dimly lit corner of an emergency room hallway wearing a drafty hospital gown, which I was forced to change into as I stood in the hallway. Letting out a sigh, I rested my elbows on my knees, laid my head in my hands and blankly stared at the wall.

I felt alone once again.

I dozed off. I don’t know how long I slept – long enough to be startled when two police officers nudged my shoulders. I was being involuntarily committed to the psychiatric ward and was given the option of being handcuffed or voluntarily following them. I chose the latter. Everyone in the emergency room seemed to stare as I walked away. On the elevator I began to cry.

The elevator door creaked open and I was ushered past a guard and told to stand next to the nurses’ station. With its inch-thick glass and solid metal doors, it looked more like something you’d find in a prison. I stood in awe at the array of people I saw there. Some wandered the hallways aimlessly, and others sat in an array of rubber chairs scattered about. With their glassy eyes, all of them looked overmedicated.

My initial interview with a nurse consisted of discussing my current medications and being warned that if I refused new medication I could be forced to comply. By the end of the first day I learned to ignore time. Bedtime came after receiving more medication than I was used to. They told me it was to help me sleep. And it did.

By the afternoon of Day 2 I still hadn’t talked to anyone about why I was there. I asked to speak to one of the nurses. I wanted to know what medications they had me on and when I would see the doctor. My head felt foggy, and thinking was far more difficult than normal. All I wanted to do was sit down or sleep.

I vaguely remember watching television and making small talk with my fellow patients. We laughed at the schizophrenics and cracked jokes about those drooling on themselves. It was a cynical way to pass the time, but it worked. Before I knew it I was lying in my bed. Two days down, two to go.

Morning came faster than expected. While I was scarfing down my chalky eggs and slurping on my decaffeinated black coffee, a nurse told me it was my turn to see the doctor.

I expected a cordial handshake or at least a hello. I got nothing. He began asking me mundane questions. Did I know why I was here? Am I still suicidal? I refused to let him get a rise out of me. He suggested changes to the psychotropic regimen. For a total of three minutes I sat in his office, and he didn’t answer a single question I asked. Silence outweighed the conversation. He motioned toward the door and told me I was being discharged the next day.

I had wasted three days – three days that convinced me I would never ask for help from someone new ever again.

Blood pressure. Lunch. Blood pressure. Dinner. Medication. Bed.

If it weren’t for the medication, I would never have fallen asleep that night.