5150 in 5150

Warning: Suicide attempt.

It’s difficult to try to remember what was going through my mind that Thursday night. It’s mostly unsorted in bits and pieces. The two days before that my mind had started to get foggy. I had a tough time thinking and focusing; work was difficult because I just couldn’t concentrate on anything at all. I’d try to bring my focus into the present but before I knew what was happening my thoughts were elsewhere. They weren’t even important thoughts. They were transient and fleeting.

I came home that night to lay on the patterned rug in the kitchen. Ryan sat at the dining table and watched me. I don’t remember much of the conversation, save for a single thing.

“Have you considered starting over again?” He said.

My mind clung to his words. They stuck there, in my brain, like flies to gummy, yellow, paper. I began to shut down internally. I got up and walked to the bed, saying something about something being too much and how I just needed sleep. He left. He was going to be staying down south overnight, and I was supposed to go with him. I don’t remember why I didn’t want to go…

After a few minutes of flipboard articles I remembered that Ryan had written something on the dry-erase board. I got up, read it, and erased it. I don’t have any recollection of what it said. Something about trying, maybe?

I held the dry erase marker in my hand and wrote “I give up,” artistically turning the “e” inside on itself. I messed up the “I” a little, and was going over it again with the marker. That’s when I was suddenly gripped with the realization that I didn’t just mean to give up writing, but rather that in that moment I’d given up on life.

Things get fuzzy again.

I was in the bathroom. I was in the kitchen. I was in the closet rummaging through my art supplies looking for an exacto knife. It wasn’t sharp enough. Neither was the kitchen knife, nor the scissors I kept in the bathroom.

I left the apartment door unlocked when I went to the pharmacy. I didn’t have the key and I didn’t care. I walked all the way there, contained and single minded, until I got to my work. I had a sudden burst of emotion that nearly threw me to my knees, but I held myself upright as I walked, gasping, past the houses, and down to the darkest parts of the street. I tried calling a friend, but she didn’t pick up. I took a deep breath, pulled myself together, and continued on.

When I walked through the door of the pharmacy I completely collided with a little boy. He was wearing some sort of pajama costume. I leaned forward and apologized, telling him to be careful, and then headed toward the aspirin. I couldn’t find the kind of blades I wanted, (I picked up a ceramic safety blade, because I was clearly making a lot of sense that night) and then I went for some razors. I stood in line for what felt like forever. When I finally checked out, she said “Have a good night!” I laughed at her.

Hint: A chick comes in with red, puffy eyes, and buys a set of razor blades and aspirin, it’s probably not going to be a great night for her.

I don’t remember getting home save for opening the door. Then I took the benedryl and aspirin, and popped the cork on a bottle of Rose’. (Yes. Rose’. Really.) I took the dry erase marker and scribbled more messages on the mirrors. The only ones I remember (besides I give up) were that there was no point in saying goodbye, and that no one had done this to me but myself. (I remember wanting to make sure that no one would be blamed for my death- as in, it was suicide and not murder.) The last thing I wrote was: “Dear Darkness: Suck it. You win.”

Then I remember realizing that I hadn’t planned very well, and I was getting sleepy. I pried the blades out of the razor with tweezers (and I think I found it funny that I was worried about cutting my fingers open.) I ran the bathtub. I had something open on my phone browser about suicide, and read it briefly, but I was getting very sleepy, very quickly.

I sat in the tub. I had the blade and was testing it out, but the cuts weren’t deep. I drank more of the Rose’ and debated whether or not I should just get it over with, or if I should send a message to let someone know I wasn’t going to be ok. I’d already sent disguised messages to two people, and I was somewhat proud of myself that they hadn’t caught on.

Still.

The sleepiness was catching up to me. I caved into what I felt at the time was cowardice, and sent the message to Ryan.

“Fuck.” “Fuck?” He responded. “I’m losing my resolve.” I said. “For what,” and then “Fighting the power?” “I took aspirin and benedryl and I’m slicing my leg with a razor blade. And I’m pathetic for telling you.” “I seriously hope you’re fucking with me,” he said.

There were more texts that followed, but I don’t remember reading them. I was falling asleep in the water, sinking down into it.

There was a phone call. He was yelling into the phone at me, and all I remember was promising to be alive when he got home.

Then there was noise, and Ryan pulled me out of the bathtub. He threw me on the bed, and covered me with a towel. He told me he was going to call 911, and I told him not to. He said:

“No, you need to learn your lesson.”
(And what a hell of a lesson that was.)

The police and EMT’s showed up. I remember something about Ryan saying he was flickering the lights. I fought them as they tried to put clothes on me. Ryan says I ripped the electrode pads off my body as they tried to stick them on. He said (and I remember a little) that I told them them that it didn’t matter if I was naked, and mused that people shouldn’t be worried about bodies, because we all had them. I said:

“Fuck society” and Ryan says I said “Fuck the police” but I don’t remember saying that. (Although I wouldn’t be surprised.) I was pretty angry that they were there. I was completely wasted.

One of the EMT’s was pretty pissed off at me as he hauled me down the stairs to the 1st floor. He mishandled me to the point of bruises, and got in my face after they got me into the ambulance. He told me that there were other people he could be saving besides me, and I told him to fuck off. He was trying to put an IV (or something) into my arm and I pulled it away. He held me down and I struggled free. He grabbed my arm, and yelled:

“Do you want to be strapped down?!”

I stopped struggling. Instead, I began to psychoanalyze him. I conjectured that he had probably either had someone close to him commit suicide, or he’d thought about it himself. I called him a twatwaffle and a dickwad. He stopped interacting with me, and I may have been sedated because I don’t remember anything until I saw Ryan’s face cautiously peeking out from behind the hospital curtain.

He said I was on my knees in the hospital bed, laughing.

The next morning my sanity returned and I wasn’t suicidal anymore. However, I’d been placed on a 5150 hold, and as such I was transferred to Aurora hospital, (aka the nut house) where I remained a captive for 4 and a half days. (More on that in another entry.)

The thing about that night was that I had plenty of aspirin and benedryl in the apartment. In fact, I still have sleeping pills, opiods, and plenty of other medications I could have swallowed all together. (I won’t. Again. I’m no longer suicidal.)

I had other, more serious blades, which I remembered while I was in the mental institution. When I went home I went straight to where it was. (No, not to use it.)

I wasn’t myself. I wasn’t thinking clearly at all.

I hadn’t been eating properly, nor had I been sleeping well. I was under an immense amount of stress, between the break-up with Michael, losing Wasabi, the fires, Ryan’s move, etc. As usual I swallowed it all down and kept drawing it into a tight ball, as if I could take it all on myself without properly dealing with any of it.

I have an incredibly difficult time dealing with certain emotions. I’ve got a talent for hiding how I feel, and disguising my pain with positivity and a happy disposition.

That’s a pretty dangerous combination. I have a lot to unpack in therapy, and I’m committed to going (lest I be committed to an institution again.)

Don’t try to kill yourself, kids.
The consequences suck.