**TRIGGER WARNING**- talks of suicide, self harm thoughts, mental health, and other sensitive topics

Just because no one really reads this, considering I have no followers lol, I figured what the hell. I am going to post my notes from my journal from after I got out of the hospital.

In 2020 I attempted to overdose. It was the scariest moment of my life and the hardest thing I have ever had to heal from. Well. Here goes nothing.

Every morning seems to start the same way. I open my eyes to see my TV screen reading the same “no signal” display since my Xbox turns itself off. I lost my remote when I moved so I have no way of turning it off until I get up, or unless I turn my Xbox back on. This repetitive schedule seems to be sticking on me though, its familiar, comfortable. Two weeks ago today is the day I tried to kill myself and it honestly seems like a distant memory or a bad dream. I wake up every morning, do whatever it is I have to do that day and go to sleep at night, nothing spectacular.

Looking back at that moment is probably one of the scariest things to do considering I have yet to face the reality of the statement “I tried to kill myself”. It’s hard to believe that I did because, while I thought about it a lot and while it was always on my mind, it never seemed like something I would ever do. It’s kind of funny when you think about the severity of the situation. Girl takes WAY to many pills, girl realizes what she’s done, girl calls 911. End of story, the rescue team saves the day, the hospital saves her life, and she gets admitted to a psych ward before being discharged and sent to therapy. The end, take a bow, the show is over and we are all ready to move on with our lives. Except, not all of us are. I still am not fully ready to accept the fact that I did that. Yes, I know I needed help and I tried to get it and then tried to kill myself, but it just feels like a statement to me, nothing more.

When I think about that night and what I remember, it often comes back in bits and pieces, but only ones that seem irrelevant. Feeling myself on the elevator floor as I descended to get help, hearing the 911 operators voice on the phone while I lay there unable to move, seeing myself restrained to a bed and telling the nurse “I’m stuck”, feeling the tube being shoved down my throat, and waking up to my moms face inches from mine. I feel the flashbacks with an insane amount of intensity, yet I don’t feel like the event happened at all.

My mom says I fought the whole way and that everything I took was so close to killing me. I seized when I got to the ER, I fought the nurses who tried to restrain me and intubate me, I laid unconscious for 2-3 days before waking up, and yet none of it feels like it ever happened. I know they say trauma is a bitch, but I am not so sure if that relates to trauma that is self inflicted. I feel tired since I got out, which I know is from all the drugs I took and all the drugs they gave me, I feel a bit confused or off sometimes which is most likely from all the stress not only on my body but also on my mind, and I feel good to be alive. So what it is about my attempt that I have yet to accept? I am able to acknowledge it, talk about it, and joke about it, so why can’t I just accept it. I will admit, talking about it does get me a bit upset and being confronted with the fact that I need to take it slow because of everything I just went through gets to me in a way, but overall I feel fine.

I know its only been three days since my discharge but honestly, I don’t feel like there is too much for me to think about. I can feel in my heart that I am hurting and that I need to talk it out but what all is there left to discuss? I took a lot of pills to die, realized I fucked up, called 911, got help, and am continuing to get help that I need. Maybe that should be something I talk about in therapy. My inability to acknowledge the actual severity of what I went through and what happened.

It’s kind of funny how that works isn’t is? We do something so horrible, to other or to ourselves, that we are incapable of facing the facts that are right in front of us. Everything feels like it did before, yet I still feel this underlying fear or anger (I’m still unsure which at this point). What is it about fear that allows us to forget? Fear definitely plays an interesting role in the lives of those who allow it to invade. It pushes, it bullies, and it hides what is most important to face. Everything is scarier than it is just because something in our brains tells us that its to be feared or that whatever it is we fear is something that is not able to work past. Spiders, dogs, abandonment, strangers, facing the past, they all affect us the same in the eyes of fear, and yet each on shows differently to everyone.

Maybe I am just one of those people who pushes their fear to the back until they are in a good enough mental state to face it. No. That’s not it. I have faced fears before and in worse mental states than I am in right now. I could be strictly a therapy person who talks out their problems and once they leave the therapist is able to face their fears or at least stand up to them enough to be able to function.

