Suicide

Suicide isn’t pretty so I’m not going to portray it as so. It’s not poetic or romantic, it’s dark and morbid. I know this first hand because August 1st I attempted suicide. No, I didn’t do it for attention or pity or even as a cry for help; I did it expecting to die.

   As I’ve said before mental illness is something I deal with but on that night I did not deal with it well. Around 2 A.M. the depression hit me like a brick wall and was not gentle. I went into the bathroom so no one would hear my breakdown of crying, which happens sometimes but it usually passes. I sat on the floor sobbing and it only got worse. It felt like I was dying. My chest felt as if it was decaying and being ripped apart while my head was going a million miles an hour; everything was too overwhelming and it hurt too much. I got a knife out of the kitchen and cut it across my hip a few times, hoping the physical pain would distract me from everything else. It wasn’t enough. This was too much. I couldn’t do it. I needed it to stop. I opened the medicine cabinet and took out every pill bottle. I sat there for a long time, sobbing, staring at the open pill bottles on the sink. After a while, I stopped crying, filled up a cup of water and made my choice. It’s not like in the movies where they take out the bottle and down it. I couldn’t take more then 2 pills at a time without gagging, so the process took a few minutes. After that it all gets patchy, with blank spaces. I remember writting a short letter addressed to my mom, grandma, best friend and boyfriend. Then, sitting on the floor next to the toilet, trying not to throw up, and not being able to sit up straight without falling over; I’m not sure which order those came in.
   The majority of the following morning is recalled by what my mom told me, I don’t remember it. At somepoint I ended up on the couch and threw around the cushions in the process. When my mom came in the next morning she told me to get up so she could fix the couch. I ran to the bathroom and threw up twice. When she followed me she saw the empty pill bottles on the counter. I only remember her hugging me between throwing up and saying, “What the fuck did you do”, in a tone I had never heard before. That tone was terror.
   I don’t remember getting in the car but I vaguely remember my mom begging me to stay awake and then ending up in an ambulance. There is a big blank between then and getting to the hospital. Next I remember is being in scrubs, laying in the ICU, with a woman asking me questions and telling me I had to take all my piercings out. I don’t remember a whole lot from the hospital, I’m not sure if that is because I was so high or because I was so drugged up that I slept alot. I do remember my mom sobbing by my bedside; she asked me if I regretted it and I replied with, “I don’t know”. I remember having a camera put in my room so they could have me on constant supervision and not being allowed to have my phone. I remember having about a thousand wires hooked up to my body and an IV in my arm.  I remember having to have my mom walk me to the bathroom because everytime I looked somewhere too fast the world would spin, so walking was a joke. Once I was moved out of the ICU things are less blurry. I mostly slept, but I could read my book and watch tv and shower. My best friend even came to visit, but I was still so drugged up, or in shock, that when she cried, I had zero emotions in my response.
   My mom and the nurses were on a hunt for a psychiatric facility with an open bed. You don’t realize the lack of help for people with mental illnesses available until you sit in a hospital for 2 days because every single facility is filled to the brim. Eventually a bed opened up in a place in Columbia. You would think I’d be opposed to going to a “crazy house” but I wanted to go. I wanted help. No time was wasted and soon I was transported.
   The facility wasn’t like an “asylum”, it was a hospital but with no physically sick patients. I stayed there for seven days. When I came in, I expected thorough therapy but it was more being servailanced 24/7. The “baby-sitting” is understandable under the circumstances of us being there but got tiring. The doors were all locked, we had to show our eating utensils before we threw them away, and no shower products with alcohol in the first 3 ingredients. Every day was the same schedule, with the same questions:
“Why did you try to kill yourself”
“I didn’t want to live anymore”
“Well what happened to cause that? What was making you sad?”
“Nothing. Literally nothing happened. It was just bad, bad depression”.
They always wanted to pin it on something that happened, my recent breakup, my mom not accepting my sexuality, struggling with my faith, and maybe those had some kind of impact on my stress level, but I didn’t do it because of a specific situation.
   Obviously, I was in the adolescent section but I was surprised to how many people my age there were, and ones who seemed normal too. Though I think everyone there was there for something related to suicide, most had major drug addictions. They seemed like people I would go to school with, nothing majorly out of the ordinary. They had problems but they were decent hunan beings. The girl with a cocain problem had the sweetest heart. The girl who was suicidal painted the most beautiful paintings. The girl who had a 5 year old daughter had the funniest laugh. Despite the differences, we all connected immediately. People left and came at a steady flow. After a while you get a little stir crazy. All the windows were glazed over but the top windows in the bedroom weren’t, so we would stand on the desk and look out the window sometimes. We would talk about what we would do when we got out; “Eat Chick-fil-a”, “Get my nails done”, “Smoke a big, fat blunt”, “Shave my legs”. To say it was like prison is melodramatic but it was an odd experience. It served it’s purpose of making sure you didn’t hurt yourself.
   When I got home I received the therapy I was looking for, 2 times a week, and on new medication. I was still not allowed to be alone but I was home and getting the help I needed. I told my closest friends what had happened and they threw support my way. School started back and that brings us to the current day. Things aren’t back to normal but I think that’s for the better.
   It’s all still very fresh, this happened all but a month ago. I’ve come to terms with it and it’s undercontrol now. It wasn’t graceful or pretty, suicide isn’t. It’s ugly and scary and should never happen. Life is worth living.

Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255