On Father’s Day of June of 2006, we received a call that my brother had been found dead. We were devastated. He was only 37. My daughter was especially devastated as this was the first person that she really knew and loved that had died. More xanax, more pain pills. It wasn’t long before his death became an excuse to use.

She started seeing a psychiatrist for depression after his death. More xanax.

In July of 2006 she started dating a guy she met through work, things were good… for a while.

She quit her job at the law firm because she couldn’t get along with co-workers. She quickly found another job at a family resource center. She began calling in sick a lot, then she underswent another cosmetic surgery and had to be out of work for a few weeks. More pain pills.

She and her boyfriend decided to move in together in a small house down the street from ours. Things were good… for a while.

She returned to work, but the sick days became too frequent and she was fired. More anxiety, more xanax.

I began to notice that her eyes were sunk in, she stopped working out, stopped wearing makeup and didn’t like to be in public much. She slept a lot. Then they began fighting about finances all the time. She wasn’t actively looking for employment. She stayed home and slept a lot.

I found one of her xanax bottles and contacted her doctor to express my concern. Her doctor would not speak to me because of HIPAA laws. I explained to the receptionist what I suspected, she said she would make the doctor aware of my concerns as a parent. I also called the pain clinic that she was seeing and expressed the same concern.

A couple of months later, I found another one of her xanax pill bottles. When I compared the dosage to the other pill bottle, I was shocked to learn that her psychiatrist had increased the dosage after my initial call of concern. I made another call to the doctor.

My daughter began negotiating with the doctor and pharmacy on dispensing, she would say that she lost her bottle, or the dog chewed them, or her boyfriend flushed them, or threw them out of the car window during a fight. The doctor and the pharmacy would alway give in and prescribe/dispense a few pills “to get her through until her refill was legal.”

I began to talk to my daughter about the drug use, and that I was afraid that she was addicted. She vehemently denied addiction and tried to blame me for her struggles in life.  This triggered many future screaming matches between us about her drug use. My daughter’s personality had changed 100%. I was more than concerned at this point. I was sick. A good day was when I could get her to answer the phone. A really good day was when I could get her to actually speak coherently.

I contacted her doctors again. No luck, she was over 18 and was being treated for depression and pain. I was informed that I was not a doctor and did not have the tools nor the legal right to argue with a doctor. I faxed over a summary of her drug use to all of her doctors. They might not be able to talk to me because of HIPAA laws, but there was nothing preventing them from listening to me.

It was then that I realized that my daughter was a cash cow for her doctors. She was a source of revenue, nothing more. If she kept coming back, she generated income for them, it was that simple. They had no incentive to actually treat her problem, they just wanted to keep her as a patient, an income source.

Her addiction personality had automatically filtered out the good doctors and she gravitated to the pill-mill doctors. She doctor-shopped until she found a good deal. The boyfriend caved in every time. He bought her pills to pacify her. He gave her money for the doctor to pacify her, anything to avoid a fight.

As the one year anniversary of my brother’s death approached, my stomach was in knots, I was basically still in denial about his death. It was easier that way. I knew that the anniversary would be hard on my family too, especially my daughter.  I expressed this to her boyfriend, and made it clear that I was extremely concerned about her drug use. He played it off as if it wasn’t a problem. She was still unemployed and not actively seeking employment. Sleeping and fighting a lot.

On Thursday, June 15th, 2007, a friend and co-worker of mine passed away suddenly of pancreatic cancer. Her funeral was set for Saturday, June 17th, the day before the anniversary of my brother’s death. I was saddened by her death, but even more anxious about the upcoming anniversary on Sunday and how that would affect my daughter. 

When Saturday morning came, I couldn’t bring myself to attend the funeral, it would have been the first funeral since my brother’s. I busied myself at home. My daughter came over and watched tv with me for a while, and I invited her back for dinner. The mood was solemn, but ok. She stayed for a couple of hours and then went home, saying she would be back around 7pm for dinner because her boyfriend was going out with his friends. She seemed in a decent mood, actually coherent. I felt better.