I have noticed a bit of social anxiety since I have been out of the hospital. I wonder if that is an after affect of my suicide attempt, or if it is just an aspect of my mental health issues that I have yet to see. I do have PTSD which could explain the sudden anxiety in social situations, facing the world after just having tried to take myself out of it. That’s not a horrible point. I may just be fearful of facing the world that I tried to abandon. Face those who know the secrets that hide behind the façade that is me and face those who don’t.

I live this repetitive lifestyle because that is what’s expected of everyone walking this earth. Too much change is concerning, but not enough is just as well. Keeping up with the status quo is exhaustingly relaxing as dumb as that sounds. You work to fit in and set up a schedule, but it never seems to be enough. I think at this point I have forgotten the status quo and am just trying to survive in a world where survival is almost just as painful as dying. Funny how that works. People killing themselves so they don’t have to live and others are fighting for their lives to survive. At this point, I don’t really know which of the two I am but I know for a fact that I am destined to survive. I am not religious but I do believe that everything happens for a reason. I didn’t die the day I tried to because I was not meant to take myself off of the path I am on.

I hope that once I figure out how to handle the pain I seem to feel inside, I can discover who I am, I will figure out who I am meant to be. I hope a little change in my routine will help me to see past my failures and see the positive things coming from all the negative that lives in my heart. My family is supportive of me, which is nice but also very overwhelming. They all expect me to do certain things to heal but honestly I don’t know what will help me to heal the way they want me to. Im not even really sure how to heal myself the way I know I need to. Its difficult to think about it because I know what needs to happen, I know I need to go out and be active and make friends, but I also know that I have to put myself out there and put effort into everything and man am I just damn tired all the time. So maybe that should be my first step, working on healing my energy and my physical self. Resting and healing physically before I start focusing on healing mentally, considering they go hand in hand that is.

I guess I will start with therapy. Go to therapy and talk before I start to focus on everything else within me. I am sleeping and going to the chiropractor, therapy and school. All of which is a lot to do and takes a lot of energy out of me, but how else am I supposed to get back into the flow of myself?

The withdrawal symptoms are probably what is making this so horrible. The nausea, the headaches, the irritability, the chills, the night sweats, they all are killing me. Every time I get nauseous, I just think back and immediately am angry with myself. I made a mistake and am paying for it. My body is angry at me and in trying to heal it is taking it out on me to remove what I put in that shouldn’t have been there. Ive been drinking water, drinking tea, sleeping, and eating everything I should so damn it if I am not tired of feeling like I am dying. Obviously, there is going to be some symptoms from what I did but how long are these going to last??

The lag I feel is frustrating as all hell. I had a seizure, I overdosed on some heavy meds, and I went through a lot at the hospital but the fact that I am taking so long to heal is aggravating as all hell. My eyes feel heavy all the time, my brain feels just bleh and my body is just exhausted. I don’t know what makes all of this more difficult: the fact that I know it will take longer than I want to heal or just feeling everything that goes with healing.
I still hear everyone talking to me. Saying “Hello,can you hear me” and “Cmon, stay with me”. I can’t make full sentences and I cant tell what I am making up and what actually happened. Some of it feels so real, I can see each scene in my head and can feel like I am there but yet some of it seems like it couldn’t have happened. I can FEEL myself yelling at the people in my room “I hate you people” I can see the nurses taking off my clothes and saying to each other “What was her name again, something with a V”, telling the nurse “I’m stuck” as I struggle against what I thought was my watch stuck in the bed rails, the nurse talking to me in the hospital and hearing the nurse telling me to stop fighting and then sending someone to get the soft restraints. Why can I SEE AND FEEL all of that if I was unconscious? Why is it all SO FREAKING REAL if it didn’t happen?? I can feel myself on the elevator floor and hear the 911 operator in my hear saying “Victoria are you there? Victoria can you hear me?”, see the elevator, and hear the doors open and close around me. I know that happened, I know that’s real but why not the rest?

Things with my mom and the rest of her side of her family are good. So far I think everything is good with my dads side of the family is good. Shannon and I are talking and my dad and I are talking but it just feels weird. He didn’t call to check on me while I was in the hospital and hasn’t called to talk to me since. I have had to call him to talk each time and it honestly hurts my heart. I feel rejected and just unloved. I wish I didn’t feel so sad about it, I did it to myself and shouldn’t ask for attention and love any extra than I have now. His family hasn’t called to check on me and only Auntie has called me or even seems to care.

