Suicide, part 1

September 16, 2007, I tried to kill myself again. I took some pills I knew I was highly allergic and sliced my wrists with a box cutter. I ask myself why, but mostly because I was sick. My drinking had increased exponentially. I was drinking a liter of rum a day. I didn’t know I was bipolar and I kept having intense mood swings. Some days I be high as a kite, so happy, and invincible and then some days I be so low that I couldn’t get out of bed for days. Those days it was like I was so afraid of the world. It was like I knew somebody was coming to get me and do something bad to me, so I coward under the covers. I was convinced somebody was waiting outside the door and the only way I could deal the fear, was drink. Alcohol gave me courage to go outside but it also kept me a prisoner.

The day I tried to kill myself my mood changed really dark. I felt as if I was already dead. I felt as if my life was nothing. I felt like a joke, that everyone just saw me as a joke or cheap entertainment. I had fallen apart. All the insecurities I’d been dealing with since childhood finally clawed me apart. I felt as if I was walking around with my insides handing out, claw wounds on my face, open flesh. I just felt as if I was constantly bleeding to death. And then it happened. I did something real stupid. My neighbor caught me and some guy I just met on the street making out in the hallway at 4 in the morning. I was embarrassed. He made such a scene about it. I was embarrassed because I felt it made me look like I was less than human. Not because the act was homosexual, but because I was acting like an untrained dog. I didn’t even know that guy, just picked him up on the way home. And I was embarrassed because I was staying with my ex, and it was just one more thing another neighbor was going to report the landlord. Everybody in the apartment building looked at me as a crack head, like I had no morals or self-respect. And I didn’t.

So after the scene in the hallway, I went upstairs to the apartment. I felt devastated. I felt as if my ex was going to kick me out of the streets and I had no money, no job, no friends, nothing. I was completely broke: emotionally, spiritually and financially. I just didn’t want to live anymore. I felt as if I couldn’t save me. I just didn’t know how to get out of the hell I created for myself. And my mind was short circuited. I couldn’t understand why I constantly shut down. I couldn’t understand why I was so depressed all the time. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t stop drinking and drugging. Nothing felt good anymore, not even sex. Everything had just become a blur and I could feel the trainwreck coming.

So I tried to kill myself. I guess I was checking out early because it was inevitable I was going to get myself killed. When I woke up in the hospital, there was a peace over me. I knew I wouldn’t die. It sounds arrogant but I knew I wouldn’t die. I thought maybe I just needed attention. And then I thought, maybe I should’ve taken more pills.

When I woke up in the hospital, I felt safe. I knew I belonged. I was sick. I wanted help. I needed help. I knew I needed help and I wasn’t going to fight it. I was tired of pretending like everything was okay. I had reached my breaking point. I was ready to explain.

Part 2, the day after suicide.