A cry for help answered.

It’s interesting how someone you used to talk to on a daily basis can disappear but then reappear at exactly the right time.

In a spill all moment I have to confess that my last two months have been anything but pleasurable. The week before my birthday I manage to hit a speed bump in my brain that disabled my ability to cope with anything. I slipped into this dark monster of despair and have yet to fully come up for air. With my 25th birthday approaching my mind sloped, as did my sense of reason. I attempted the first bout of suicidal thoughts and desires. I consumed an entire bottle of cherry rum within a ten-minute span. This was a bad choice and I later learned that I needed to space the consumption for maximum effect. My target of choice, being death by alcohol poisoning.

My reasons behind my desire to seek the closest exit stemmed a lot from my own mental anguish and feeling of inadequacy. Furthermore I was pushed by my inability to let go of my past demons and a need to be comforted and supported in my darkest hour. Comfort that did not come, as I would have liked it to. Is it even fair to be choosy at this time? I wonder? My failure to actually succeed in what I was planning left me deeper than when I had started. I managed to shake myself off, stand up and push further, each of life’s potholes pushing me off course and bringing me back into the dark circle.

With a stint in the hospital over Halloween, I found myself falling into despair with loneliness and sadness. But also these same hopes of death crept ever so slowly back into my mind. This time, the physical pain matching the mental pain that I had. Learning from previous attempts to speak out and express my feelings, I bottled them as well, filed under “Jennie-you-are-stupid.” Because that is how I felt and feel about my suicidal thoughts. My sense of self worth has been severely compromised and the things that I once found joy from are bland and colorless.

My hand reached out for a friend but was quickly bitten, snapped, my feelings belittled and criticized. To those around me, I was choosing to be like this. This was something I could control, just wake up and feel “all better”. Unfortunately, I knew from experience and books that I’d read that what I was feeling wasn’t going to change by just waking up. The truth of the matter being I needed “help.”

The problem is, I don’t find psychologist or therapy as an acceptable form of assistance. I also do not believe in mental medication as aid. I’m kind of a strong believer in self-help and assistance. I believe the mind is a beautiful thing and that it has the power to over come it just takes some conditioning and time. But I also believe that in this process it is important to have people to back you, to be there for you when you need it and give you positive reinforcement. This is the problem I face because those I have around me rarely look at my problem as something that is serious and often place blame on me because of convenience. My breakdowns to not fit into people lives And let’s be honest, it’s not really convenient for me to have this break down now. I have school and a job to maintain and I can’t actually take a mental health break as much as I would love to, I’ve used up my days for that when I was in the hospital.

Cut to this past week. After being released from the hospital my mind was still not in the right place and social situations with friends got awkward and then my brain slipped into its abyss-like madness. I attempted round two of suicide by trying to OD on drugs. Cue failure again. And with that attempt three followed with Tylenol and an attempt to cut my wrist, however, being that I am not a fan of pain, I am left with some dumb scratches and a stomachache, which just adds to the fact that I haven’t been able to consume food in the past week without puking, since my emotions control my stomach.

Still saddened by my ill-fated attempts I raise and go to work and then my phone goes off and I see a message from a friend from my teenage years. “Hey, How are you?” he questions. “I’ve had better days.” I respond as I follow the curious 1-year-old around the grassy yard. “How so?” He inquires. “Oh besides the 3 failed attempts at suicide?” I click back on the keyboard not sure of why I am divulging this information so early on. “Why do you want to die?” he asks and I can feel that his questions are not judgmental but concerned. “What are you so unhappy about?” my phone beeps back. I think for a second, my life isn’t that bad. I have a decent job and I am doing fairly well in school thus far, but my brain is plagued with emotions and lack of support. I am angry and I feel alone so I tell him this. I spend the next 5 hours intermittently texting him back and forth answering each prying question with utter and complete honestly. He ends the conversation with “You have my number, the next time you feel like you’re ready to go, call me.” I read the words over in my mind, roll them around. I have had people saying I could talk to them, but is the first time that I feel like my needs were met. All the right questions were asked and all the right responses were given. I can feel myself move slightly up in my hole.

Someone stopped to say, “How are you?” and didn’t have a hidden agenda; there were no personal influences. He was not upset by my feelings and he was not disgusted. He did not take personal offense to anything I said, but asked me questions and allowed me to talk… So maybe I could rethink this therapist thing…