Tanisha Wiggins remembers scrounging around her house for spare coins as a 16-year-old. She was careful and secretive; even her mother had no idea anything was out of the ordinary. She walked to the Family Dollar in Syracuse with determination and purchased a bottle of aspirin with change. Wiggins went into her bedroom and swallowed the entire bottle. She lay down on her bed and waited for the pain go away.

Twelve years later, Wiggins still remembers the taste of the aspirin.

About 9.3 million adults reported having suicidal thoughts in the past year and 1.3 million adults attempted suicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control. As of 2013, it was the 10th-leading cause of death for all ages, an estimated one death every 13 minutes.

Wiggins said she started struggling with depression at a young age, but hid her feelings from her mother out of fear.

“I wanted it to be a secret because I felt like there was something wrong with me,” she said.

Instead of talking to family, friends or doctors, she found solace through poetry. Feeling like she couldn’t express her emotions verbally, Wiggins said she wrote about them instead.

Wiggins’ form of art therapy isn’t uncommon, said Arthur Brangman, an art therapist at Hutchings Psychiatric Center in Syracuse.

“Art is a nonverbal form of therapy for individuals who have suffered trauma,” Brangman said. “A little escapism and creative thinking goes a long way in helping people.”

With one poem, Wiggins’ poetry became more than just an emotional outlet. It became her key to getting help.

“I remember one day I wrote a poem for school, and they didn’t think what I was writing about was normal,” Wiggins said. “I was writing about dying. They said to be so young and write about that stuff was concerning.”

Her principal referred her to a counselor, and for the first time, she spoke her feelings aloud instead of writing them on paper.

Her mother never knew she was seeing a counselor until she overdosed on aspirin later that year, Wiggins said. Instead of compassion, her mother responded to the hospitalization with anger.

Wiggins’ relationship with her mother has since grown into one of understanding, she said. After she moved out of her house at 17, their relationship improved. Years later, Wiggins’ mother disclosed that she tried to kill herself around the same age Tanisha was, she said.

“Her mom (Wiggins’ mother’s mother) got really upset and told the doctors that she (Wiggins’ mother) wasn’t going to take any medication. I think she was kind of projecting that on me,” Wiggins said.

Wiggins still struggles from time to time with feelings of hopelessness and fleeting thoughts of suicide. She’s still learning how to manage her emotions, but, she said, it’s much better than when she was younger.

Marla Byrnes, a retired psychiatric nurse and member of the board of directors at the National Alliance on Mental Illness Syracuse, has witnessed this growth firsthand. Over a decade of working as Wiggins’ therapist, they’ve grown to be friends.

“She’s overcome many hardships that would have defeated people, and rightly so. She doesn’t let life defeat her. She might get knocked down, but she gets back up,” Byrnes said. “For me, that’s what spells success in life.”

Though Byrnes is a mentor to Wiggins, today Wiggins also inspires a lot of people, Byrnes said. She was a residential counselor at the Salvation Army helping other youth, and has done motivational talks for NAMI about recovery and her poetry.

Wiggins said she takes her responsibility as a role model seriously, especially when it comes to her 8-year-old niece. Knowing that her niece looks up to her motivates her during her toughest moments.

“I can’t abandon her. I can’t leave this earth on those terms knowing she would wonder, ‘Well why did auntie do that?’” Wiggins said. “And when she gets older, if she can’t deal with something, I don’t want her to be like, ‘Well auntie did it, so why can’t I?’”

Wiggins graduated in December from Onondaga Community College with a degree in human services, and plans to pursue a career in social work.

Wiggins said she’ll continue to speak out about mental illness, and hopes speaking out about her mental health experiences will help reduce the stigma surrounding them.

“When you go to the hospital and they see that you have a mental health diagnosis, they treat you differently than someone with a physical diagnosis,” Wiggins said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s invisible, you still have pain and you still need to be treated with respect. Everyone should feel like they matter.”

Even 12 years after her suicide attempt, Wiggins said she can’t even look at aspirin without feeling sick. She’s glad the attempt was unsuccessful, otherwise she wouldn’t be where she is today.

“People used to tell me there is a light at the end of the tunnel and I didn’t really believe it,” Wiggins said. “But it’s not all darkness. Even if it’s a dim light, there’s still a light.”

 

Published on January 20, 2016 at 10:04 pm

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