  I think I figured out why I'm getting somewhat twitchy as of late, it's my first suicide attempt anniversary coming up on the ninth. Sick and sad that I remember maybe, but there you go. In honor, or whatever of this date, I'm going to post an essay I wrote after two suicide attempts, a slight psychotic episode, and after I shaved my head. Update to my state of mind after the essay. It�s hard to explain sometimes, the worry, the fever and the fret I feel. The boundless frustrations that may not have any basis in fact, but are as real to me as putting on my shoes.
On days like this, it feels that every breath is bringing me closer to something awful, not death, because death would be a release, a sweet rest, an end to overwhelming grief. I tried to kill myself, on March 9th, 2000. I talked briefly to a good friend of mine. After I got off the phone, I poured myself a glass of water, set it on the toilet seat. I spread my St. John�s Wort, my Advil, and my paxil in neat little rows. I cried for my entire life then, a long time.
I called another friend, got her machine, and apologized to it, and hung up. I picked up a pretty pink pill, and the orangey Advil, and thought to myself that it would get easier as I continued. It did. After those first two, it was as if the door had been thrown aside, and I could walk easily through it. I�m still not really sure why I phoned my parents. I believe it was to say goodbye, rather than a �cry for help�, since I believed I had all the help right there, in the form of pills and water.
They talked me into calling 911. I listened to them. I phoned, and the voice on the other end told me they were sending police and ambulance. They asked me if I was going to attack anyone. I said no. The fat cops showed up first asked me a lot of questions.
Why did you take your pills? Why tonight? What happened? Did you think it�d be fun? Why now? Why?
Why did you call 911 if you wanted to die? I cried a lot, most of my answers were �I don�t know.� It was true enough. I especially didn�t know why I called the ambulance. I couldn�t stop crying, and I cried all the way to the hospital, feeling idiotic, small, and hoping, wishing, that the pills I took would, at the very least, take my consciousness away. No such luck. I was wheeled into emergency, and spoke with a doctor that seemed almost bullied by me.
I was released maybe an hour after I was admitted. I went back to my apartment, in a cab. And my friend was waiting for me, in tears. It is hard to explain clearly why I feel the way I do. I think maybe if I could, I wouldn�t feel like this anymore. I can describe it, though.
It is a feeling of worthlessness. Each day that passes is the same as the one before it. Motivation to do anything is hard come by. Everything seems a fake, useless. All my best efforts turned to shit. Exerting myself to do the best work I could, to keep up social interactions, I couldn�t do.
It seemed idiotic anyway. My concentration left me; I could not longer read. Or study, or write. I watched TV, I cried. I lost the ability to be responsible for myself. I was on a pill ration, and nothing stronger than Pepto Bismal was in my medicine cabinet.
I�m staying with my family now. I flipped my sleep schedule over again, I sleep all day. I have no energy; I want to stop thinking about all I�m thinking. That I owe everyone money. I doubt I could hold down a job. My last academic year was almost a complete failure, and so has my entire life.
I have nothing to look forward to, another meaningless year at university, then an entirely open future, where I have no resources to help myself. The second time around, I was determined not to repeat the mistakes I made the first time. This time, it was over 60 pills. Another trip to a brand new Alberta hospital. I only started crying when I realized I wasn�t going to die. I waited a while after I took the pills, waited, then went downstairs to tell my Dad I loved him.
He knew something was up, and I got a trip. The nurse told me about a boy who was admitted and lost his liver, and now will most likely die because of his OD, only now he doesn�t want to. I think I may have offered him my liver. My Mom was there with me, beautiful and fearless, and she wasn�t angry for my stupidity. The nurses drove an IV in my hand. I swallowed a tube, and tried not to gag.
They ran water through, and encouraged me to �relax the back of your throat�. I forgot how to breathe through my nose, and the tube went so far down. I wanted to pull it out, but someone held my hands. It felt, at some points, that I wouldn�t be able to breathe at all. Tears and vomitus rolled into the bucket. Then, came the charcoal, a heavy black punch in the pit of my belly.
