my er speech

My hands are behind my back, I am handcuffed and was taken in the back of a cruiser to the hospital. No I didnt commit a crime, but yes the cuffs might have been necessary at the time. I called 911 after drinking alot and was tettering on the edge of wanting to die desperately and wanting to live. I took the knives out of the drawers and tried each one on my wrist but none were sharp enough. I was just so overwhelmed by everything. I couldnt see any other way rationally with the alcohol clouding my judgement and the things that were going on in my life. I felt so utterly alone it was hard to think clearly even if I wanted to at this point. The ambulence came first, the paramedics they checked my blood and did all my vitals i was fine physically in perfectly healthy shape they told me. but inside i felt anything but that. it didnt matter that people were all around me invading my living room i was still at the point where i wanted to harm myself so i took the cigarette i was smoking and burned it into my arm. that was when two police officers jumped at me and tackled me on my own living room couch and twisted my arms behind my back. it hurt and i was in shock. i was filled with shame and hurt that i was now being treated like a criminal. the police officer that did it just didnt understand what it meant to want to die, to want to harm yourself. even in front of other people and almost especially in front of other people as a way on coveying how you feel in the inside. my mind and body just didnt match up at the time. my body was functioning normal but the other one was just so confused lost and messed up inside.

going into that er i was full of shame and embarasment. hell even going out of my door onto my neighbourhood streets where all the neighbours had spilled out of their houses on that friday night to see what all the commotion was about. why was there an ambulence, two police cars and a fire truck on the dead end of the street. i put my head down in shame as i walked by them. almost wishing that they would assume i was getting arresting for a crime rather than just feeling so lonely and broken inside that i felt the urge to try to harm and possibly kill myself that night. its a stigma that was still very much alive in my head and a stigma i carried with me for so much longer than just this night.

growing up i always had struggles with anxiety and depression. most of that i attribute to my enviroment at home. my parents didnt get along and it showed. i could tell from a very young age that the love was gone and now it was almost just survival or something. but it wasnt love. because love doesnt keep you stuck with a man who hits you, yells and screams at you and your kids and love doesnt allow you to stay with this person even when they start molesting their own children. i carried that fear with me all the time. i distanced myself from the other kids at school because i was ashamed and scared. i assumed that since my family life was so scary and choatic and hurtful. everyone and everything else outside of it must be too. i liked being alone sometimes but other times i just wanted to reach out and truely trust people and form relationships but i was just too scared. its not that i didnt have friends. i did. i had best friends i had groups of friends at times. but i didnt trust any of them and i kept people at a distance so that i could run away if i needed to and not feel so hurt. i had my first panic attack in grade 3. i didnt know what was going on with me at the time. all i knew is that i was upset and could breathe because of it. i thought i was going to die. the ambulance came and took my vitals and wanted to take me to the hospital but i refused. i was scared and wanted my mother to be there but my mom couldnt be reached. there was nothing they could do i guess. i flat out refused once my panic attack stopped and since i seemed to be doing better they let it go.

i remeber the next day a boy comming up to me and saying i wish you had died instead. i dont know whether he meant it or what was wrong with the kid if i saw him now i wouldve told him to fuck off. but at the time i didnt have much self confidence and i really took it to heart. i was very wounded by it.

the anxiety continued. psychologists got involved, they tried to diagnose me with something, they tried to figure out why i struggled so much in just math and appeared to be doing ok in other subjects. they didnt know why i was so shy and scared. why i shied away from men. only i could tell them that but i was too ashamed too scared to tell the truth. i didnt think they would believe me or even care. so as the grades passed by i struggled more and more and the bullying started. i remeber the first time i was called sped because i was in special ed for math. i remeber feeling so inadequate and stupid.and different.

the names piled on, weird,ugly,stupid. a poll on a girls web site even had a quiz titled who do you hate the most. with my name on the list getting the most votes. it killed me inside and if words were a knife i would have been dead already i think. but even worse that the outward taunting was the silence, the glares the other kids pretending i wasnt there and that i didnt matter. like i was invisible, like i didnt exsist. …i have to finish this up later