you’re not alone

Tags

bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, depression, life, limits, love, meds, mental health, mental illness, stress, suicide, the world is full of fucking idiots

TRIGGER WARNING:  I’m going to talk very candidly about suicide in this post.

I think pretty much everyone who visits regularly knows that I have a Dx of Bipolar Disorder, type II. I talk about that a fair bit because it still plays a huge role in my daily life. But right now my meds are good and my moods are usually pretty stable. People who only know me professionally generally don’t know or suspect that there’s anything out of the ordinary about me. Life is pretty fucking good these days, but it wasn’t always.

I also have a Dx of Borderline Personality Disorder. If you’re not familiar with it, this article is pretty decent. I’ve been told that in order to get a Dx you have to satisfy at least 5 of the 9 criteria. I was satisfying 8 when I was diagnosed in 2008. Generally speaking there are no meds to treat Borderline, just a special kind of therapy – DBT. I’ve been through it twice now, 12 months total, and it really does help. But still, I struggled.

I attempted suicide 4 times between December 2008 and February 2010. All were overdoses. Anything I could find in the medicine cabinet went into my stomach, once along with an entire fifth of whiskey. Twice I was taken to the hospital in the back of an ambulance. Once I attempted at my grandmother’s grave and when my dad and sister came to get me I was so far gone I didn’t recognize either of them. Twice I woke up in the ICU. Once I had to drink activated charcoal. Once I had my stomach pumped.

The last time I was so combative, because of a nasty reaction to Ativan, that I was nearly arrested while still in the ICU. When I regained full consciousness I was handcuffed to the bed because I tried to punch a nurse. My psychiatrist was seriously concerned that I’d done permanent brain damage and that I’d never be whole again.

All of this heartache and bullshit because of boys.

I didn’t realize that not one of those lousy fuckers were really worth the oxygen they were sucking, let alone me giving up my life. But I couldn’t see that at the time. All I saw was that these boys who allegedly cared for me didn’t anymore and that meant that I must not be worth anything to anyone.

I. Was. Wrong.

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. There are ways to handle anything, ANYTHING, that life throws at you. We have to remember that we are special, and valuable, and we mean the world to at least one person.

Fight. Fight with everything you’ve got and then fight some more. You’re not alone. We’ve been there, and we’ve felt the terrible nothing that seems so all consuming. But it’s not. There’s hope and there’s light and there’s tomorrow.

Let yourself have tomorrow.

If you’re at that place where you don’t see a way out, reach out. These wonderful people will help you. Visit the website or call them at 1-800-273-8255. Just don’t give up, don’t ever give up. You have so much left to offer, it would be a shame to deprive the world of your beauty so soon.

Mama loves you, stay safe.