I wasn't always like this. A long time ago, I was actually a happy child with normal hopes and dreams, I slept through the night (mostly) and I was a moderate trouble maker at home as well as at school.
I used to keep a journal to just write down thoughts that I seemed to be particularly interesting as a child. Over time my journal evolved into a cynical editorial on the other children in my high school, the popular culture, and of course, who gave the most amount of homework in an attempt to ruin what little social life I had. If I had to pinpoint when the switch happened, I would have to say that it came with the dawn of puberty and the lone realization that I found both boys and girls both equally sexually exciting. Rejection from family, friends, and both corners of society (heterosexual and homosexual alike) made me bitter and self loathing. I would lie to fit my appetite at the moment; calling myself a lesbian around women I felt were attractive, and homoflexible as an excuse to appreciate the male form as well as to justify feeling emotional and physical attraction towards them. As I passed from adolescents into adulthood my mind shifted from cynical and self loathing to a more care free, less dramatic me, with the simple handing over of my diploma which stated in fine print, "Congratulations, the last four years have been an exercise in futility and the drama meant nothing. But, hey, you survived!"
Barely Survived.
Adulthood would bring on a new challenge that at one point I considered to be a poor excuse for a bad attitude... Anxiety.
I grew up knowing that everyone suffered from stress, it's called life. What I was never told was there is a limit between what is normal stress and what is mental illness. By age twenty, I believed everyone thought about killing themselves on such a regular basis as I did. I knew that self harm wasn't HEALTHY, but again, it was normal in my mind to replace one pain with another. The way some people stress eat, I suppose.
At twenty-four, I was hospitalized after an attempt at suicide. My life seemed so perfect, but deep down, I felt as though I was such a burden on everyone. Worrying that all my friends could be talking poorly of me behind my back at any given moment. Feeling like my partner was looking for any excuse to let me go. The running theme in my mind was, "If I was gone, I wouldn't be a bother to anyone anymore. They will be happier without me. This will be my gift to them." I believed that many people who contemplate taking their own lives think similarly. I mean, I can't be the only one, that's statistically impossible.
When my partner at the time became cold and distant, even withdrawn from me, I felt beyond rejected, and put a plan into motion. Several pills and some alcohol later, I went to bed, expecting not to wake up. Clearly, Dear Reader, my plan didn't work.
Hollywood would have you believe that when someone fails at committing suicide, they see life in a new more precious way. Coffee smells better, and walking in the sunshine is amazing. The truth for me was, the morning after, when I opened my eyes, was the most miserable moment of my life. I cursed the sun and rambled on about how I probably didn't take my weight into consideration, the age of the pills, or the fact I ended up eating a decent meal that night as well. I was truly miserable. I even ended up going to work the next day so I wouldn't have to lie to my partner as to why I was still home. Some talking to my friends, and one more major panic attack later, my mother and my partner agreed that I should go to the ER. I finally agreed after some time, and not long after that, I had arrived into the sterile institution that is the state university hospital. Not long after that, I was involuntarily "pink slipped". Meaning, I was committed to the psyche ward against my own will.
Once there, you are more or less stripped of your own personal rights, and stuck in a cage with the more difficult and easily triggerable patients. Eventually you might be transferred into the next, not so terrifying ward (of that hospital does things like that). You meet the calmer patients, people who proved that they weren't a threat to others, and at that point, a minimal threat to themselves. All good people who needed to get away from the world. You learn that everything you think you might know about a psych ward is probably not true (unless you yourself have already been committed to one).
Please read on with an open mind. Knowing that much of this was written during the darkest days of my life. The genuine words of a genuine psycho. Please Enjoy.