Deborah's Signs?????

I can honestly say, that none of the signs that appeared in the top 3/4 of the sheet applied to Deborah. Meaning she did not verbally indicate her intentions to any of us. She did say at one time around May or June to one of her sisters that she will not be giving out presents for Christmas this year. She added that it is because she can't afford it because of her school fees. Nothing under the list of signs matched with her for suicidal tendency.

Only under the depression category do we find some characteristics that matched. These being the fact that she appeared to be fatigued, and had a loss of energy.  She would go without fail to the gym daily, and then would quit. Then she would go again without fail, and then stop. This in itself was not a huge sign for us. Who doesn't want a break from a sweat filled place such as that? (You will find me very opinionated about some things, and I will explain myself in another blog). She even lost some of her weight by working out. Despite the tremendous weight gain after her hospitalization, she still carried herself beautifully in my opinion with her 5"9 frame.  I can just imagine how difficult that must have been, as the drugs completely alter your metabolism, and always tell you that you are  hungry. Her weight fluctuation was in our belief, entirely to do with the psychotic medication. Despite our complaint to the psychiatrist, he felt she should continue taking it as she was no longer having hallucinations, thereby he thought the meds worked and did not want to introduce her to another medication.

The other sign was that she withdrew from her family and friends. From us she withdrew into her bedroom. Often we would see her reading her bible industriously, highlighting verses, and sleeping much. She would come out to eat and drink and shower. She would spend time with her pets, having Moonshine on her bed, holding her up to her face, stroking her. She would give ample hug to Brindle the dog, fearless from her somewhat unpleasant face. This dog belongs to our tenant but is a frequent visitor, almost our own. We found out that despite many requests to socialize with friends, she stopped going out.  This too was not a complete scare to us since we knew she wanted to change many friends in order to become a police officer. Those friends who loved to party were no longer a magnet for her, as she realized that the damage to her mind was not worth the "friendship" they were offering. Till the last day, she went to work, and till the last week she went shopping for furniture with her sister, and for household items for when she moved out. No one saw her write suicide notes. However, she was agitated if we went into her room even while she was there. I was scolded for opening her window countless times.

As far as whether she was slow thinking or indecisive, yes, perhaps there was an element of that but we believed that this was a condition that was residual from her psychosis experience, and like the EPI (early psychosis intervention) program said, "Psychosis is Curable".  I think this is just a slogan, in order for them to get funding from the federal government. If you have seen anyone be healed from psychosis please bring them to my door, I would love to meet them.