My world changed on Sunday. It changed in a way which I didn’t
think was possible, and which I am struggling to word, and coming to terms with
it seems impossible. Perhaps if I can find a few words then it might somehow
become a mountain which I can take steps towards considering climbing.
It would be wrong to say that on Sunday my world fell apart, because that started happening a long time ago, but last week it crumbled even further, and by Sunday I was still the same person, but stripped bare. I had no strength. I could talk and I could just about think, but it felt like someone had taken every ounce of me away from me, and left just pain inside a shell in the shape of me. I wanted me back, and I wanted my life back, but more strongly, I wanted the pain to go away.
On Sunday I poured kitchen bleach and kitchen cleaner, both corrosive, into a bottle. I left my house, holding the bottle incredibly tightly, and I walked. I walked away from humans, through fields, away from my home. I have tried to take my own life many, many times. That is, sadly, not new for me. Though I have never drunk a corrosive substance like bleach; that part is very new.
I am an intelligent (albeit very forgetful) young woman. I was not confused, and I was not psychotic at the time. I was not hallucinating, and I was completely aware of who I was. I knew that drinking bleach caused a massive amount of pain before dying, that you are in absolute agony until your organs fail. Yet I, with full mental capacity, put the bottle to my lips, ignored the overwhelming smell of chemicals, and drank a few mouthfuls. I gulped down bleach. I couldn’t physically drink more because of how immediately my body rejected it – and by the time I had recovered enough physically to try and drink more, there was someone there to stop me.
This isn’t me trying to tell the story of what happened, it was horrendous and I hope that neither I nor the other person who soon arrived there ever have an experience like that again. Of course I feel overwhelmingly guilty that there was someone else there to experience part of it; when you care about someone the last thing you want is to have them watch you when you think you might be dying. I would trade anything I have to be able to have removed her from the situation, but honestly, I don’t think I’d have survived it without her.
This is me talking about why this has changed me, and why I don’t think I can be the same again. I am not sure anyone could be the same again after that. Not because of the pain or the inability to breathe or speak properly at times, but because I have to spend forever with the knowledge that no matter how hard I tried, because I really did try and stop this attempt, I have the capacity to drink bleach, and I don’t have the capacity to stop myself. I can spend years ‘recovering’ from the personality disorder, but when I close my eyes, I will always be a girl who couldn’t stop herself from drinking bleach. I will always remember the moment where I was first asked what I’d done, knowing the expected answer was that I took too many painkillers, and I had to try incredibly hard just to have the ability to reply ‘I drank bleach’. I drank bleach.
When taking an overdose, you take one pill at a time; one pill that wouldn’t kill you on its own. With bleach, it’s just one hit. There is a second where I thought ‘I can’t get through another second, it has to be now’. There’s a certain romance surrounding suicide. A Romeo and Juliet style ideal of dying, of being at peace. I wish I could show people the reality of being in so much physical pain that you want to die so that it ends, of feeling like all of your organs are on fire, feeling like your throat is melting. It is no longer about whether or not you want to die, because I didn’t think surviving was an option any more, I just needed my death to be quick. I clearly didn’t die, I went to hospital, and once my heart had stabilised and I had stopped throwing up cleaning foam, once my organs seemed to have got rid of most of the toxic liquid, I had to go home. I had to lie in my bed at night, still in pain, knowing that the next day I had to stand up and face another day, still with all the pain of the day before, yet now with the memory of what had happened.
This is not something I can see a way to be capable of dealing with. I know that time supposedly heals all wounds, and I trust my pain will fade one day, but that doesn’t give me a way to tell the people I love most that this has changed me, and it isn’t for the better. When I took a breath and drank from that bottle, a part of me was left behind. A part of me that still naively believed that I was allowed to hope, that I was allowed to believe it couldn’t get worse, was killed by the bleach. It got worse.
I don’t know how to tell people that every morning when I wake up I feel empty, not in a sad way, but with a sense of overwhelming exhaustion that I am stuck being a suicidal adult for the foreseeable future. Since Sunday, I haven’t actually felt happiness properly, in any way. I haven’t felt safe, and I am never actually sure how to get from morning to night. I feel like I am sharing my body and mind with a murderer. I am terrified of how soon I might be in that much pain again, and I am terrified of how I will end up if I keep doing this much harm to my body. There’s a person in me who wants to kill me. I don’t know how to live with that.
I think that this might be the time in my life where I have been least deserving of any care, any affection, or any sign of love. I have taken too much from other people, and I am aware of all the things I have failed at. If you know me, if you spend any time with me, please be aware, that I have not dealt with this. I am so sorry that it might take even more patience until I can cope, and if you want to turn away, then do. I understand. If you don’t turn away, then be prepared that I might cry randomly. I might stop talking and stay quiet for long periods of time, and my replies to you might not always make sense. Ultimately, the answer to whether I am okay, is no. I am not going to be okay for a long time, because a week ago I drank bleach, and I cannot cope with that. I cannot cope with the shell of a person who survived, and no, I don’t see any sort of light at the end of the tunnel. If you have a bit of extra hope you can lend me, it would be much appreciated, and if you can find a way to make me feel even slightly like I deserve to be loved, then you’ve managed something I failed to do. But feel free to still ask how I am, because I appreciate that, and it reminds me that one day I might reply that I am doing a bit better, and that is a sentence that would fill me with a lot of pride. Until that day might come, I am still here, and I am still trying so, so hard.
