A long story.

Last year, on a Monday morning, I woke up in a psychward. That weekend, my dad had been gone so I invited some friends over to drink, smoke salvia, and watch movies. They left after two days of being smashed because they had work on Monday. I decided that I wanted to keep drinking even though I was alone. I smoked the rest of my salvia. I had been depressed over being unemployed and being in a city where I knew no one. Over dropping out of college after my injury and over being a failure at being human. All of this resulted in a desire to not be able to think, to be distracted from my own mind, to cease the inner void. Backstory, I had previously been in a psychward once at age 16 and was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder at age 15, mere months before my second suicide attempt. Because of my young age and lack of medical knowledge, I didn’t know enough about it for an OD to kill me. The first time I attempted it, I was 8 and after feeling the rope squeeze around my neck in our garage, I panicked. I was afraid and still held many of the misconceptions that I was taught. I didn’t know any better but I knew I hated myself.

Back to that Sunday, I decided that I wanted to kill myself. So I drove out to a park, sitting in my car, looking out at the view in the rain, I took the rest of my vicodin (for my back), the rest of my antipsychotics (from the most recent psychiatrist), and as many other pills as I could until I couldn’t swallow anymore. I was pretty out of it before that so I got some on my passenger seat and floor of the car (which I found later when I picked it up from impound.) At this point, uncaring about anything and out of my mind, no rationality, no desire for anything, I glanced at the seat next to me.

In the passenger’s seat, there sat a small exacto click blade. I took it in my hands, examined it closely. I remember the smooth, straight edge of the metal sending a shiver up my spine. I then pressed it to my left forearm, right forearm, neck, and face, each taking multiple parallel lines in perpendicular directions. I’m usually OCD about how self-injury marks look as well at the number grouped together. I didn’t intend for them to be fatal, merely for them to bleed. I sat there, feeling the blood running lazily down my skin while listening to the rain patter on the roof of the car. It was euphoric and yet serene.

I get a text from my ex. He asked me what I was up to. Oblivious to any fact but exactly what was happening at the moment and struggling to read, much less comprehend, I told him exactly what was happening. There was a long pause in texts and then he texted me that he didn’t want to lose me. He begged me to call the cops. I had no perception of time so I can’t tell you how long it was before I replied that I would. Something in me had changed. Either a desire to live or a desire to not be alone, a desire to exist and be acknowledged that I exist, whatever it was, I called.

I’ve always held a very anti-capitalism government idealogy and in my inebriated state, it was apparently magnified by the contact with a member of emergency services. My plea for help changed smoothly into a mocking tone. I couldn’t contain my laughter at the absurdity of my own predicament and I do firmly believe at this time, while I cannot remember the exact exchange that took place, I proudly declared my suicidal intentions, lashing out at the phone attendant, and asked them to “send the pigs” multiple times. I then hung up, only then realizing what I had just said and how bizarre that must have sounded.

I sat there for what seemed like an hour. I began to feel groggy, my head felt fuzzy. I rolled down the windows to my car, feeling the rain flick into my car. The fresh night air made my skin tingle. I lit a cigarette, taking long, patient drags with my arm hanging out the window, becoming soaked, the blood running down the sides of the door when it mixed with rain. I immediately wished I hadn’t called and considered trying to drive to a different location when a vehicle with very bright lights drove up behind me and stopped abruptly.

The first officer jumped out of the car and a flashlight shone in my face. He asked me what was going on and I didn’t feel like answering. The policeman requested that I exit the vehicle and stand by the door. I obliged, flicking my cigarette into the mud. When I stood up, this intense lightheadedness overtook me and I tried to remain standing. I couldn’t hear what he was saying nor could I see him from the flashlight still on my face. I leaned against the car for a moment and he lowered the flashlight. I could see in his right hand a gun, pointed at me but slightly lower, as if he didn’t really find me a threat but still wanted to be prepared. I rested my head on the side of the car. After a few seconds, I could hear him say, “Ma’am, please put down the knife.”

