i let myself be hospitalized. i was there, on verge of attempting suicide. had the pills in hand and had cleaned up my desk and my room. i was clean and ready to slip off life and put on death. then guilt intruded and instead i talked with my mother. i told her i was suicidal and that to be “safe” i needed to be hospitalized. i needed to be parted from the twin pressures of work and school. if i kept on going the way i had been i would end up dead or almost dead. not very good options.

the hospital was surreal. it was clean and it was safe. i was able to mumble a few sentences in group and pretend that i was getting better. i had hidden a bunch of pills and two double edged razor blades in my shoes. during my nightly bath i would cut my left arm and watch the water turn a dull shade of rust. that’s all i remember. talking and cutting. doing puzzles long into the night.

it culminated one night into a disaster of sorts. i took the pills i had brought along. i didn’t exactly want to die nor did i expect to die. the dosage was much too low. the next day i told my doctor and the medication nurse what i had done. there was little response and nothing happened. then i was trying to get through the pain and i had a seizure. or so i was told. all i remember was the pain going higher and higher and then people talking to me through the black. the soothing dark and then people were grabbing me and telling me to stay awake. i was hooked up to some machines in the er and stayed there for hours. at first i was very groggy but later on i was able to talk to the person sent to watch over me and to the nurses. i had to drink charcoal (and almost threw it up) and then i was given dinner. i was sent back in an ambulance. a lot of people were concerned. i wasn’t especially concerned about my own health. i cut my arms again that night and the night after.

that’s where it changes. they sent me to the intensive treatment unit (itu). Basically serves the same purpose as an icu, except in therapeutic terms. there were the really disturbed. people believing that the fbi were after them, that i was stealing their boyfriend. i was told that my future was in a morgue, in a graveyard. at first i was on one to one, meaning i was watched all the time. then i was alone. men walked in an out of my room. some confused, some not. there was this man who told me i was a pretty girl and later ended up in my room. he asked me to give him a hug. another man tried to put on my clothes. my roommate made living with the door closed especially difficult since she, to be frank, stank. i don’t know if she took showers. it smelled like somebody had died in our room. my other roommate adopted me and told me i was a space child. i was so much like her and that i needed to become less nice. groups were a joke. all of them made little to no sense.

to my relief i was sent back to the unit i was originally in. that was a week later. a week in stressful conditions. the only reason i didn’t cut was because i wanted to get out of there. the doctor took it as a sign that i was getting better. i didn’t bother telling him that i was the same as always, just wanting to get the fuck back to the other unit.

on the other unit everything was in shambles because of the holidays. there were unfamiliar faces and i wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself except not cut.

now being back home i’m glad. glad that i’m no longer trapped like a bug behind glass.

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