Monday morning, I walked out of my apartment building and sat on one of the benches out front. I was waiting for my mom to pick me up. I had called her thirty minutes earlier, telling her I self-harmed and was thinking about killing myself. As I was sitting on the bench, a lady I met who lives in the same apartment building walked by me and asked, "Not working from home today?"
Over the last few months, she and I have shared some personal stories, so I feel comfortable with her. "No, I'm going to the hospital." Concerned, she walked over and asked why. I shrugged, and before I knew what I was saying, the words "I want to kill myself" escaped my mouth. She sat down, put her arm around me, and let me cry on her shoulder. "Honey, I felt the same way last week. Any time you need to talk, come knock on my door. I am always here for you. I promise."
I spent the next six hours at the hospital getting meds, having blood drawn, speaking to doctors, having psychiatrist appointments set up, and crying to my mom. I knew I was where I needed to be, but I didn't understand why I was feeling so low in the first place. All I knew was that I felt miserable, and my stomach was a pit of aching depression. I felt worthless, unloveable, and so very defeated. It felt like I had fallen down an 80-foot hole, and there I was, covered in dirt and surrounded by darkness.
She was late for work, so as she walked away, I stared down at my hands and wondered where the fuck I had gone wrong. I felt fine last week. What changed? My mom picked me up, and as she drove to the hospital, I said all the things out loud that I had been thinking for years: I'm stupid, I'm ugly, I'm fat, No one cares about me, No one will ever love me, I am a waste of space and everyone would be better off without me, I want to disappear. This went on for twenty minutes until I stood in front of the nurse in the ER, who was asking what I was there for.
"I'm suicidal."
Sometimes it feels like in this dimension, in this lifetime, I cannot grasp my mental health. There is another version of my life in some other universe where joy exists, where it is not just a temporary comfort. But it is not here. I have been blessed with so many wonderful things, yet I cannot appreciate them. Instead, I destroy them because of my mental illness.
