“Past Councelling”

They don’t know why I did it. I don’t really think I know why I did it. But none of that changes the fact that…well, I did it. I took the 80 paracetamol pills and I sat down, ready to wait for a week for death to come. Everyone is baffled as to why I did it, because it was a normal day, and there was nothing to provoke it, nothing at all.

There were no arguements, nothing happened that would upset me; it was a very average, normal day. The rage inside me had been building but it was at a plateau at that point. I didn’t feel anything particular that would make me make such a decision. Yet, I did make the decision.

To me, it was just a game. Once I opened the first pill wrapper, I wouldn’t be allowed to stop. Once that first one had been opened, I had to take them all. It wasn’t questionable. I didn’t even think that I had a choice about that. Once the first one had been breached, the rest would follow, that was how it would be and there was nothing I could do to stop it, even though I was the one initiating it all, even though I was the one in control.

There is nothing like attempted suicide to realise your own mortality, and your own power.

I sat on my bedroom floor, and I had a plan. It was easy and it had already formulated itself before I had even thought it out properly. I would take them in tens, and I would unwrap them first, and then swallow them together. Once the first pill was unwrapped it was easy to unwrap the others, and place them beside each other, one by one. Before I knew it, there were ten pills in front of me, waiting to be swallowed. It was just a game, so swallowing them down was easy. There were no tears.

I had cried before I had started the game, in my clear moment, but they had quickly subsided.

I went through the eighty pills easily. It didn’t hurt. I didn’t feel scared or worried or upset. I was fine. This was how it was meant to be. This was how you played the game.

I waited for half an hour, thinking about what I had done. Then I waited for another half hour, accepting my choice. You see, the game was this: if I died; I died. If I lived; I lived. It wasn’t about the end result, because I didn’t care enough about my life to care about that. It was about my strength, and the fight in me.

If I got to a point where I decided I wanted to live, I would have to fight for it. I would have to fight hard, and I would have to give all my secrets and my previous life up to live again. I would have to sacrifice and be honest and I would have to go through pain and humiliation to live. It would be my punishment, but it was in the rules. If I decided that I wanted to die, then I would die a painful, slow death, and that in itself would be punishment before I was finally let go. Let out of my misery.

I would have to fight to live. Or suffer to die.

Both seemed fitting.

Only it didn’t work out that way. I have a thing about my eyes; I don’t like them being messed with. So when after an hour, my eyes started burning and blurring and the light in the room (which was dull) burning into my eyes, I freaked. I realised what I had done; how the game had turned on me.

I sat on the stairs, staring at the banisters – it was midnight on a Friday night and my parents and sister had gone to bed but my sister was wandering about for water. The light between the banisters was burning into my eyes and my head felt like it was about to explode. I sat there, rocking myself, thinking how stupid I was. Then my sister came past, and seeing my in such a state she asked what was wrong, and all I could say was, “I’ve done something really stupid”.

I showed her the empty packets, and she was horrified when she realised that I had taken them all. She got my mum, my mum got my dad because she couldn’t drive – drinking – and they ran me to the hospital. I felt sick. I threw up in the waiting room a little bit because the drive had been bendy and fast and had turned my stomach. No pills came up.

I was numb. Delirious. I hadn’t slept for weeks, and I couldn’t think straight. I kept seeing things. I was confused. I was laughing at nothing, talking to my worried parents about colours and shoes. They would stare at me teary eyed, and hold my hand tightly as they made me drink charcoal in a hospital bed in A&E. Hours of drinking and throwing up went by. Blood tests, pulse rate, throwing up, more charcoal, and then there was the drip.

The two hour drip, and then the four hour. Neither was enough, I’d taken too much. So they put me on a 16 hour drip and wheeled me into a ward. I couldn’t think straight, let alone see straight. This wasn’t anything to do witht he drugs, it was sleep derivation mixing with the situation and my conveniently deranged mind.

On Sunday, the last day I was there in the hospital, my mum told me how she and my sister had gone through my room. They’d found the broken glass, the razors and the blades. They’d found hidden alcohol and laxatives. Sitting there, my organs and muscles aching because they were trying to work without assistance, I just breathed. I didn’t feel it.

I still don’t feel it. To me, it’s all surreal. Yes, they know. They also know about the food stuff, because as well as the laxatives they found my eating disorder questionaire and read the answers. Yes, they know all that. But I can’t let myself feel it. If I do, I might do it again. But this time, I wouldn’t do it as a game, to test myself. Because I don’t think I would need a test anymore.

