Tag: trigger warning

I want to die again

Thanks, December.

The year weighing heavily on me;

The new one even heavier.

The sins of the past,

The mistakes of the future.

Digging myself out or digging myself under?

Time passing me by,

Life drifting on its way.

Here I stay,

No longer moving forward.

Always looking behind,

Stuck dreading ahead.

Trying to breathe through the fog I feel in my soul.

Maybe next December.

Hope this finds you well,

-L

If you are thinking of suicide there is help available. In Canada call 9-8-8.

How Much Longer/Killing Me

Is it killing me quickly or killing me slowly?

Killing me,

Regardless.

Squeezing the air from my lungs,

Dulling all colours to grey;

Killing me.

How long can I go without breathing full breaths?

How much longer without a good night’s rest?

My soul slowly being dragged down to the dirt as the last of my breath leaves me.

Leaving only this ache in my chest,

Killing me.

Hope this finds you well,

-L

There are resources available if you are thinking of suicide or self harm : https://findahelpline.com

If Not Love

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Spending time with family used to bring me a little slice of contentment and peace, just knowing they were safe and happy was all it took.

Now it slowly slices off pieces of my heart. They are happy and safe, and they feel contentment and peace. I feel years removed from them. Their joy is no longer my joy. Time spent together is like rubbing salt in a wound, like hand sanitizer on paper cuts.

I spent so much of my life protecting them and shielding them and all I get for it is pain and faked smiles.

I was invited over for supper and by the time I got there, everyone had already eaten and the supper was cold. Their uncaring sliced deep. They were a family without me. I had worked thanklessly over Thanksgiving while they all spent time with loved ones but I did not get the same courtesy.

I spend so much time picking out presents for them that they will need or will find useful and I get not a one in return. My only gift this year was a jar of lotion in a scent that makes me nauseous, from my mother who doesn’t even like me.

It’s just one thing after another. There’s been times where I haven’t felt loved, but I’ve never felt so unloved.

I’ve always hoped to feel love from my family; true unconditional love. Now I don’t think I ever will.

I’ve loved them with my whole heart for my entire life.

I suppose I stuck with life partly because I always hoped I’d eventually feel love and that my family would feel like warmth and security. Family has been my safety plan for 20 years.

That’s what the books say, isn’t it? Have a safety plan. Create a safety plan. Have your friends help you make a safety plan.

Mine has been crossed out, scribbled over, crumpled up, and now it’s finished.

What is there left to live for, if not love?

Hope this finds you well,

-L

If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.

Eating Disorders Aren’t Just For Skinny People

Trigger warning: eating disorders

Eating disorders aren’t just for skinny people.

Mine looks like:

-not eating for 12+ hours

-taking 2.5 hours to try and plan a binge that will satisfy all the cravings

-spending 5 minutes eating enough food for 2 people

-waiting 10 minutes to feel full

-spending 3 minutes throwing it all up

-brushing my teeth for 4 minutes

-going about my life as if nothing happened

-feeling both satisfied and empty

-feeling guilt and shame

My shift work life easily enables long spaces between meals and not resting enough. I’m a nurse. Do I know better? Absolutely. Does it matter? Absolutely not.

It’s the thinnest line I’ve known between control and out of control: the swing from binging to purging.

You couldn’t tell if you watched me at work or in public, eating carefully balanced and portioned meat, quinoa, and veggies or having a salad as my side.

Nobody sees because I don’t let them.

I’m fat, I have an eating disorder, and nobody knows.

I wonder about telling my counsellor about this but we easily use up our time talking about the myriad of other thoughts and feelings taking up my brain. Ironic that I take up too much space and I feel as though this, too, takes up too much space.

Admitting it to myself is a start, writing it here is a little further. One day I’ll say it out loud.

Hope this finds you well,

-L

(Before you get all up in my grill about me calling myself fat, objectively I am a size 3XL, ~280lbs, and 5’6”. I will not use my BMI as an indicator.)

Someone You Know

Featured leannaemgee1 Comment

Trigger warning: sexual assault, suicidal thoughts, depression, self-harm

It has happened to someone you know. Someone you know has done it.

There has been a lot of talk lately of sexual assault and the violence women face on a daily basis. Every woman knows, every man does not.

RAINN has statistics explaining that every 73 seconds in America someone is sexually assaulted.

It happened to me.

It was St. Patrick’s day. I had gone out with two friends of mine and friends of theirs. We went to a fundraiser for a mutual friend and then to a bar. I had had a lot to drink. At some point in the night, my friends decided that their friend “J” and I would be a “good match”. My two friends had decided to call it a night and left the bar without me after “J” told them he would bring me home.

I did not know they left me there or I would have gone with them but that decision was taken from me.

“J” told me that my friends had left but that he had to take me home. He then told me that his roommate needed a ride so we would be going to his house. He then told me that I could spend the night and sleep on his couch. At 2am, drunk, couches sound pretty appealing. We got to his house, we visited in the kitchen, and we decided to go to sleep.

There was no couch.

I was 19.

