Some personal things on self-harm

Saturday morning I was released from a Form 42 hold (a form I have seen too many times in my life unfortunately) at the hospital. Friday morning I did something bad to myself.

Since January, I’ve been taking Prozac to treat my depression and OCD. I took this drug with many others years ago as a teenager. The last several months has been extremely hard for me. I did something to address the most traumatic years of my life. I’m not ready to talk about it publicly, but maybe one day I will. It has ruined me and I suffer everyday in every possible way.

The last two weeks has been stressful. Reading week was wonderful, I spent the week in SF with my partner. But after that things went back being shitty. I had midterms which I could’ve studied more for. I had to organize another Big CSters event for WiCS. I should’ve been preparing something for my talk tomorrow at DevTO. In between, I helped a few of my friends as they were freaking out about their own problems.

I managed to get all this stuff done without failing. But ultimately I failed myself – as always of course.

I had a painful sore throat and cold for past few weeks. I didn’t go out much or interact with people much. I stopped taking Prozac and skipped my appointments with my therapist. My plan was to hoard my pills and take them all at once when things finally hit the rocks.

It did on Friday. So I took all of my missed pills, downed a bottle of whiskey and vodka, and some remaining cough medication, and let my body suffer with hopes of disappearing and not having to deal with anything anymore. I’m ashamed to say this given my family history – I’ve been drinking for the last few weeks to cope.

This type of pain was something I grew to desire. As a teenager, I abused my antidepressants, cut myself, drank cleaning detergents, and burned my skin. The most humiliating moment of my life was when I was 15 and being dragged out of my house by police officers and paramedics with hand cuffs. Last year, I was taken out of my house for another suicide attempt with hand cuffs as well even though I pleaded with the officers not to because it’s a huge trigger. Of course they didn’t. But that’s another long winded post about police and the mental health system. Friday I was taken out on a stretcher, so that’s an improvement. Maybe next time a body bag! Excuse my morbid humour. (Sidenote: Overdoses are not a fool-proof way to kill yourself. I know this. I’ve done research. There’s exit bags. Gassing. Hanging.)

I don’t know why I’m writing this. I can’t sleep at all right now. I feel like a monster who pushes people away. I constantly preach to people that they deserve respect and love. But to be completely frank, I don’t feel that way about myself whatsoever. I live with so much guilt and self-hate towards myself.

My body is sore and bruised from have needles and pumps probed into me. I have so much work to do. This is my last semester, it’s supposed to be nostalgic and all that cheesy, feel good nonsense but it’s not. I work my ass off everyday. I fight to get adequate services. I’m exhausted. It’s more than not wanting to live anymore. I don’t want to be me. I don’t want to suffer the way I do. I have to be on meds for the rest of my life to have a chance of being stable and that makes me disappointed.

But I shouldn’t be disappointed because “blah blah stigma can suck it, etc”. I’m tired of being a burden to so many people. I just have to work harder to stay clean and stable, and it sucks. But there are definitely things to live for.

Be bold, take flight — tryangles!