It would be wrong to say that on Sunday my world fell apart, because that started happening a long time ago, but last week it crumbled even further, and by Sunday I was still the same person, but stripped bare. I had no strength. I could talk and I could just about think, but it felt like someone had taken every ounce of me away from me, and left just pain inside a shell in the shape of me. I wanted me back, and I wanted my life back, but more strongly, I wanted the pain to go away.
On Sunday I poured kitchen bleach and kitchen cleaner, both corrosive, into a bottle. I left my house, holding the bottle incredibly tightly, and I walked. I walked away from humans, through fields, away from my home. I have tried to take my own life many, many times. That is, sadly, not new for me. Though I have never drunk a corrosive substance like bleach; that part is very new.
I am an intelligent (albeit very forgetful) young woman. I was not confused, and I was not psychotic at the time. I was not hallucinating, and I was completely aware of who I was. I knew that drinking bleach caused a massive amount of pain before dying, that you are in absolute agony until your organs fail. Yet I, with full mental capacity, put the bottle to my lips, ignored the overwhelming smell of chemicals, and drank a few mouthfuls. I gulped down bleach. I couldn’t physically drink more because of how immediately my body rejected it – and by the time I had recovered enough physically to try and drink more, there was someone there to stop me.
This isn’t me trying to tell the story of what happened, it was horrendous and I hope that neither I nor the other person who soon arrived there ever have an experience like that again. Of course I feel overwhelmingly guilty that there was someone else there to experience part of it; when you care about someone the last thing you want is to have them watch you when you think you might be dying. I would trade anything I have to be able to have removed her from the situation, but honestly, I don’t think I’d have survived it without her.
This is me talking about why this has changed me, and why I don’t think I can be the same again. I am not sure anyone could be the same again after that. Not because of the pain or the inability to breathe or speak properly at times, but because I have to spend forever with the knowledge that no matter how hard I tried, because I really did try and stop this attempt, I have the capacity to drink bleach, and I don’t have the capacity to stop myself. I can spend years ‘recovering’ from the personality disorder, but when I close my eyes, I will always be a girl who couldn’t stop herself from drinking bleach. I will always remember the moment where I was first asked what I’d done, knowing the expected answer was that I took too many painkillers, and I had to try incredibly hard just to have the ability to reply ‘I drank bleach’. I drank bleach.
When taking an overdose, you take one pill at a time; one pill that wouldn’t kill you on its own. With bleach, it’s just one hit. There is a second where I thought ‘I can’t get through another second, it has to be now’. There’s a certain romance surrounding suicide. A Romeo and Juliet style ideal of dying, of being at peace. I wish I could show people the reality of being in so much physical pain that you want to die so that it ends, of feeling like all of your organs are on fire, feeling like your throat is melting. It is no longer about whether or not you want to die, because I didn’t think surviving was an option any more, I just needed my death to be quick. I clearly didn’t die, I went to hospital, and once my heart had stabilised and I had stopped throwing up cleaning foam, once my organs seemed to have got rid of most of the toxic liquid, I had to go home. I had to lie in my bed at night, still in pain, knowing that the next day I had to stand up and face another day, still with all the pain of the day before, yet now with the memory of what had happened.
This is not something I can see a way to be capable of dealing with. I know that time supposedly heals all wounds, and I trust my pain will fade one day, but that doesn’t give me a way to tell the people I love most that this has changed me, and it isn’t for the better. When I took a breath and drank from that bottle, a part of me was left behind. A part of me that still naively believed that I was allowed to hope, that I was allowed to believe it couldn’t get worse, was killed by the bleach. It got worse.
I don’t know how to tell people that every morning when I wake up I feel empty, not in a sad way, but with a sense of overwhelming exhaustion that I am stuck being a suicidal adult for the foreseeable future. Since Sunday, I haven’t actually felt happiness properly, in any way. I haven’t felt safe, and I am never actually sure how to get from morning to night. I feel like I am sharing my body and mind with a murderer. I am terrified of how soon I might be in that much pain again, and I am terrified of how I will end up if I keep doing this much harm to my body. There’s a person in me who wants to kill me. I don’t know how to live with that.
I think that this might be the time in my life where I have been least deserving of any care, any affection, or any sign of love. I have taken too much from other people, and I am aware of all the things I have failed at. If you know me, if you spend any time with me, please be aware, that I have not dealt with this. I am so sorry that it might take even more patience until I can cope, and if you want to turn away, then do. I understand. If you don’t turn away, then be prepared that I might cry randomly. I might stop talking and stay quiet for long periods of time, and my replies to you might not always make sense. Ultimately, the answer to whether I am okay, is no. I am not going to be okay for a long time, because a week ago I drank bleach, and I cannot cope with that. I cannot cope with the shell of a person who survived, and no, I don’t see any sort of light at the end of the tunnel. If you have a bit of extra hope you can lend me, it would be much appreciated, and if you can find a way to make me feel even slightly like I deserve to be loved, then you’ve managed something I failed to do. But feel free to still ask how I am, because I appreciate that, and it reminds me that one day I might reply that I am doing a bit better, and that is a sentence that would fill me with a lot of pride. Until that day might come, I am still here, and I am still trying so, so hard.