They put a bin at my feet, in case I felt sick later. I was sick later. Imagine chomping on barbecue briquettes, and washing it down with tar. Then, trying to throw it all up again. The weight of it caused a blood vessel in my eye to burst. I was astute enough to know that the charcoal was more of a deterrent than anything else was.
The counselor I spoke with agreed with me, and remarked �It worked though, right? I bet you�ll never take an OD on pills again.� I managed to smile at her in agreement. The thing that was the same was the �Why� question. Everyone asked it. Of course if I had a nice, neat, answer , I�d probably be a more productive member of society. I wouldn�t be sick, I�d have it all figured out.
THERE ARE NO NEAT ANSWERS. At least, not for me. I did discover an important fact, however. I do hate myself. I love life and air and all of that, but I guess I don�t believe I deserve it. The next incident came because I was confused.
I thought my mother was drinking and driving. And, she had a sixteen year old in the car with her. And they were driving, and it was all my fault, because I did not do the errand for my mother, and she went instead, and all I could picture was blood in my mother�s hair. I went for a walk to clear my head. When I had returned, my parents were looking for me. I grabbed a knife, and scraped at my wrist.
I could feel nothing except for despair. Then, it felt like I wasn�t there anymore, that some how I was watching myself do this, through my eyes, not feeling the little tiny rips as the knife pulled across my skin. I won myself another trip to the hospital. My mother was not so kind to me this time, however. I was a spoiled brat, that didn�t care about anyone. I spent the night under observation, wishing for all the world I could take back what I did, and make my mother love me.
Or to die, and feel nothing. Nothing at all. Cheery, huh? Oy. I have the sense that being depressed is like a fucked up form of narscissicism. You can't get out of your head.
Everything is your fault. Even if you weren't there, or had nothing to do with said shitty event, it was your fault. A few of my friends became ill in and around the same time I hit my low. For months I could not dismiss the feeling that I was contagious; spreading ill feeling everywhere I went. The thing that I didn't mention in that essay was my sister. She made the entire hellish experience bearable, and, in some instances, funny.
She told off the nurses when my mom had an asthma attack; I think she also told one of them to shut up while they were telling me about Liver boy. She was allowed to come in and visit me in my isolated secure room. (No sharp edges, nothing in the room except a tub-like bed, and one blanket). She came in, drug a chair over, and sat next to me. She didn't say anything for a long time, and then burst into song. The song was the uplifting "Sit on My Face (And Tell Me That You Love Me)" by Monty Python.
This example of completely indecorous behaviour made me laugh til I threw up again, which wasn't a terrifcially long time. I thought the hospital stay was hell, but in fact, I think there's nothing worse than being a failed suicide attempt. For a while, that was my entire self. I was the person who couldn't get my act together well enough to do something as simple as ending my life. My parents were living in fear of what I would do next. One of my best friends ditched my ass, telling me he wasn't ready to deal with me.
We tried to be friends later on, after all the shit went down, but I lost respect for him as a caring human being, and he lost respect for me, feeling I was an idiot, and a weakling. Another friend of mine knew everything that happened, and refused to talk to me about it, or anything resembling depression. That summer, of the hospital trips, the headshaving, and the rest she never called once to see how i was. I was too ashamed to call her. When we were back in the same comunity, she made like nothing happened. When I tried to explain, to talk about it, she lost patience with me.
She went on to alienate another friend of hers for the same reason. Both me and the other friend were 'too depressing' to be around. I look back on it now, and I think those "friends" can lick my ass. And, I also think "Thank God for my friends that were there. " Also, I'm grateful beyond belief for my family; without them, I'd be deader than Jacob Marley, and I heard he's as dead as a doornail. I also look back, and think that I'm not nearly far away from that mindset as I would like, but perhaps further than I think.
At least I hope so. The conditioned response of the charcoal still affects me; I find it very hard to take any pills, and even the smell of tylenol makes me want to hurl. 