I looked down and there in my hand was the bloody exacto blade. I was slightly startled because I didn’t remember picking it up. I dropped it on the ground. I saw a flash of light off to my left so I turned slightly and saw another police officer bending to look inside my car. He picked up one of the empty bottles on my passenger seat and read the label. I again got very light-headed and set my head back down on the side of the car. I couldn’t hear what the first police officer was saying but we stood there for about ten minutes while his partner talked on the radio. By this time, my clothes were soaked from the rain which only added being very cold to the growing lightheaded feeling. I was incredibly tired and thought about laying or sitting down but the police officer still had his flashlight on me and I didn’t know what he’d do if I tried anything.

The ambulance came but I barely heard it. I remember being terrified because they were taking me to a hospital. From previous traumatic encounters with hospitals, I had over the years developed a phobia of them. I physically fought the EMTs but it must have been very weak because I was fading in and out of being able to understand what was happening. I cried when the two EMTs pulled me towards the vehicle and the next thing I knew, I was strapped into the bed in the back. The male nurse in the back of the vehicle tried to put an IV in my arm but I snarled at him. I’m still not sure why I did that but apparently it was my immediate reaction. He explained that he had to put it in or I might pass out. He needed to keep me awake. I grudgingly allowed him to poke me, keeping a paranoid eye on him. After a few minutes, I passed out anyway.

I woke up in the hospital. A nurse was there and was cleaning the blood off of my arms. I stared at her for a moment until she asked me what exactly I had taken. I didn’t remember. She left and I passed out again.

The second time I woke up, a nurse walked in and told me that they ran checks on all of the medication listed on the bottles. Halfway through the conversation, my vision blurred and I couldn’t think. I don’t know how long that lasted. When I could hear her again, she asked how many of each I took and if I could tell her. I didn’t know.

There was another encounter with a nurse I don’t remember what happened but as far as I can tell, it involved getting my permission to be admitted into the psychiatric ward. They had to ask me at some point so I assume it happened then. I don’t know if the nurses were all the same person or if they were different people each time.

The next time I woke up, I was in a different room. A halfway room between the psychward and the ER. They took my clothes so they could inspect them for safety and gave me a hospital gown.  There was another woman in the room with me, who I do not remember, but only that we talked. I don’t know what the conversations were. They were probably pretty biazarre because we were both pretty out of it and were on our ways to the psychward. They had to wait for two spots to open before admitting us. I remember laughing at the suicide watch nurse because she wanted to watch me pee, in case I tried to off myself in the bathroom. The nurse bandaged my arms and put bandaids on my neck. Up until then, because the wounds were so superficial, they hadn’t bothered. With my experience in self-injury, I tried to talk her out of bothering to bandage them at all because they would just come off and would impede the speed of the healing process. She insisted that she had to so I let her do her job. I think they had a shift change but over the past couple of hours, I had lost the ability to tell different people’s faces apart or distinguish them as separate entities. This I blame mostly on the anti-psychotics I had taken. I then slept on and off for several hours.

The next time I woke up, it was morning. We were moved into the psych ward which was a common room with a large window the nurses’ station overlooked and two corridors down each side which held patient rooms and meeting rooms. They took everyone’s blood pressure and pulse in the morning. The patient rooms had two beds, two desks, a bookshelf, and a bathroom with a shower. I felt like a zombie and moved like a robot. I immediately went to sleep again. It was black and silent.

At dinner time, a nurse woke me up to tell me that they had food for me. I felt much better but I had no appetite. They gave me back my clothes I had worn the day before. I stripped off the gauze they had used on my arms and washed the remaining blood off. I sat at a table with a woman I didn’t know across from me. I wasn’t able to remember people’s faces yet but I could tell they were different people. There were about 15 patients besides myself. I picked at my food, ordered breakfast from a menu, and promptly went back to sleep.

