On Living the Life I Planned to End

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Abstract

ds got far too used to talking me down or calling my parents. I spent a week at home, semi-sedated and under my dad’s watchful eyes, because the hospital had no more beds in its children’s psychiatric unit.I got better. I wasn’t cured, but I was doing better. I was in regular therapy, with a therapist I finally could connect with. I was on antidepressants. It was magical. Saying it was like a cloud lifted is a cliche, but it’s true.And then I went to college. I moved across the country and kept, genuinely, forgetting to find a new therapist. I was in a new place, living on my own for the first time, re-learning how to learn, and I was overwhelmed.A month into my first year of college I caught myself researching how to pry the screen out of my dorm’s 8th floor window. I knew I needed help, and I went to the hospital.Then I spent a year in intensive therapy. Each week I went to both individual and group. I learned the skills I needed to manage on my worst days — distress tolerance — and I learned how to avoid getting to that dark pl

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ace to begin with.Sometimes I still end up there. That will never go away. I have a lifelong illness. But now when it comes back I know what to do. I know if I need to change my meds. I know to set a safety plan and get rid of things I could use to hurt myself. I know that this will pass.In 12 days I will turn 21. In a month I will graduate college. In four months I will begin law school. In four years I will be a lawyer. I will be working in juvenile justice making sure that other children have the support and care they need to pick back up the pieces of their lives and carry on.I will continue to laugh at bad puns. I will continue to ride electric scooters as the wind blows through my hair. I will snuggle my dogs. I will go to baseball games with my friends. I will host dinner parties.<h1 id="ea67">I will live. I wasn’t planning to. It will always be strange. But I will live.</h1><figure id="47dd"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*F3MySXAXenUpBdRiPmbMjw.jpeg"><figcaption></figcaption></figure></article></body>

On Living the Life I Planned to End

This piece contains vivid discussions of suicide and self-harm.

In 12 days I will turn 21. I never expected to make it past 15. I spent my last two years of high school pushing for perfection, working for As, becoming one of the best debaters in the state of Washington, and planning to graduate high school early. I also spent those years planning to die.

I think in some ways I thought if I was the perfect student, with a plan for the future, people wouldn’t notice the “blackberry bush scrapes” running up my arms. They wouldn’t notice that my laughter was fake. They wouldn’t see the pain pushing to the surface.

At the same debate tournament I would go on to place at, I also made plans to take an entire bottle of ibuprofen. The night I went to Starbucks with my mom to do homework and college applications, I also walked to the beach and planned to keep swimming into the Puget Sound until I was too tired to keep going and slowly slipped away.

My friends got far too used to talking me down or calling my parents. I spent a week at home, semi-sedated and under my dad’s watchful eyes, because the hospital had no more beds in its children’s psychiatric unit.

I got better. I wasn’t cured, but I was doing better. I was in regular therapy, with a therapist I finally could connect with. I was on antidepressants. It was magical. Saying it was like a cloud lifted is a cliche, but it’s true.

And then I went to college. I moved across the country and kept, genuinely, forgetting to find a new therapist. I was in a new place, living on my own for the first time, re-learning how to learn, and I was overwhelmed.

A month into my first year of college I caught myself researching how to pry the screen out of my dorm’s 8th floor window. I knew I needed help, and I went to the hospital.

Then I spent a year in intensive therapy. Each week I went to both individual and group. I learned the skills I needed to manage on my worst days — distress tolerance — and I learned how to avoid getting to that dark place to begin with.

Sometimes I still end up there. That will never go away. I have a lifelong illness. But now when it comes back I know what to do. I know if I need to change my meds. I know to set a safety plan and get rid of things I could use to hurt myself. I know that this will pass.

In 12 days I will turn 21. In a month I will graduate college. In four months I will begin law school. In four years I will be a lawyer. I will be working in juvenile justice making sure that other children have the support and care they need to pick back up the pieces of their lives and carry on.

I will continue to laugh at bad puns. I will continue to ride electric scooters as the wind blows through my hair. I will snuggle my dogs. I will go to baseball games with my friends. I will host dinner parties.