Where have I been TW: Suicide, Self Harm
First, I want to say that no one is responsible for my suicide attempt. I am solely responsible, I have PTSD and have been recently diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. If something ever happens to me in the future, please know that it is the illness and no one could have prevented what happened to me. Second, I am only writing about this to control the narrative. There have been many speculations, rumours, etc.
Everything had been building up. Ever since the beginning of Covid, it is like the water kept rising and I was drowning. A few weeks ago I got very upset by a chain of events. Twitter had been very depressing. I had so many mutuals expressing how they wanted to commit suicide. One even going so far as to write out a suicide note. That affected me so much that I enlisted the help of a friend to try to pinpoint his location so I could call the authorities. He ended up being okay, but that was really hard for me. Friends were posting these really depressing tweets. I was getting mercilessly trolled on Twitch and people were making fun of me on Twitter as well. I was being cyberstalked. All of these things led up to my break.
One night after a long Twitter battle. I thought I was losing a friend and I was the reason for a lot of bad things happening. I felt so empty inside. I wanted to feel something other than what I had been feeling. So I cut myself. When I did that I undid 9 years of sobriety.
I started cutting myself when I was 12 years old. That was the first time I attempted suicide as well. I had used self-harm as a means to make myself feel better when I felt like I was the cause of something going wrong, or I was just so numb with emotions that I needed to feel pain.
On October 21 things got really bad. I got to where I felt like I didn't need to be here anymore. I was so empty inside and nothing was making the loneliness and self-hate go away. I felt like everyone would be so much better off if I just went away. I had been making so many mistakes and I felt like I was a burden. No one was going to ever want to love someone like me. I just wanted someone to hold me tight and tell me they would save me but that wasn't going to happen. So I slit my wrists. As soon as I did it I knew that I needed help.
I went to the emergency room. They immediately took my back and bandaged my wrists. At that point, they took away my phone and all my belongings. I had a security guard. I was alone and terrified. No one came and talked to me or showed me any kind of empathy. I had to talk to the mobile crisis unit on an iPad. They assessed me and referred me to a rehab called "The Living Room".
The Living Room is a crisis stabilization rehab. Basically, they watch over you for 7 days and make sure that you aren't going to continue to hurt yourself or try to attempt suicide. It was a very nice facility about 30 minutes from my home. It is residential. I had two roommates. It looked like a regular house with a large living room and several rooms. The rooms looked like college dorm rooms. We had group therapy 3 times a day. We ate meals together. We watched a lot of scary movies. I was scared at first but then I got to know the other people in the program. There were 8 of us. I shared my anime with them. Even though they made me watch in dub which I hate.
The Living Room was a very nice place, however, they were not very secure. I was able to order stuff to the rehab. They did not check our bags. I ordered razors and had them delivered. Every day I asked the staff why I was there. I told them that I felt the same as I did the day I tried to take my own life. All they told me was to keep doing the work and going to groups. They had us sign a contract saying that we would not hurt ourselves or try to commit suicide on the property. I told them I had a plan of leaving and going to Wal - Mart and buying razors and doing it there. These people didn't blink an eye. I am sure it wasn't the first time someone had told them that. I was also not the first person who tried to kill themselves while in rehab.
I had been feeling worse. I knew I was letting my friends and family down. I was thinking about my Twitch and Twitter followers. I knew that they had been told a little of what was going on. I honestly regret letting everyone know that I was in the hospital. I just knew that people would be worried about my previous posts and streaming 7 days a week. I thought someone may worry. Then knowing that people knew, I thought about how hard it would be to come back to social media and streaming.
I started having intrusive thoughts:
Oh my God, everyone is going to think I am crazy.
People are going to think this is just me wanting attention.
No one is going to believe me.
What if no one would have noticed I was even gone?
I am hurting the people I love, they would be better off without me.
I am too needy and bother people. They will be relieved when I am gone.
These are just some of the thoughts that were racing through my mind. So I got in a really bad place mentally. I went back to my room and attempted again. This time was a little worse than before. I couldn't stop the bleeding and I feel like a coward that I tried to. How is it that I couldn't even kill myself correctly? I wanted to stop the pain. I felt like no one will ever be able to love someone like me. I am so damaged and broken. I am too messy. I feel ugly and undesirable. If I could just stop all of those feelings I would be okay. The loneliness was getting to be too much.
