I’ve had self-destructive thoughts almost my
whole life, as a child thinking about dying and thinking about hurting myself
were just things I thought about sometimes. I never considered that that wasn’t
normal, or that it was bad, I just thought that’s how everyone thought.
When I was in grade school I was in what would be called the loser fried group, there were the 5 of us, all the odd ones out of the popular kids. We pretended not to mind but inside each of us we all wanted what the popular kids had, friends and power. It isn’t like the kids outrightly bullied us but they avoided us, made fun of us, ignored us, wouldn’t play with us. The whole picked last for kickball thing, that was my childhood in a nutshell.
Jr. High is where I started taking my thoughts seriously, not just having them and moving on, but seriously contemplating suicide. That was when I self-harmed for the first time. 7th grade, I took a cookie sheet out of the oven, and on sheer impulse pressed my wrist against the burning metal and seared my skin. I loved it, I began to burn myself, with matches, lighters, even heated blades. Then I got caught by my parents and had my first bought with psychiatry. My fascination with death took a few months hiatus and it wasn’t until freshman year that the thoughts began to creep in again. Pieces of it were because I was watching my parents’ marriage crumble. I then swung into a deep codependency rut with my current boyfriend, codependency is something I still struggle with. He was my life, the reason I woke up in the morning for 2 years until he ended it. Then I felt I lost it, I had nothing left. I threw myself into an addiction of self-harm, self-destruction and marijuana. This continued to spiral out of control until one night I decided to try to end it. I took all of my anti-depressants and all of my sleeping pills and waited to die. I woke up in the hospital later that night and went in and out of consciousness for the next two days, physically I survived, but mentally I was dead. I spent the next week and a half at Linden Oaks Hospital recuperating. I defied all the rules, blatently disrespected the staff. I was on a rampage, I was manic and enraged. I hated every breath I took. I hated every damn visit from my estranged family members. Every moment I was alive hurt. Then, my psychiatrist finally found the right combination of medications, and I could breath. I laid in my room and cried for an hour before a staff came in and asked what was wrong. All I could say was that I felt “okay”. Not happy not suicidal not manic not angry, just okay. That day was probably the best I had felt in a long time.
I want to explain what my thoughts really are. They are voices, now I’m not schizophrenic so I don’t audibly HEAR voices. But the thoughts that I think, they speak to me like they are someone else. And they have a different voice then my own.
“Gertrude” as my therapist affectionately dubbed them. The things they make me think about are self-defeating. In Gertrude’s eyes I am never good enough, I am always wrong.
I am the type of person who waits for shortcuts, I don’t want things to take the time they need. I want things to happen right away, right when I need them. Like getting better, I drive myself crazy making decisions that will make me better in the long run. But I always do what feels better in the moment. Even still, I’ve “tried” to get better, but really all I’ve done is a lot of thinking and a lot of lieing.
Even to this day I drive myself crazy, I know the right decision, the right path. I know what steps to take, I just won’t take them.
I’ve lived a fine life, my parents both love me, my sister loves me, I have a less then sane family sure but they all love me and care about me and each other. The common denominator in my equation is me, I’m the problem, I’m what needs to be fixed. I take it one day at a time, when I have suicidal thoughts I just breath through them, I rarely feed the fire anymore. I do the same with my self-harming thoughts. I don’t believe that they will ever go away one hundred percent, I’ll always have “Gertrude” whispering in my ear tales of sweet release.
I’m still on the fence about whether or not I’d like to survive, but for right now in this very second I don’t want to try to die, so for now that will have to be enough.
When I was in grade school I was in what would be called the loser fried group, there were the 5 of us, all the odd ones out of the popular kids. We pretended not to mind but inside each of us we all wanted what the popular kids had, friends and power. It isn’t like the kids outrightly bullied us but they avoided us, made fun of us, ignored us, wouldn’t play with us. The whole picked last for kickball thing, that was my childhood in a nutshell.
Jr. High is where I started taking my thoughts seriously, not just having them and moving on, but seriously contemplating suicide. That was when I self-harmed for the first time. 7th grade, I took a cookie sheet out of the oven, and on sheer impulse pressed my wrist against the burning metal and seared my skin. I loved it, I began to burn myself, with matches, lighters, even heated blades. Then I got caught by my parents and had my first bought with psychiatry. My fascination with death took a few months hiatus and it wasn’t until freshman year that the thoughts began to creep in again. Pieces of it were because I was watching my parents’ marriage crumble. I then swung into a deep codependency rut with my current boyfriend, codependency is something I still struggle with. He was my life, the reason I woke up in the morning for 2 years until he ended it. Then I felt I lost it, I had nothing left. I threw myself into an addiction of self-harm, self-destruction and marijuana. This continued to spiral out of control until one night I decided to try to end it. I took all of my anti-depressants and all of my sleeping pills and waited to die. I woke up in the hospital later that night and went in and out of consciousness for the next two days, physically I survived, but mentally I was dead. I spent the next week and a half at Linden Oaks Hospital recuperating. I defied all the rules, blatently disrespected the staff. I was on a rampage, I was manic and enraged. I hated every breath I took. I hated every damn visit from my estranged family members. Every moment I was alive hurt. Then, my psychiatrist finally found the right combination of medications, and I could breath. I laid in my room and cried for an hour before a staff came in and asked what was wrong. All I could say was that I felt “okay”. Not happy not suicidal not manic not angry, just okay. That day was probably the best I had felt in a long time.
I want to explain what my thoughts really are. They are voices, now I’m not schizophrenic so I don’t audibly HEAR voices. But the thoughts that I think, they speak to me like they are someone else. And they have a different voice then my own.
“Gertrude” as my therapist affectionately dubbed them. The things they make me think about are self-defeating. In Gertrude’s eyes I am never good enough, I am always wrong.
I am the type of person who waits for shortcuts, I don’t want things to take the time they need. I want things to happen right away, right when I need them. Like getting better, I drive myself crazy making decisions that will make me better in the long run. But I always do what feels better in the moment. Even still, I’ve “tried” to get better, but really all I’ve done is a lot of thinking and a lot of lieing.
Even to this day I drive myself crazy, I know the right decision, the right path. I know what steps to take, I just won’t take them.
I’ve lived a fine life, my parents both love me, my sister loves me, I have a less then sane family sure but they all love me and care about me and each other. The common denominator in my equation is me, I’m the problem, I’m what needs to be fixed. I take it one day at a time, when I have suicidal thoughts I just breath through them, I rarely feed the fire anymore. I do the same with my self-harming thoughts. I don’t believe that they will ever go away one hundred percent, I’ll always have “Gertrude” whispering in my ear tales of sweet release.
I’m still on the fence about whether or not I’d like to survive, but for right now in this very second I don’t want to try to die, so for now that will have to be enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment