Mental Health Mondays: Self Harm- Hospitalisation

Recently, there have been a lot of things that have been weighing on me.

It's driven me to the edge of my will power. I needed to get this out.
I need something that I never received in the past.
It's more than just support, it's an understanding of my condition. 

I am 25 years old.

I still self-harm.

I began self-harming at age 11.

It's cycled throughout my life, sometimes non-existent 

to sometimes life-threatening. 

More specifically I cut. 

I also bang my wrists.

I also force myself to vomit. 

I am a young adult. 

I am a self-harmer. 

I am a suicide survivor. 

I am an individual.

I struggle with bipolar disorder coupled with borderline personality

disorder and anxiety. 

Sometimes I feel that my illness is me. 

That it is the motor that drives everything I do;

from when I sleep, from what I eat, from throughout of worthlessness,

which in turn lead to self-harm, to self-hatred and further disgust at the 

state of life. 

I’ve been in and out of therapy for all of my adult life. I’ve been to hospital

three times for self-harm and suicide attempts. I was forcibly committed to a 

mental hospital three years ago. That was the worst experience of my life. It 

magnified my depression. I felt even more caged in. I didn’t want to be alive

if this was all that I had to look forward to. I needed to grit my teeth and bare 

it. Thankfully, the in patient stay lasted only a week. I had convinced the doctor

and the nursing staff that my depression was under control and that they had misunderstood

something at the outpatient clinic. But did they? At the moment I was speaking to the intake

woman, I didn’t want to die, but I had thought about it. I was there to obtain medication.

I was making a decision to try and force myself onto the right path. 

They made me feel that I was to be punished for having this condition.  I felt as if 

they felt that I was too sick, that I no longer had the right to decide whether my life had

value or not. But only I can decide that. Only I can assign worth to my life. No one else. If others could, it would be so much easier. I don't need self-righteous arsewads trying to better their self-esteem by trying to force esteem  upon me or trying to give me whatever help they believe they think I need. 

I don’t want to be known as a mental case. A nutter. Crazy. Psycho. Or whatever other 

names people can come up with for people like me. I want to be known as an artist, a

creator, a writer, an author.  A friend, a lover, a sibling. The things that I’ve chosen for myself. The true things that define me as a person. 

I love the night because I feel safe. The darkness hides my fears and leads me to

a place where I can be myself without cruelty from others. I dread the dawn of 

a new day. I dread having to get up, paint a smile on my face and try to hold myself together,

all the while I know I am eroding inside. The urge to cut is crawling through me; slithering in 

and out of my consciousness.  
Fat, brilliant scarlet bubbles of blood blossom and explode, sending rivers down my wrist. 
My gashed flesh sends heat echoing out onto my leg, but pain doesn't follow. I've cut this spot for so long and so deep that its just about numb. It's a physical manifestation of how I feel once I finish cutting. Endorphins race and now I can breathe. I feel my body relax and my mind slow to a comfortable place. 

And with that I say goodnight...
Technically it is early morning Monday, but I need to sleep.  1.36