The next day, I had breakfast with some women. A short blonde who was the skinniest thing I have ever seen in my life who was about 30, a larger blonde with wavy hair who was over 50 at least, and a quiet short mexican woman in her 20s. The mexican woman turned out to be my roommate but I had been sleeping so I hadn’t noticed. After breakfast, a nurse asked me if I wanted to call my parents. The only things of mine they had were my wallet and the empty pill bottles so my phone was left in the car. I couldn’t remember any numbers. I spent that morning going through the outdated local phone book they had to try to contact my father or step-mother. I tried their places of work, their home number, and everything else I could think of. No luck. Finally, I was able to contact my dad, after digging up through a series of phonecalls, his work number. I told him where I was and that I needed him to bring me clothes. A little after lunch, the nurse brought me a duffle bag and some toiletries. I took a shower, put on some fresh clothes. Then a nurse came to get me.

She led me to a meeting room where I met the psychiatrist in charge. She had a red notebook with her that I had been writing in for months, a sort of diary. My father had found it in my room and given it to her. She read to me my suicide note, which I did not remember writing but I stayed silent. I had listed all of the medications I took, the doses, and the final doseage. In my letter to my dad, I admitted that for the past several months I had contemplated killing him. How much I hated him and how good it would have felt to get away with it. I didn’t remember writing any of this although I was a little angry that I wrote it down. Angry that she had read the words in the rest of the book that no one was ever supposed to know existed as I had planned, if I were to ever commit suicide, I would burn it beforehand. I fell asleep immediately after I got back to my room.

The next few days, I vaguely remember. I remember events but have no idea when or in what order they occurred.

One day, they took us down to the art room where we painted little styrofoam dinosaurs and cardboard treasure chests. I ended up with a treasure chest and a vibrantly orange triceratops.

I watched a history channel documentary on their old tv with several other patients. One older man commented during the entire thing. I don’t know what it was about.

I played card games with the three ladies, got to know their stories a little bit. The mexican woman had a young boy but lost him to child services. She was very sweet but deeply depressed. The older woman was a meth addict who had tried to kill herself by ODing. She was a rougher sort of person with a crude sense of humor. The skinny pale woman was a strong Christian, also very, very sweet, and had a severe eating disorder. I wanted to get out of there badly. I created a bond between us, sort of “friends” and we hung out all day. They really liked me and by the end of that day, they were talking about what we should do when we got out of there. They gave me their phone numbers. The nurses really liked that and told the doctor who smiled and told us it was very healthy to have friends.

Sitting on the bed in my room after one of the meals, there was a pen sitting on the nightstand. I really wanted to hurt myself with it and instead free wrote poetry on the back of a piece of paper. The only line I remember is “I am a monster, devoid of soul.” I flipped the paper over and left it there. There were three group therapy sessions every day. They were mandatory. I sat there and when my roommate talked, she referenced being a monster and looked at me while she said it. She said something heartwarming but I don’t remember what it was. I left after that and didn’t go to another one.

The older woman saw me drawing and asked me to draw her a tattoo of a Celtic cross. I did my best and before I left, I put it on her nightstand.

One day, they took us down to the bowling alley they had a few floors down for patients who behaved. My team won. There was a guy on the other team who had just gotten there. He was about 20, the same age as me, was wearing a band tshirt, and was funny. It felt great to laugh. This must have been shortly before I left because I don’t remember ever seeing him again.

The last day I was there, I had meetings with nurses who talked about depression and my previous diagnoses. We went over therapy options outside of the psychward. We talked about chances that I’d do it again. Finally she asked me if I wanted to go home. I said yes.

A little later that day, I had a meeting with the head psychiatrist. She asked if I thought I should go home. I said no.

Then still later, I had another, very biazzare meeting with two nurses and the head psychiatrist wherein she accused me of being a pathological liar because she couldn’t understand simple verbal differences in the two questions I had answered. She set up the “mandatory” two weeks of outpatient group therapy sessions, gave me a list of therapists, and two prescriptions that I never filled.