At this point I was so tired and I just wanted to sleep. He said that I could just share his queen bed and he would take me to my friend’s house in the morning, and drunk me agreed.

Rape doesn’t just end when their hands leave your body. The feeling of those hands has stayed with me.

I have chronic insomnia, I have attempted suicide three times, anxiety and depression are my constant companions, I have disordered eating, and my self-esteem is on shaky ground. It has been 9 years since that night.

It wasn’t until my counsellor at university pointed out to me that good people don’t lie about having couches for drunk friends to sleep on that I started to let myself off the hook a little bit for everything that happened.

My favourite colour used to be green but for years after I said it was blue because the thought of green made me feel sick.

I can’t tell you how many nights I have spent up all night, waiting for morning to come so that I can feel safe enough to sleep in my own bed, or how many days I’ve showered more than three times trying just to feel clean again. I have a very good memory and my subconcious used that to my own detriment to create hyper-realistic flashbacks for me to relive when I closed my eyes.

St. Patrick’s day will maybe never be a celebration for me. Having your air cut off by your own shamrock necklaces can have that effect on a person.

I’m not telling this because I want your pity or your well wishes. I’m telling you this so that maybe you no longer see rape and sexual assault as one moment in a person’s life. It’s not just a physical recovery. I’m still feeling the ripple effects of that stone thrown in the pond.

I don’t feel safe at night out walking. I don’t go to bars alone. I don’t drink alcohol on dates.

Sexual assault is any non-consensual act. My story is not the only version, but there are countless similar ones out there.

If every 73 seconds someone is being sexually assaulted, then every 73 seconds someone is sexually assaulting. Don’t be that someone.

Be an ally: No means no. Practice explicit consent- only yes means yes. “Maybe later” is not yes. “Not now” is not yes. “I don’t feel like it” is not yes. Teach your friends; teach your children. Call out the behaviour when you see it. Rape jokes are not funny. Believe people when they say they’ve been assaulted. “Not all men” is not a valid argument. Don’t assault people.

Hope this finds you well,

-L

If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.

RAINN

Daunting

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Trigger warning: suicidal thoughts

From where I stand, the future looks nothing but daunting. It’s hard to remember the good at the end of such a terrible year. Each disappointment and struggle seems like a heavy stone in the backpack of life that I insist on carrying around.

The weight has pulled me off the podium I stood on at the start of the year and dragged me to where I teeter on the edge. Will I be just one more casualty of this year? It seems more appropriate to close my eyes for good when it’s still a terrible year, instead of souring a new one.

People are looking toward 2021 with hope, so much hope. All I feel is dread. Once the new year starts, my life has nothing left for me to do but to be tugged along with the passing of time. I have a degree, a license, a job, a life, and a home. I’ve lived so much life in these years, I don’t feel accomplished, I just feel old.

My friends are all moving on. They have their own lives. They have relationships, pets, children, homes, and triumphs. They look forward to adventures, to new beginnings, and to a future. Joy and love fill their lives with so much colour. I’m glad for them and envious at the same time.

I can’t feel the colour in my life anymore. I’ve learned how to avoid disappointment by avoiding expectations and hope. Each day is a consistent defeat in itself, why add to it? Food is bland, tea is lukewarm, sleep is fitful, and warm is never warm enough.

A bleak winter’s day with thin sun and glaring brightness is my reality. Nothing has colour and everything is too bright to be enjoyed. The trees are bare and the wind whistles enough to chill my bones. It is silent except for my trudging foot steps. I pass houses with warm light shining from festively decked windows and see smoke from what I imagine to be a warm fire inside. These houses are not for me. I have never been inside one, nor will I ever know the love and joy bottled within them.

My chest aches with the cold, the emptiness, and the loneliness. It is as familiar to me as my breath and the beat of my heart.

Despair.

Sorrow.

Hopelessness.

I used to long and now I find myself longing no more. I don’t want to find the energy to enjoy life. I’d rather fade away into this bleak winter’s day and never trouble the sunniness of a new year.

Maybe in another lifetime I’ll see colour again and find the warmth. That, too, seems daunting but it’s the only hope I cling to, the hope that lies in death. Hope that death will be kind to me as this life hasn’t been.

I’d like to fade away in sleep, though rest is something I never find at night. Perhaps that is the secret to the kindness of death. Dying instead of sleeping doesn’t feel so daunting after all.

Hope this finds you well,

-L

If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.

These Lines

Trigger warning: self-harm

When do I take really good care of myself?

When do I make sure I’ve showered? When do I tuck myself in to bed? When do I give myself grace? When do I feed myself and drink hot cups of green tea? When do I brush my teeth? When do I wash my face and apply moisturizer? When do I lotion my body and feel okay in my own skin? When do I take deep breaths and breathe in peace? When do I put on clean, safe clothes?

When I look down and see these lines. These lines I put on my own body. These thin, neat, red lines. These lines drawn across my thigh by my own hand.

Only then can I find it within me to take good care of myself. Someone has to.

Hope this finds you well,

-L

If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.

