I need some advice on helping a dear friend of mine, she is an absolutely amazing human being, full of life and right now she is going through immense suffering & I am desperately in need of some guidance on how to help her.
She is 38, lives in Florida and reverted to Islam about 4 years ago. She had an extremely difficult childhood where she was sexually abused by her father and brother and had to watch her mother being physically abused by them also. She became addicted to drugs and began drinking heavily to try to cope. I think it was the desire to escape this turmoil that initially interested her in Islam and alhamdulillah finally led to her reverting.
However depression and anxiety are things she’s struggled with for most of her life and although being a Muslim significantly improved her (she stop drinking and drugs) she still found herself feeling low most days. About two years ago her dad came back into her life (after being estranged from her for about two decades) and tried to kill her. A restraining order was issued and he can no longer come within a certain distance of her but the damage was done and feeling more depressed than ever she stopped eating and sleeping. When she did sleep she had very vivid nightmares which disturbed her greatly to the extent where she would go to great lengths to avoid sleeping in fear fear of dreaming this way.
After a while she quit her job because she was simply too weak mentally and physically to work. Over time her financial situation became really bad, not to mention the fact that she no longer had health insurance to cover her medical needs.
Last December (2005) she was involved in a really bad accident. It’s a loooong story but somehow she ended up in a trash truck (thats what you Americans call em right?) and her body was almost crushed - it’s a miracle she survived! Without health insurance she isnt getting the correct medical treatment because she can’t afford to pay and has already incurred thousands of $$ in medical bills.
I know she would kill me if she found out but I’d just like to share part of an email she recently sent me…
, I still have dizziness, still having muscle cramps,
my leg still hurts from being crushed, the cut on my head has grown into a lump
again and just throbs all the time, pain in collarbone and ribs, and still
cannot hear out of my left ear. That’s right, I’m almost deaf in it now. But, if
I got to see an Ear Nose and Throat dr., I could get that fluid tha tis trapped
behind my eardrum to drain and then I wouldn’t be dizzy anymore and could hear
normally again.However, we still have that nasty problem of muscle pain, cramps,
***and bone pain. Hard to work when you cannot even move much, huh? ***
…after 12 hours in Emergency they sent me home because well…i’m
one of those people wiht no health insurance. They wheel me out to my friend’s
car and I get in and they give me this plastic container to hold in case I
vomit. Well as soon as I get in the car and my friend starts driving away, guess
what happens? I start vomiting. Blood. My friend holds the container and drives
while I puke up blood. And by the way, the nurse said as she was helping me in
the wheelchair that is wasn’t right they were sending me home already!
I get back home and pass out on the couch. Heather and Amy are there and they
get scared because I’m puking blood so they call an ambulance. I wake up a
little while later to 4 paramedics standing inside my apartment. I ask them why
they are there. They said "YOur friends called the ambulance because you are
vomiting up blood. You’re going to hte hospital." I Said "I"m not going back to
***the hospital." ***
A few minutes later the ambulance arrives , they wheel me out of my apartment,
and put me in the back of the ambulance. We get to the hospital, I’m wheeled
into the ER, then, I am taken out of the stretcher and put into a wheelchair.
THe paramedics wheel me out to the emergency room waiting room where I sit for
***the next TWO HOURS waiting to get into a room in the ER! Can you believe that? I pass out in the wheelchair because I am still drugged up from the stuff they gave me the first tiem I went into the ER. So there we sit for 2 hours. Finally, I am put into one of the ER rooms. For the next 3 hours, I wait to see a doctor. That’s right, 5 hours later, after being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance for the 2nd time, I am finally seen by a doctor. ***
I’m sorry for such a lengthy post, I know you’ll get bored reading it but as I’m in the UK and haven’t spent much time in the US I’m not sure what people in her situation would do. She seems very pessimistic and the reason I’m posting this now is because I spoke to her on the phone today and she said that despite knowing it’s against Islam, shes considered suicide. Can anyone give me advice on what to do? Please 