A few hours later, my dad came to see me and they let me go.

On the way home, I told him a very short version of what happened. He was silent but then started to talk about how much he loved me and why I hated him so much. He cried about his new relationship and that he was having second thoughts about what he had done. He cried that our family had disintegrated because of his actions. I had never seen my father cry before. Then he explained that when he told his wife about my attempt and stay in the psychward, she went ballistic. She threatened to leave him, to take the kids and move to Florida. She threatened to never speak to him again. She then told him that I was being kicked out of the house and that we had an hour to clear out my stuff and move it back to my mom’s house in another town. So in an hour, we picked up my car from impound, packed both cars with my things and unloaded it all into the basement of my mom’s. She wasn’t home yet. On the way home, my dad asked if I knew anything about the table on the patio and why the glass was shattered. I had no idea and didn’t remember it being broken last time I was there.

He stayed until my mom showed up, very confused. We explained the situation to her briefly and then he went back home. My mom expressed concern, was glad I was home and ok, and then I fell asleep for the entire day.

Out of the group therapy sessions, I attended four of them. I skipped one in between the third and fourth. They were a joke. It met at 7am and ended around 2pm. The first time, this secretary lady took my blood pressure and pulse. She gave me a depression questionnaire and told me what to expect. We sat in a circle of chairs, listening to a specialist in career counseling and then a regular therapist who encouraged that we share. We talked about empathy, consciences, effective time management, healthy social lives, goals, and asking for help. During the entire time, I never had a desire to speak. These were strangers who I had no connection with and no interest in. My paranoia got the best of me. When the therapist asked what I was there for, I was very vague and cursory with my answers. The most he got out of me was that I had depression and was there after a suicide attempt. I drew in my notebook most of the time.

One of the sessions, during a break, a 17 year old bipolar girl asked to talk to me about my scars. She wanted to know if they were self-inflicted and how long I had been doing that. I answered her questions and when she ran out of them, we just sat in the hallway until the break was over. We never talked again.

I don’t remember many specifics directly after that. At first, for the first few days in the psychward and for the next week after, I didn’t remember what had exactly happened. I knew vague details the nurses gave me but no actual memory of my own. It slowly came back. I still don’t remember anything between my friends leaving and driving my car. I don’t remember much of the time spent in the ER, who I spoke to, what we talked about, or even who I saw in those couple of days. I do know that this entire experience (attempt-hospitalization-release) lasted four days. It felt like I had been there for weeks.

I washed my car a few days after being at mom’s house. The dried blood was crusted on the side of the car, on the arm rests, on the steering wheel, the passenger’s seat, the gear shift, the top of the window, and some in the carpet. It was a very odd experience. I then went to the store and bought a strong rope. I put it in the trunk of my car and it’s been my only solace ever since. I didn’t seek therapy. I didn’t fill the prescriptions. I didn’t talk to anyone about it. I didn’t speak to my father. I didn’t leave the house unless I needed to. I let my ex know that I was alright but other than that, we didn’t speak. I breathed air. I burned those pages of the notebook. I didn’t sleep very much. I got a job. I applied for classes for the fall semester. I had my 21st birthday and ignored it. I moved out of my mom’s house and into an apartment with a girl I barely knew because she offered really cheap rent. I wanted to be closer to my friends. To not feel so completely alone.

This is now, almost a year later. The rope is still in my car. At times, I bring it inside and practice tying a hangman’s knot. A few nights I have slept with it in my bed. Nothing has changed. I’ve been smoking marijuana at least once a week, getting drunk twice that much. I have only two classes this semester and am getting B’s because they’re easy. I tell people that I’m trying to get into the Culinary Arts but I haven’t filled in an application or talked to an adviser. I no longer have a job and while I should be looking for one, I don’t see a point because I’m most likely going to be dead soon. The last time I saw my dad and step-mom they told me, with smiles, that I should come see them and that their boys miss my cooking. I smiled and said I would. It won’t happen.

