Good Morning, Suicide

On February 4^th I was admitted into an acute psychiatric facility. Self-injury and attempted suicide was my diagnosis. The particulars of how I got there are neither interesting nor important, just another teenager filled with angst. The only thing worth note was I let myself fall so far that such a place was necessary.

I was stripped of my clothes, my jewelry, everything familiar. I was given too small sweat pants and a gray t-shirt to sleep in and put in a room with one bed and high ceilings painted in prison cell white. The first night there, I only interacted with the nursing staff, but I could see the faces of the other patients anxiously trying steal a glance from the activity room window.  Left alone in that room, that night was easily one of the worst of my life.After a night of restless sleep I was ushered into the breakfast room to meet the other patients. There was a baker’s dozen or so. They differed in everything from age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender. The only thing we shared in common was that place and our cocktail of mental disorders.Its a common misconception that mental facilities are where tthe nut jobs go to be medicated. That’s certainly what I always thought. Although there were drugs distributed in intervals throughout the day, it was hardly the main objective of the hospital. In the days that I spent there I participated in intensive therapy groups that focused on gaining coping skills.

Self-injury, such as cutting, is often an attempt to relieve unbearable emotions such as grief or rage and/or to relieve a sense of unreality or numbness. Cutting is not usually associated with suicide, but rather a coping skill. I started out as a cutter.  It was only when no matter how severe the cut, I couldn’t manage the sense of euphoria I craved that I felt I had nowhere else to turn but suicide. When I was cutting I wasn't seeking attention, I wasn't seeking death, I was seeking a way to live. In the hospital I learned some healthy alternatives to self-injury and suicide such as arts & crafts, physical exercise, and talk therapy.

On the road to recovery there are always backlashes. When the Prozac I was prescribed in the hospital increased the severity of my suicidal thoughts, the one thing that saved me from hanging myself off the back deck was the coping skills I'd learned. I’d write, draw, curl up in a blanket, hug a tree, anything that would help release the pain without the very devastating acts of cutting or suicide. The moral of my story is, in America it is very common to throw medication at all of your problems. If a child acts a little rowdy, there’s always Adderall to the rescue. If you’re overweight, you can always get the cat’s meow of diet pills. Cry too much? Antidepressants. I realize, being such a case, sometimes medication is needed, but I do not believe it should be a lifetime crutch. Parents, teachers, and friends teach healthy living, teach coping skills, and more importantly, practice them yourselves.

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