Member-only story
The first time I experienced suicidal thoughts I was fourteen years old. It was the summer before my sophomore year of high school, my psychiatrist had just increased the dosage on all of my medications until I was taking 1600mg of lithium, 25mg of abilify, and 60mg of strattera. I was sick constantly, my liver working overtime to process my medicine intake and was coming up on 10 years of taking medication daily. It started small, depression coming on strong and feeling a crushing sense of nothingness. I disassociated about two weeks into the school year, completely cut myself off from everything. The only thing I focused on was my boyfriend, and even he couldn’t seem to make me smile. I began cutting the second week of september, and didn’t stop the whole month. I was wearing hoodies, arm warmers, bracelets, anything I could to keep them hidden, terrified of getting put on more medication. I was already throwing up weekly because my liver was becoming toxic.
October rolled around, and my boyfriend found out I was cutting. He was horrified, and demanded that I stop and get help. He then proceeded to do daily checks on my arms, peeling away whatever cover I had to make sure I hadn’t done it again. Whenever I did, he would look like I’d gutted him and ask me why I wouldn’t stop. Each time I would tell him that I couldn’t, and leave feeling even worse for hurting him. I wasn’t trying to, I was trying to hurt myself. I felt that I deserved to be punished for being the way I was, for having such a horrible disease that consumed me. It also helped me control my pain. I decided when I hurt, I decided when I got to feel. It felt like for the first time in my life, bipolar didn’t own me. I owned it.
Finally, one night I was sitting in my bedroom after another fight with my parents. I hadn’t cleaned the dishes right, so a plate I put away had water marks on it. My dad had shoved it in my face, telling me he couldn’t believe I still couldn’t get the simplest task right. Uncaring, I had merely stared at him, waiting for him to either hit me or leave. When he left, my mom had grabbed another beer from the fridge and went to her room to watch Real Housewives of Orange County. I had gone to my room and put on some music, staring at the door for hours.
What I felt in those moments horrified me. I didn’t want to hurt, I wanted to stop…