Last night, I had sex with a friend who likes me, a lot, because it passed the time. I’m aware that he thinks I feel for him and that it will probably break his heart but I haven’t felt anything for anyone in a long time. We went to the midnight release of Portal 2 and then he left. We have a very one-sided relationship and I use him. He’s aware of it but it seems like he tries to ignore it.

I’ve been thinking more and more about suicide and reading about how to do it correctly. This next time it happens, I will be sober and absolute. I know exactly how it will happen. The only question is when. I feel like I’m waiting for something to happen. Something to distract me from this emptiness for a little bit. Some amazing change that will redefine this outlook I have and that life’s worth fighting for.

I lay in bed last night, thinking about this and an incredible disgust came over me. I’m a pathetic, waste of a human being and the only things in life I deserve are pain and misery. I wanted to leave right then and there, to enact my plan. Instead, I took a bath. I cut myself 109 times. My arms, chest, abdomen, legs, and breasts bled profusely. It turned the searing hot water a pale pink. I then rubbed antibacterial soap into all of the cuts, the pain making me tear up and laugh. I waited until almost all of the wounds stopped bleeding before I got out of the lukewarm water. Dabbing at the injuries, my leg started to bleed again. In my room, I bandaged the still bleeding ones with gauze, leaving the others to breathe. Then I slept for 12 hours.

Every Tuesday, my friend and I make dinner at her place and smoke weed. She called me and woke me up when she wanted me to come over. It’s now Wednesday and 4/20 so she wants to celebrate after our classes are over. She noticed something was very wrong with my mood so I admitted that I had been contemplating suicide. I gave her no details but she said that she loves me and would be very sad if that happened. We surfed the internet and made delicious omelets with red peppers and spinach. This entire account has taken me 4.5 hours to write. I’m not exactly sure why I did but writing this all down has made me feel better.

My scabbed over scars are itchy. I should go home and shower because I have my first class in 4 hours. Then I have an exam in the second one and homework that is due but not finished. I shouldn’t have told my friend but I was high at the time and not thinking straight.

If you haven’t gathered it already, I’m kind of a monster. It’s very difficult for me to hide it 24/7 so one of my outlets is writing. If I can see it written, it’s less of a challenge and I deal with wanting to be myself much better. I am convinced that if someone were to know everything about me, I would be hated. Many of my secrets must go to my grave. It would destroy my family and friendships to know what I hide. I’m relatively sure my dad read the notebook before he gave it to the psychward. This is one of the reasons I try to limit my contact with him as much as possible. He knows things now and no one should ever be aware of. I’ve never been completely truthful with a therapist but I’m relatively certain that I have DID as well as borderline personality disorder with internal psychotic traits. My brain is most likely physically abnormal and over the last few weeks, I began hearing voices and my paranoia has been worse than ever.

There’s still a thin hope that things will change. That my life will be sunny, wonderful, and I will have answers. But it’s a false hope. I’m permanently this way and there is no reason for me to expect anything else. It’s illogical and I’m insane for even considering it.

There are 4, 732 words in this piece of non-fiction. I hadn’t planned on it being nearly this detailed or this long but there it is. There is no point. I don’t think there ever was. Maybe it’s this desire to at least tell someone what happened and that it’s not over yet. That while I don’t really care what happens from here on out, that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I existed. If I hadn’t, then maybe my parents would still be married. Maybe my brother wouldn’t be an alcoholic. Maybe my ex wouldn’t be suicidal either. Maybe my friend wouldn’t be a stoner and want to drop out like I did. Maybe my mother wouldn’t have anxiety issues and my father wouldn’t be diagnosed borderline either. Maybe they’d have more money, more time, more smiles, and less pain.

Today, I think I’m going to go to class like normal. Burn the notebooks afterwards. Celebrate 4/20. One more day. I can make it. I’m making no promises and telling no lies. I hope today is livable for the rest of you.