I feel very emotional tonight. This is the first time I have felt like crying since I got out of the hospital. My heart just feels heavy and my head feels sad. My derealization has been pretty bad the last couple of days and I am so tired all of the time. I hope I am able to get out of this rut and to be able to get back to how I used to be, in a positive sense. I haven’t had suicidal thoughts so that’s a plus but I honestly and just sad about everything that happened.

Everything feels different, off, and just plain weird and I am tired of feeling out of place. Im just tired of not feeling real not feeling alive or feeling like it’s a dream. Im tired of not being able to remember shit or struggling to do something. I fucked up and now I am paying the consequences, but they fucking suck. I wish everything could go back and I wish I knew the past before it happened, so I guess I wish I could see the future. It’s a matter of time before the fact of my suicide attempt actually hits me so I guess at this point I am just living in the moment and waiting for my inevitable break down. I wish I could stop thinking about that night, but I cant and its honestly kicking my ass. I wish this feeling would go away. This guilt, this overwhelming sadness I feel in my heart. I wouldn’t say depressed, its not that, but my chest aches of just sadness. Why can’t it all just go away, like it never happened? I cant even describe this feeling, I just feel what? Blank? Melancholy? Numb? I don’t even know. I know I am here but it all feels like a bad dream. A nightmare with holes and happiness and an ending we wont get to. I just want to be held or to cuddle my cats or to cry but none of those seem to lift the rock sitting on my chest or to pull my heart off the ledge. The thought of them all make me feel better but not for long and not enough to make it go away.

I found out so much about my “dad” today. I. Feel. Disgusted. I love him but I have never hated someone more in my life. He is just gross, some of the things my mom and Shannon told me make me sick. I am so mad at him and I just don’t even know what to think of him right now. I love him so much but honestly when I think of him I don’t feel anything but rage and disgust. He is a liar, he is a cheater, he is a sex addict, and he is a narcissistic asshole who deserves nothing but the worst that life has to hand to him. Thank god I believe in karma because at least I know that even if he doesn’t get what he deserves now, the shit will hit the fan eventually and eventually karma will his him with all that he has done wrong. Treat those as you wish to be treated right? Well I guess we will find out exactly how he treated others when karma pays him a well deserved visit.

All of the days seem to blur together at this point in my recovery. I feel like they are all connected and kind of just clump into one big day. Its funny how each day is its own day but yet they all are put together in each persons mind like “Was that yesterday or the other day?”. I am noticing that I keep certain moments in each day to recall on other days. It has been somewhat difficult to focus and to keep the days in my mind because each day feels like a dream. I am trying to keep myself grounded and in the moment but it is much more difficult than I initially thought it was, not only because I struggle to keep myself focused but also due to my lack of awareness of my surroundings.

It’s funny how you hear people say things like “you never really know someone” or “people never change” or even “people show you who they are in their most difficult moments” but you never really believe them. You think to yourself “that’s bull, I know that person like the back of my hand” or “everyone can change, it just takes time” but this past month has showed me otherwise. I started watching a show that used that phrase “people never change” but the man saying it added on something that I found interesting, he said “people never change, they adapt and change the way they show themselves” and honestly that put it in perspective for me. Every person who has done me wrong or brought negativity into my life has come back in one form or another and each time I have told myself “this time is different, they seem better or seem like they have changed for the better” and each time, I get hit by the bus of reality when something tests their character and they turn right back into their old self, the one I have always known. That is the thing that sucks SO DAMN MUCH about this whole thing with my dad, never knew the real him and I never will because I have never seen him at his worst and apparently no one else has either. He hides himself so well that every aspect of who he is seems to either be a cover, a front, or just a mask. But guess what, those are all essentially lies with different names.

Everything, EVERYTHING I thought I knew feels like this big long farce that everyone else knew about and decided not to tell me. That or its like I am being punked and everyone is going to pop out, laughing saying “just kidding, none of this actually happened, we just wanted to test you and see just how much you can handle!” Right now I guess Io just feel robbed. I don’t know what of, but just robbed. Robbed, embarrassed, and overall disappointed, not only in my dad but in myself for allowing myself to be blind for so long.