I cooked dinner and called her when it was ready, no answer. I waited a little while and tried again. She answered this time, but said she was going to go to bed early, that she had already eaten. I fell asleep on the couch while watching tv after dinner. I was awoken at about 10pm by the sound of a text on my cell phone.

The text read, “I love you mom. I’m sorry.”

My stomach knotted up and my heartbeat and blood pressure increased dramatically. I immediately dialed her phone number. Straight to voice mail. I called her cell, straight to voice mail. I got in the car and drove down to her house, no one home. I called her boyfriend’s number, no answer. A few minutes later I got in touch with her boyfriend. He said he received the same text.

I wanted to throw up. I had hoped that she was with him and just didn’t want to tell me that she skipped dinner with me to be with him.

He told me that they had a fight and he left and was out with his friends. I asked him to come home and help me find her because that was uncharacteristic of her and I was really worried. I frantically called her numbers and driving by her house, hoping her car would be in the driveway. It wasn’t.

He came home and we drove around looking for her for the next two hours. She was nowhere to be found. I dropped him off at their house and continued to drive around aimlessly, not knowing where to begin looking, and realizing she could be anywhere.

The phone calls kept going straight to voice mail. It was now after 2:00 a.m. She would know that I would be worried out of my mind after receiving that text. She had never done this before. Something had to be wrong.

I called the sheriff and reported her missing and filled them in on the circumstances. There was nothing they could do unless they happened to come across her. There was no search effort. Just a BOLO (Be On the Look Out) issued.

Just filling out the paperwork for a missing person is enough to break a strong person. When they start asking you about identifying marks, your stomach flips upside down and you subconsciously start preparing yourself for the worst.

The deputies left and I continued driving around the neighborhood, wracking my brain trying to figure out where she would be.

I went home long enough to call all of the hospitals, the highway patrol and other police jurisdictions. No luck.

For some reason, and to this day I don’t know why, I decided to check the parking lot of the little restaurant on the outskirts of our neighborhood. They have a bar there, maybe she was getting sloshed at the bar?

I drove into the parking lot, literally two streets over from our house, and spotted her car in the far end of the parking lot, by the lake. My heart sunk and my heart raced uncontrollably – the lake…

I whipped up to her car and jumped out, it was very dark. Her car is black with tinted windows. I couldn’t see into the car. I tried the door. Locked. I backed my car up to shine the lights inside her car and jumped out to look in the window.

There she was. Slumped down in the seat, pen and paper in hand. I started screaming her name. This got the attention of the bar patrons. I screamed for them to call 911.

I continued banging on the window and roof of the car until finally I noticed her head move a little.  I couldn’t think to get the hammer out of my car and break her window.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. I mangled my hand badly beating on the car.

She roused up and opened the door and I started shaking her trying to get her to talk to me. I grabbed the keys from the ignition. She was incoherent, drooling. She handed me the paper she had in her hand, and said, “Here mom.”

It was her suicide note.

I kept asking her what she had taken. She said, “All of them.”

 The empty xanax bottle in her purse had a fill-date of June 16^th – it was now 5:oo a.m., June 18^th. The one year anniversary of my brother’s death. She had taken all of the pills. Later, when I read her note, she indicated that she wanted to save the family from grieving on two different days, so she chose his death anniversary as the day to commit suicide, that way we would only have to grieve one day instead of two different days.

The sheriff and paramedics were there in a matter of minutes. They immediately Baker-Acted her and the paramedics transported her to the nearest hospital, JFK Medical Center.

After bloodwork and an attempt to pump her stomach with charcoal, the hospital psychiatrist came in, asked her if she still wanted to kill herself, to which she replied “no.” He told her to follow up with her primary care physician. He then went to the nurses station and lifted the Baker Act placed on her by the sheriff. She was released with instructions not to kill herself, and if she felt like killing herself, she should call someone, and oh yeah, please follow up with your primary care physician.

I kid you not. That was it. I was in shock.