Tw: mentions of suicide

Hi, I’m a woman of 20 years who works at a busy restaurant as a host. I have severe anxiety and childhood trauma. Today I think that I’ve hit a point in my life where no one is ever going to see me as normal ever again. 

This week, work had been an endless stream of anxiety. My managers are the kind of people who will put their customers first before their employees, so everyone who works there is generally always stressed and always biting each other’s heads off. This week was especially bad for me. I had a double shift, and a closing shift lined up to this point. Not so bad, and coming into it I thought things would be okay. Under normal circumstances yes, but things always seem to be falling into place in the most unfortunate way. 

With my anxiety I tend to push myself unnecessarily hard to meet peoples expectations. At my job people tend to see me as the “delicate case” and won’t confront me directly. Anything that goes wrong is presumably my fault, which I find annoying because I try my best in every way possible. It isn’t enough. I don’t know how many hours I have spent beating myself up over messing something up, so it all adds up until I get home.

Starting with my double shift. The double shift was very rough. A server had a break down in the morning, and I got yelled at about something stupid and small that I was supposed to learn in training but I didn’t because all the hosts are trained by other hosts. In the afternoon one of the managers threatened to keep me till closing even though the night went smoothly with no mistakes. When I eventually do get home I have to babysit my younger brother (14 yrs) and sister(6yrs)

My brother has adhd and doesn’t respect authority in any sense of the form. I’m already tired and depressed from work so everything is just adding. All I wanted him to do was feed the dogs, that’s it. As he’s making all the leftovers for himself I ask feed the dogs, no response. I ask again, “I’ll do it after I eat”  he says. I leave to go pick up food(he ate all the good food) and come back and ask again. He’s sitting in his phone. I say it five times, “please the dogs” no response. Not even a look in my direction. At this point I lose it. I start yelling at him and his response is to connect his speaker and turn it alll the way up so he can’t hear me. I am so angry at this point that my vision starts to go dark. I took his speaker threw it down the hall, and realize my younger sister is watching. And then it all hits. My father smashing the tv in the living room, yelling at my mom. The spit and tears of it, my childhood. I look in her eyes and see me helpless to it all. I am just like him. Nothing will get better. Nothing will change. This Is all it will ever be. She hugs me, and I hate it. I hate how tortured we are. I hate how she still loves me, I don’t deserve it. I have her wait in my room with a movie, and I go into the medicine cabinet and take 15 ibuprofen, obviously not enough to kill, but I had wished it did, and I fell asleep with her.

The next day I have a closing shift. I think the ibuprofen had made me a little bit more anxious today. It is very busy. I’m trying my best to stay on top of every single little thing, but it was non stop. The owners come in, and then I seat a table. Apparently I had double sat one of the servers, more than once. So he goes up to my coworker and says “I want to rip her fucking head off” keep in mind, I’m working with two other hosts. We all have been seating, and we were all losing track of everything, but it’s always me. I tell my coworker loudly “I wish he fucking would, because I don’t want to be here right now. I can’t do this right now.” I start to crack a little because the owners are there, everyone is stressed, and I can’t stop to breathe. Both the hosts im working with leave, it’s nearing the end of the night, and I’m working alone. At this point I start pinching myself to the point of breaking skin so I can stay calm, and it doesn’t work. I am just waiting for the moment I faint, because I can feel my legs getting weak. I’m hoping it’s the ibuprofen. I take it frequently, so at this point, I’m hoping it’s gotten bad enough that I have an ulcer and have a heart attack.  The server is still upset. And I keep thinking about how I look. Everyone’s eyes on me. Judging. I go to the back to get an order and I faint. I don’t usually faint, this is the second time I’ve fainted this month. When I fall, one of the bussers runs to me and is trying to wake me up. My eyes are shaking, rolled into the back of my head. I wake up and faint again. I can’t seem to wake up from the fainting, so the manager calls the emergency line. I wake up again him standing over me, and then faint again, eyes fluttering, and I feel my body start to shake this time. Each time I come back I feel like I can’t breathe, I’m hyperventilating. I thought it was happening. I thought I was going to die. I don’t want to die, I just don’t want to be me. I try to tell him I overdose on meds so I may survive, he looks at me and says “I can’t I’m on the phone” all I do is look up and cry. How could have things gotten this bad? How did I let it get this bad? When he paramedics arrive, I faint again, eyes fluttering. One of them pulls my eyelid open and flashes a light “anxiety” he said. I wake up and tell them
In between sobs, “I tried to kill myself last night”. At this point I’m still thinking I’m going to die. I wasn’t. They take me out on a stretcher in front of all the customers, and drive me to the hospital. Later that night, at the hospital my mother says to me “you can’t overdose on ibuprofen” I knew that I didn’t take nearly enough. It was all for nothing. Stupid nothing. I did all this for nothing. My dad is a fireman, he knows these people who took me. And now, all I ever will be is the girl who tried to kill herself, who faints when someone yells, who can’t take criticism. It’s pathetic. I just want to be normal. I hate the anxiety so much. I’m so tired of being weak. I’m not who I want to be. At this point, i think I would rather be anyone else. When I go back to put in my two weeks, I will have to see them again. I will have to show my face after having let everyone know, I’m too weak to work at a restaurant, too weak to continue living, and too weak to make it count. All I can think now, is how can you continue when things have passed the point of no return?