Trigger Warning: talk of suicide and overdose

Hey guys. There's no easy way to start this post so I'll jump right in.

On November 1 last year I attempted suicide for the first time. I'd been planning it on and off since Spring, but got increasingly more serious about it late summer and fall. One particularly bad night after work I went to the drugstore and bought two 24 packs of meds. I didn't know when I was gonna use them, but they were sitting on my fridge for whenever I needed them.

A breakdown at work, doctors visit, emergency room visit, and two weeks later, I woke up the morning after Halloween and knew it was the day. There was no particular trigger. I just knew I needed to do it. I'd convinced myself I was a narcissistic socio/psychopath who was probably a pedophile, murderer, abuser, rapist, bully, menace, devil, energy sucker of a demon "person". I wrote a note to my friend and tenant who lives above me and apologized for her finding me the way she would. I turned Friends on on Netflix and spent a show breaking pills in half so they'd be easier and faster to swallow. I put them all in a cup my second mom growing up gave me from a trip of hers to Ireland, a country I've always felt connected to. I shut my laptop, put the letter by my feet on my bed, took the alcohol/ginger ale mixture I poured in a thermos, and downed 72 pills as fast as I could. 

I thought about a video on Facebook I saw of a man who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and survived. I told myself I was being selfish, that my suicide was for the good of everybody and I cuddled up in blankets and layed there waiting to fall asleep. I got scared. So I grabbed my mom's ash box (she passed when I was 15) and held it tight. Then the weirdest thing happened. I still don't know if it was my mom telling me to save myself, if it was panic, or if it was my body shutting down. I felt my heartbeat in every single inch of my body. But it wasn't a heartbeat. It felt like I was sinking. Or like a switch on the switchboard that kept me "turned on" to life had just been flicked off. It was the longest second of my life and I will never forget it. Everything was dark. There was no noise. No fear, no happiness, nothing. I felt like I was dying and, for the first time in months, I didn't want to.

I grabbed my cell phone and called 911 in a fit of tears. I told the woman on the phone who was so so sweet and supportive what happened. I apologized over and over again. Before I knew it there was a police officer, and another police officer, and two EMTs in my basement suite. I was crying, ashamed, guilty, and so embarrassed. They tried to tell me everything was alright, I made the right decision by calling, and, "everyone has bad days". But it didn't feel like a bad day. I felt like I'd both done the right thing and the worst thing imagineable. Just because I called for help didn't mean I no longer felt like a monster destined to hurt everyone around me.

I was taken out to an ambulance in front of the house with my phone, my jacket, and more tears. The two kindest, sweetest women took me to the hospital. I drank charcoal on the way and threw it up. One pill came up. They were concerned. I felt like a piece of shit. I just wanted to be gone but I was a coward. I couldn't even follow through with my suicide attempt. What the hell is wrong with me, I thought. 

The night that followed was long. It was filled with questions from so many nurses and an on-call psychologist if I remember correctly. "Why did you do this?", I was asked. And I told everyone every bad thing I'd done that I could think of in that moment. Everyone confirmed the things I did were shitty. But, for some reason, everyone insisted I needed to be alive. I didn't believe them. I drank two more glasses of charcoal. I had fluids hooked up to me. I got texts from work and my friend and tenant who I'd wrote the letter to telling me she was so worried about me. She'd seen the ambulance. Apparently the night before she'd thought of checking on me and didn't. She felt guilty. That was reality punching me in the face. 

Shit. The thing I thought would help heal everyone from my madness was hurting them.

I told my Dad the next day and he needed time. He was mad, disappointed, afraid.....I hurt him really bad. 

I spent five days in the hospital with low observation in a good room. I reflected and went to their religious worship room to meditate. It was wild to me how much I cried during those days. One night I cried for hours and hours. 

Then I went to impatient for just shy of two weeks. There, I got my diagnosis of BPD, met people with the same disorder as me, connected with people like I never had before, had conversations so deep I felt my soul coming back to life for the first time in weeks. I found art again, but found painting in the way I did for the first time. It was stunning. And after those two weeks of laughing, crying, being angry, painting, doing yoga, and being bored and confused, I went home. I had suicidal thoughts, told friends and family, called mobile crisis. I turned my living room I never used into an art studio. I call my family often and reconnected with those I needed to.

It's been months since the attempt and every time I think about it I get so emotional. It's like reliving a traumatizing event. It's like I tramautized myself. I remember what it felt like having those pills swallowed down my throat. To drink that charcoal. To throw it up. To cry. To cry and cry again. To feel ashamed, guilty, relieved, happy, and yet deeply disappointed. I feel like there's huge emotion connected to this attempt that I need to heal because (this isn't me trying to lighten what people with diagnosed PTSD go through in their lives, I can only speak for my experience) the only thing I can compare it to is PTSD. Revisiting it scares the hell out of me and makes me cry.

Has anyone else whose had attempt(s) felt similarly? If you have, how did you approach those feelings? 

Thanks to anyone whose stuck around reading this. I needed to get it out. I hope you're having a great day. And if not, know you can get through it. Things do get better. 