Trigger warning: Self harm and Suicide
It’s my second week in hospital and it’s taken me this long to be in the right frame of mind to write this. I already had one go but I got a bit carried away with it. But the story starts a few Wednesdays ago.
After my last release from hospital I started seeing my psychiatrist every Wednesday afternoon. He wanted to go back over my past, my childhood and stuff. He thinks there is something else to the puzzle that is me, that’s making the self harm and suicidal ideation worse.
One part of it is I may have Borderline Personality Disorder. The way he described it to me was personality is basically how we see ourselves and the world. So this disorder just means how I see things is skewed or something. Hence why he wants to go over how I grew up and my past experiences. Trouble is, I really don’t like thinking about any of this stuff. Let alone talk about it.
But, having been hospitalised twice at this point, I knew I had to do it, as hard as it might be. Getting better was something I needed, and it wasn’t going to happen while I laid in my bed doing nothing.
So, I managed to get through 2 sessions of going through things. Trying my best to be as honest as possible. Unfortunately by the third my mood had taken a turn for the worst and I was beginning to self harm again.
So we find myself on this Wednesday, I was too down to go over anything. I could barely speak. Luckily my psychiatrist knows what this means and didn’t push forward with my history. Just quizzing me on how I’d been so he could get an idea of how bad things were. I couldn’t find the words to express it. I really did try, I nearly even started crying. I can count the number of people I have cried in front of on one hand. He isn’t one of them.
My Lexapro got pushed up to 30mg and I left feeling worse than when I’d gone in. I headed straight to the bathroom and started crying. I couldn’t stop. Maybe I should have gone back in, but say what? So eventually I pulled myself together and went home.
I barely made it through the next week, only getting worse. Knowing I had to somehow do something about this. Get to the next Wednesday and again I’m in no state to talk about any of my past. I can barely make eye contact, and words were few and far between. I was on the verge of tears the whole time, and I still couldn’t get out how bad everything was. How I just couldn’t handle the thought of another day just like this.
He knew we needed to try to get me out of this depression, Lexapro got upped to 40mg. Again I left and found myself in the bathroom crying uncontrollably. It took awhile, but I eventually found my way home. Straight to my room, I couldn’t handle interaction, I couldn’t handle anything. I sat there for a while, crying. I didn’t want to wake up to this, I couldn’t do another day of this.
So I made a very bad decision. I can say that now. At the time my head wasn’t clear at all. I was in a haze, I couldn’t see past how I felt in that moment and couldn’t see how it might end, unless I did as well.
I am so very lucky, a friend of mine came over when she did. So, goddamn lucky. When she found me, I was a mess. I’d gotten all my pills out in front of me and I had quite a bloody collection. I’d even spent time researching them previously out of morbid curiosity. When she saw me, she knew. I’d been hurting myself and I just couldn’t keep eye contact. I was ashamed she’d caught me in a moment of weakness, and again at the time I didn’t know if I was glad or mad to have been stopped.
She called my psychiatrist who was luckily working that night. Got me in here on the Friday and made sure I was never left alone before I was admitted. I owe my life to her. I feel bad I ever got that far. I’ve sworn to never let it get that far again. When I saw my psychiatrist that day I should have told him I didn’t feel like being alive anymore. But I didn’t realise even then. So, I have to try to be more aware of how I feel before it gets that extreme.
I can only say now, that I even feel a little bit hopeful.