March 5, 2020

My legs were folded uncomfortably over themselves on the bathroom counter, knees jutting up towards the ceiling like cleat-spikes. I couldn’t recognize my reflection in the mirror that night. I kept looking at that stranger. I didn’t think she was human. She looked like some choleric ghost, blanched with red humiliation. I remember that day. I was sitting over the bathroom sink, a pair of scissors clenched in my trembling fist. I stared at my thighs, marked with white, flaky dashes, determinedly hesitant attempts at breaching the skin. The skin looked an angry red, puffed up like a hissing cat, tiny specks of red welling up to the surface at areas where the skin’d worn like clover mites on hot pavement.

I didn’t want to exist temporarily, but that paradoxical grounding pain brought me closer to physically feeling as pathetic as my mind felt. It hurt, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t get my hand to push any harder. I think my arm was shaking. I was so mad at myself for doing this again and for acting like a victim that I couldn’t get the courage to push harder--pathetic, undetermined, can’t do anything--and that just made me cry harder. I just kept raking the ragged, dull edge of those scissors against that haunch of leg, over and over, crying harder and harder until I was so tired that I gave up. I just numbly puppeted myself out of the bathroom and passed out on my bed.

I felt mental TV static that night, the way you feel after you fall and scrape your leg and you’re so flighty with adrenaline that you can’t even stand up straight, or breathe, and you end up just sitting for a while to recollect yourself.

That day was a blip on my tumultuous journey of mental illness and medication. I’ll spare the gorey details, but a somewhat emotionally traumatic event occurred that day and tipped me over the edge. At that point, it’d been roughly a year since my last attempt at self-harm. I emphasize ‘attempt’ because I’ve always been chicken-shit at stuff like this--my dad says I have a habit he calls ‘crawfishing’--and I'm honestly kind of glad. It's the same brain emergency brake instinct that stops you from biting your finger in half like a carrot. But not everyone is so lucky.

It’s September 2020, and since it’s suicide awareness month, I wanted to take a moment to speak to my closest personal experience with this subject. I have generalized anxiety disorder, which I was diagnosed with in early high school. With it came crushing waves of self deprecation, sleep deprivation, and overall not-good times. My mental state suffered, and the worse I got, the more unstable I got. I finally cracked, was urged to seek out medication, and I did. At first, it made me very tired, but that meant I slept more. Not only did I not feel so damn scared and insecure every time I was in public, my quality of life generally improved. I slept more. My heart didn’t palpitate to the point where my hands would start uncontrollably jittering after drinking one cup of coffee. I stopped crying after seeing friend groups hanging out at school.

But it wasn’t a solve-all cure, like I’d thought it’d be.

Even on medication, there were days where extraneous circumstances kicked in and I’d sleep all day, or forget to eat, or get into that depressive state where I wouldn't shower for almost a week. I thought something must be wrong with me. The ups-and-downs of this journey with mental health, medicine, and improving my habits have been like a rollercoaster from hell. I realized with startling clarity that when I found myself shored up on the side of that sink for a second time that, evidently, not all of my problems had gone away.

I think this is a misconception a lot of people have. Mental health isn’t something you can solve with one simple change. Seeking help and medication or therapy doesn’t quickly or immediately end all of your problems, or fix those neurochemical deficiencies, or purge sadness.

Some people might be reading this, thinking about how ‘whiny-first-word-problem-spouting millennial’ this is of me. I can understand that. In fact, I responded just that way! I'd like to counter, though: just because there might be people in more dire circumstances doesn’t mean that what you experience is any less important. You’re the one living it. More importantly: What do you think eventually leads up to suicide? That constant loop of trying to convince yourself that your problems aren’t worthy of attention or help is what leads to that dark cesspool of muddy water that drags you under. The Black Dog.

But while medication doesn’t magically disappear life circumstances, or stress, or troubles, and it doesn’t fix the weird chemical imbalances my brain has… it helped me. It helps me.

Don’t diminish your own experiences. Please don’t be afraid to reach out to someone else. It could be what changes your quality of life. No, the journey isn’t all pleasantries and jazz music, but allowing yourself to be vulnerable to the right people can change your life for the better. It’s important to be patient with yourself on the journey because these things take time. It is taking time.

But I know I’m better for it.