Since then, all I can think about, is how I need my secrets back. How they make me who I am, and how I miss them. How I miss the double life, as much as it caused me pain. I had just found acceptance within myself for who I was, and then this happened and it went away and I have to work to get that back.

In a way, the challenge makes it even more fun. I cut myself yesterday, but on the leg. No one knows, and they won’t look, because they think I cut on my arm. To them, I’ll be getting better, but to me, I’ll be getting my old life back, slowly, slowly, but still. If they are looking at me, then maybe that’s good. As long as they are looking in the wrong place.

I keep thinking that I should have waited longer, waited for the eye thing to normalise. I know it will now. It went when I was at the hospital. Ironically. I wish I had waited longer. I didn’t fight hard enough. I chickened out. I was a coward. A stupid, scared little girl who didn’t know what she was doing. It won’t be paracetamol next time, but next time, I won’t wait an hour and then freak out. I’ll wait until I know that I could die, and then I’ll decide if dying is worth it. Then I’ll decide if I’m going to fight hard or give in to the pain.

The doctors said I was “past councelling”. They’re deciding my treatment now. This should be fun. Just another game, right?

I’m Still Here

Although the thoughts are still as fresh and strong in my mind, I haven’t killed myself yet.

It sounds so melodramatic and over the top but I can’t get the thoughts out of my head. I was at a party on Saturday night, and because of the amount of weed I had had, and the mixture of that and a bit of drink, not as much as usual, but it was the mixture which screwed me up, anyway, I got sick.

I’d been having a really deep conversation with two girls who I’m friends with, but had never been amazingly close to. We were party friends. Then I found out that they purge and self harm too, although not as bad as me (them saying that my self harm was bad really messed with my mind). My boyfriend was there, and he was really out of it. The whole episode confused and freaked him out.

Anyway, I heard what they felt, and then I just felt sick. I started to throw up, and I don’t even know if I did it on purpose or not. I wanted to throw up…I was thinking about purging, but knew I couldn’t because they were all there in the bathroom with me…and then I just threw up. I made the retching myself, and the sick followed.

As they talked about purging and self harming I cried into the toilet, and I tried to hide it because the hurt was so much. My boyfriend noticed, but didn’t say anything because he knew if I was hiding it I would be hiding it for a reason.

What he doesn’t know is that the whole time I was thinking about the drugs that I have collected, and when I could take them. Whether they had enough just at her house so I could start of then.

My boyfriend left, he had to take the car back. Thinking about it, he was probably wasted still from the weed. I don’t think he had drank. It would be the second or third time he drove stoned. He’s usually so sensible and careful…maybe I’m a bad influence. That and the weed.

Anyway, he’s left, and the girls changed me and washed my hair for me.

I don’t remember much of that period, and I know that I fell asleep pretty much as soon as they left. I was covered in bathroom towels to keep me warm, and I was wearing my friend’s boyfriend’s jumper. Why are guys hoodies so much more comfortable than girls?

Anyway, I woke up when everyone was settling down, and then went to bed with my boyfriend’s brother and one of my friends. I made a pact with my friend not to eat after Sunday. Nothing happened with the brother, but it wouldn’t have anyway. It was nice to sleep beside him. He makes me laugh. I needed that right then. I also needed the comfort of another body without having the worry of them trying anything on with me.

I didn’t cry that night. After the toilet incident, I didn’t cry. I felt out of it and completely messed up, but I didn’t cry.

I still feel out of it and the weed is out of my system.

I keep on going into trances and not caring about what people are saying to me, or what I’m saying to them. My head and my mouth are no longer connected and I’m watching myself disance myself from everyone else. I don’t know why I’m doing it, but maybe it’s because I want to die so badly.

I hate all of this…

The thing is, although I’m not religious, certainly not Christian (although I was brought up Methodist), I’m scared that if I kill myself, there will be a Heaven and a Hell, and that I was wrong. I’ll go to Hell, and there’ll be no escape from that. None. I’ll be lost and alone for all eternity with no chance of redemption.

But sometimes…even that fear (and it’s a real fear) isn’t enough to stop me wanting it. Lately, it hasn’t been enough.

Maybe I should self harm more…I haven’t lately, but maybe I should. Maybe it will help rid it out of my system.

Maybe.