The Dr at the rehab facility said he was having me committed because I broke the contract. I was terrified. I had never been to rehab or a mental health facility before. I knew what committed meant though. I was thinking the worst and wishing I had been successful on my second attempt. I took a handful of Xanax I had snuck in my purse while I was talking to mobile crisis about where I was going to be placed. They chose a place in Chattanooga. About two hours away from home. I let my best friend know and he took it pretty hard. I had been putting so much on him recently with all my crap. He was shouldering all of it alone. I had refused to talk to anyone else. I wasn't talking to anyone in my family other than my sister and I did not confide in her like I did my friend.
I was in a taxi on the way to the hospital. Looking at my phone. Reading the words of a very disappointed and hurt friend. It all just made me want to kill myself even more. All I do is hurt people. I am nothing other than a huge inconvenience. In my bag next to me were all my medications. It would have been so easy to sit there and take all of them. That was such a long car ride. I knew that as soon as I got to the hospital my phone and all my belongings would be taken away. I had less than two hours to hopefully come to peace with my friend being done with me. He had given my number to two of my closest Anitwitter friends. They were messaging me and that helped me get through the panic.
I was happy that before I went into the hospital and had my phone taken away that my friend had calmed down and let me know that he believed in me and would be there for me when I got out. I hated myself for everything coming to this point. Even sitting in the hospital waiting to get processed I looked at the bag of medicines. This was my last chance to do something. I gave up on attempting again.
I was taken into a security room. This was a much different experience than rehab. I had a metal detector waved over me. I had my phone and belongings confiscated. This place looked like a prison. I have never felt so alone and terrified in my life. This place had windows but you could not see outside. The bathrooms had metal toilets, the showers had a metal button to start the shower on a timer. You had to push the button again for more water. The beds were hospital beds. I was not allowed to close my door. I was also in a room next door to two men. My PTSD was on high alert already and then knowing there were men with issues sleeping in the next room made it a lot worse.
I slept for 3 days it seems. I just gave up on trying to be conscious. I was haunted in my dreams. I was tortured by the way I had left things with my friend and my mind kept pouring over the conversation. Every negative thing just stayed on repeat in my head. I met with a Psychiatrist and a Therapist once a day. I ate food with a paper spoon. The nurses were the only good thing about his place. They were all sent from heaven. Finally, on the 4th day, I was able to convince them to let me go home. I lied and told them I was feeling better and had no bad thoughts. The Psychiatrist was not going to let me go but she finally agreed to.
I have been home for about 5 days now. I know I should not be here. I still feel the same way I did when I went to the ER. The night I went home from the hospital I failed and I have failed every day since. I know that I still need help. I am working with a therapist and a Psychiatrist. Help is hard to get unless you have a lot of money. I know that I never want to go back to a hospital like the last one I was in. That makes it difficult because it prevents me from seeking help if I do attempt again. I have looked into other rehab type places. There is a really good one in my state but it does not take my insurance. It is $29,250.00 out of pocket. I know my parents would pay for it, I just don't want to ask.
Everyone keeps asking if I am okay and looking at me like I am a glass about to break. The truth is that I am not okay and I won't be until I get some more help. I need to face my PTSD head-on and finally let go of the things that happened to me in the past. I want to be a survivor, not a victim. I need to also get some help with self-harm. It has become an addiction again and is not a safe coping mechanism.
I want to get better. I want to continue fighting for better mental healthcare. I would like to continue growing my platform and start doing Therapy Thursdays again. While I was at The Living Room, the counselors encouraged me. You can not work at that facility unless you have a mental illness diagnosis. The Doctors, Therapists, Nurses, and other workers all had mental illness diagnosis or had personal experience. They let me know that people like me can have a greater impact because we have lived it. This does give me some hope and helps me to feel a little less hypocritical. I love helping others.
I have been trying to stream again but I get self-conscious really bad and start having panic attacks so I have been doing short streams. I just want to get to a point where I don't want to hurt myself anymore. I want to be happy and feel loved. I want to stop disappointing my friends and family. I want to be an asset instead of a burden.
Thank you if you made it this far. I couldn't have done any of it without all of you. This is something I have to conquer. No one can do it for me. As much as I would love for someone to swoop in and magically make all of this go away, that isn't going to happen. I have to do the work and accept the help. - XOXO 💋
Links:
Borderline Personality Disorder
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
Mental Illness sucks.......I wish there were solutions for people. Covid makes it worse.
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