Angie said Not Today

Darkness in her eyes

Angie Elliott would not describe the first 40 years of her life as traumatic, nor would she say it was idyllic.  She had experienced heartbreak and grief in her personal life, and she also dealt with it every day in the lives of others at the small town funeral home where she worked.  But when it came to mental illness, she just didn’t think it was relevant to her life and if it was, she didn’t think there was anything that could be done about it.

“Life’s challenges were to be overcome and if they weren’t, well, obviously I wasn’t trying hard enough,” she says.

She just couldn’t understand why she kept having heart palpitations to the point of passing out on a daily basis.

A flurry of hospital visits, bloodwork and EKGs confirmed that there was nothing physically wrong with her.

And yet she could not keep her hands from shaking.

When it was finally suggested that she might have some sort of anxiety disorder, she brushed the idea off.

“I was skeptical of a mental health diagnosis because there was no indication of anything underlying,” says Angie. “There was no trigger or trauma.  With the exception of a few incidents, I had led a calm, happy life.”

Nevertheless, she was referred for mental health treatment and put on a ten-month waiting list.

“Two hours after coming home I remember collapsing in the shower. I knew I had to deal with this for another ten months, and I just couldn’t,” she says. “Every day got scarier.  I couldn’t go to work. I couldn’t drive.  I stopped eating.  My hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t hold a cup of water. “

She came to the conclusion that she wasn’t going to live long enough to make her first appointment.

“In my head, I was a burden to the people I love. I thought my husband and my 8-year-son would be better off without me because this was no life for them.  I really considered it an act of love, my disappearance from their lives.”

One night, when her husband saw what he described as a “darkness” in her eyes, he suggested they get a babysitter and go for a drive.

Then, for the first time in her mental health journey, a clinician at CAMH put a name to what was happening to her. Severe Panic Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. She was struck by the almost blasé attitude of the doctor telling her what she had, how common it was, and how effectively it can be treated.

“I said, ‘There’s a treatment for this?’ I was gobsmacked. I always thought the best gift a doctor can give to a patient is a name to what they have and nobody could do that until I came to CAMH.”

Now, through a combination of therapy and medication, Angie has her life back again. She still reflects on how close she came to losing it.

“If I had still been on that ten-month waiting list, they would have had to strike me off because it would have been too late; I wouldn’t have been around,” she says.

And when she first saw CAMH’s vision for the Not suicide. Not today. campaign, her thoughts immediately returned to that time of darkness.

“Had I seen something like Not today when I was sick, it could have brought me back. That’s what CAMH gave me and it’s a beautiful gift to people who are struggling. A new perspective. Another option. Even if that option is just ‘not today’. I was so sick I didn’t know how I was going to get through the next 24 hours. When I thought the only way out was suicide, if I had seen something like Not today then it would have hit me straight in the gut. There are solutions, there is a place full of people that can help. That place is CAMH.”