My Baby

Almost 3 weeks ago, February 2nd. My husband and I got a phone call from an Escambia County police officer telling us that our only child, our 22 year old daughter, Cassi had committed suicide. She had shot herself in the head in her back yard and her roommates had found her. Cassi was my life, she was everything to me. She started experiencing dark depressive episodes when she was a senior in high school. I discovered she was cutting herself, she would be despondent, depressed. I took her to my family doctor and he tried her on various anti-depressants, but they never really worked. She was very smart and very driven. She graduated Valedictorian of her class and received scholarships to college. The summer before she started college was a nightmare. Her depression got worse, she made suicidal gestures, was admitted to Bay Behavioral Clinic for 3 days. It seemed to wake her up, or at least make her sure she never wanted to be in a place like that again. We followed up with a psychiatrist and he began her on yet another anti-depressant and things seemed to calm down for a while. Her four years of college, she was up and down but pretty stable and manageable. She graduated last year and was planning on starting Graduate School this summer. In the meantime she had taken an apartment and gotten a job. For a very short period of time she was okay. It didn't last long...she resumed cutting herself, going thru major depression and bouts with anxiety. One morning one of her roommates went in to wake her up and she was unconscious. She had taken an overdose of her Ativan. Her roommates got her to the hospital and she was placed in the psychiatric ward. I knew nothing at the time. Three days had passed when I had not heard from her. She wasn't answering her phone or responding to my texts. I started asking questions and found out what had happened. Because she was an adult the hospital had not notified us and her friends had closed rank around her because they knew she would not want me to know. Again she was released after only 3 days...nothing much changed. She was given a new diagnosis, Borderline Personality Disorder. I threw myself into research and discovered the survival rate increased with age. If I could just get her past the next few years, she would get better. Meanwhile she was determined to return to work and get back into her schedule. She had new appointments with different professionals and began more medications. She was up and down, sometimes okay, other times totally despondent. She kept a lot of secrets from me and also insisted on the same from her friends. However occasionally one would reach out to me, forward me an e-mail, scared to death. My daughter said I always overreacted and made everything worse. She was getting worse. She wanted to transfer from the South. She had never fit in and her dream city was Seattle Washington. She started looking for jobs in other states in her companies offices. She was thrilled when she got an interview in Seattle. She was turned down for lack of experience. She filled out hundreds of applications and things were not happening as fast as she wanted. She became convinced she would never get to leave the area and always said she'd rather die than stay here. I threatened to have her hospitalized, to move her home...if I did anything like that, she told me, she would kill herself. I walked on eggshells, worried constantly...fretted when I didn't hear from her and panicked when she wouldn't answer the phone. The last few days before she did it, she had seemed to be better. The last 2 phone calls came within days of her suicide. She called her Dad, worried about me driving because the roads were icy. He told her I was off that day and she felt better. Three days went by when I didn't hear from her. I started getting the "feeling". She wouldn't answer her cell phone so I called her at work. I was absolutely delighted to hear her voice. She told me she was fine, everything was fine and she sounded well. I exhaled. three days later she was dead. It has devastated me and our family. I want to die as well, but I can't put my family thru that much more drama and turmoil, furthermore I have made promises, to my husband and my sister, that I will not act on those feelings. The first 2 weeks were hell, but we were busy. We had arrangements to make, we had to get up, out of bed, dressed. People filtered in and out of our house. I would not have thought it could get worse, but it has. Today, this day, 20 days after her death has been the worst day of all. Unimaginable pain, seemingly intolerable. My poor husband won't let me out of his site, despite my promises, simply because of my despair. I don't know what to do, where to go from here...She was my life, now she is gone and all I can think about are all the mistakes I made, all the things I could have and should have done differently. I am totally lost and there are no support groups in my area. I went to a therapist and it was a nightmare. He treated me horribly and made everything worse. Any advice would be appreciated.