Self harm is not enough anymore

My previous posts have been explaining how my self harm became more prominent when I started cutting myself. This one is about how things came to a head. How it came out to my friends and family.


That night is still stuck in my mind like it was only yesterday. That feeling I had inside me, a feeling that was simply eating away at me, had eaten my whole insides. I can't put it into words how I felt. All I know is that it felt that bad I couldn't keep living that way. That constant feeling of dread, not knowing how I was going to manage to get through a day. I still feel it now as I'm writing - it's a feeling I'll never ever forget.


I sat on my bed and counted out the tablets I'd been saving. Obsessing over how many of each I had, sorting them into piles, and recounting them all again. I left them on my bed and went out. It was October, freezing cold outside, raining and dark. I went to the park not far from where I lived. Stupidly I didn't feel scared walking alone in a park in the pitch black at night. I couldn't have cared less if somebody hurt me. I sat near the pond on a bench, phone in my hand and called the crisis team to try and get some help. As I was talking to a lady on the phone, I began walking frantically. I ended up lost. I had no idea where I'd been going and took no notice either. She urged me to go home, but I knew if I went back there I'd take the tablets. Yet she still insisted, and after an hour or so I arrived home to an empty house.


Back in my room I started swallowing the tablets one by one. I was frightened now. Did I really want to die alone? No! This wasn't right. I text my house mate, she urged me to go to hospital straight away.


Sitting in the waiting room in A&E that night, I wished I had taken the tablets and not told anyone. And then, the feeling suddenly smacked me in the face as I turned to see my mum standing there. I immediately burst into tears and broke down in her arms. I blurted it all out, told her I just can't cope, I've been self harming, I feel so horrible. she held me tightly. And I felt so relieved. For the first time, my mum knew everything that was going on with me, and she didn't react as I thought she would. She didn't hate me, or punish me, or shout at me. She held me tight, told me that she loved me and promised me everything would be ok.


I was then taken through to see a doctor, and spoke honestly about my feelings. I was kept in A&E overnight and then transferred back to my local hospital for an assessment with the psychiatrist I'd been seeing from the CMHT.


She calmly explained she wanted to admit me to the ward for 48 hours to help me get my mood under control, and at that moment I couldn't have given a damn what happened to me. They took me into the ward and I lay on the bed, wishing I'd taken those tablets. I felt so bad about mum and my sister - I'd let them down so much and they must be hurting really bad now.


What had I done?


You know, all I wanted to do at that moment in time, was hurt myself. Yet I couldn't even motivate myself to do anything more than breathe. So I just lay there, for hours.