Together

December 16, 2020 leannaemgeeLeave a comment

Trigger warning: self-harm, blood, graphic description, cutting

How is it

That the only things that put me back together is your hugs

Or these

Neat,

Thin,

Red,

Lines?

Stripes that lend me endorphins;

Columns that align my life.

My breathing stills, my heart slows, and it all melts away.

Together.

I feel together when I’m with you, or in these moments,

Looking at these feelings,

Drawn across my body;

Some white,

Some red.

Hope this finds you well,

-L

If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.

What Self-Harm Was To Me

April 12, 2020April 13, 2020 leannaemgeeLeave a comment

*trigger warnings: self-harm, blood, graphic-ish description, depression, anxiety

I have come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter if I can never comfortably wear bikini bottoms or short shorts ever again. My right thigh is crisscrossed in thin white lines, yes, the cliché term applies to me. Some are pink and are quite prominent but most are fine and white; some have even almost disappeared but the more you look, the more you see.

I started self-harming when I started university and began my journey towards my nursing degree. It felt like my anxiety and depression were overwhelming me; like someone was sitting on my chest all the time. I was thinking of 60 thoughts per second but couldn’t hold onto one long enough to finish thinking it or to process it; much like I imagine a swarm of bees trapped in my head would feel like- just as busy and chaotic, and as loud.

I have been on Tumblr for a long time and have seen post after post of self-harm and cutting and all of which that entails. So I used my tweezers to take apart a disposable razor. Since I was in nursing school, I took alcohol swabs and cleaned the blade, washed my hands, and cleaned my leg as well. I put on some music that fit my mood, psyched myself up, and made the first cut.

The first slice was like taking a deep breath of fresh air. Finally. All my swirling thoughts went quiet and my focus narrowed down to just the task at hand. The cut was timid and shallow and ironically, I knew I could do better. I continued to make thin, precise, red lines in columns down my thigh.

The preparation and organization, the neat and clean end result, and the endorphins are what drew me to this to settle my mind. It felt like I had been searching for something to bring me calm and I finally found it, here, in my bedroom with bloody kleenexes and sad music. It provided me with a feeling of clarity like I had never felt before.

The subsequent days, when the marks were fresh, I did not have to make more because just pressing on them was enough to keep the buzz and the noise of my own thoughts at bay.

The feeling of being in complete control was intoxicating. I have had many instances of not being in control in my life and this felt like I could reclaim pieces of myself and like I could be an overcomer instead. Nothing else in the world mattered outside of these lines, my steady hand, clarity, and control.

I never self-harmed to try and end my life, those were different actions entirely. This was all about control for me. It was all about chasing the feeling of finally being able to breathe again. I was never angry, it was never an action of self-hatred, and I never went deeper than what would cause a small scar: one thin, inch-long mark at a time.

Some people drink, others use substances, some use sex, others use therapy, some can use avoidance. I used self-harm to cope. When I was restless or overwhelmed or stressed or any similar feeling, I knew I could find a moment all to myself and it would lead me to peace… as peaceful as deliberately cutting into your own skin for endorphins can be.

I suffered from insomnia and nightmares almost every night and rarely slept for more than 3-4 hours, usually from 3 or 4am to 7am; once I knew that dawn was coming soon and there was a chance for me to be safe when I woke up. The nights after self-harming I was also able to sleep, to truly rest. It was an escape in more ways than one.

The morning after self-harming, I always did it at night, I did feel guilty and shameful. Obviously, as a healthcare provider and as an adult, I knew better. I knew all about alternate coping methods. I knew behaviours that could replace self-harm. I could tell you all about self-care and harm reduction. The guilt and shame and the knowledge were never strong enough to outweigh the freedom and peace I was finding.

Gradually, it went from days between each column, then to weeks, soon to months. Now it has been close to a year since I last made any cuts. I went to therapy every week for months, and then every other week. It has been one year and five months since I started going to free counselling offered at my university. I found a family doctor I trusted and a medication that works for me. I have a best friend who will do anything for me and I for her. For the first time that I can remember I feel in control of my own life, my own choices, and my own thoughts. My mental health has actually done a complete 180 degree turn and has stayed that way. There are consistently more good days than bad days. It has been more than a year since I last attempted suicide. It gets better. I never thought I’d be able to say those words and I find myself planning for a future that I never planned on having.

It gets better.

If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.

Hope this finds you well,

-L

The Future I’ve Never Wanted

April 9, 2020April 11, 2020 leannaemgeeLeave a comment

Trigger warning: suicide, depression, self-harm, suicidal ideation

It’s hard walking the journey of life while suicidal. I generally refer to myself as being “passively suicidal” so as not to worry the ones I love but the thoughts are always there. I can be smiling at you or laughing at the story you’re telling me but still be thinking about the poem I want to be read at my funeral or which day of the week I’d like to die.

I had my first suicidal thought when I was 15 and have had them off and on ever since. I have many thoughts swirling around in my head at all times and one or more is always about my death. When will it be? Who will miss me the most? Where did I put my funeral planner? Did I remember to write down the latest version of my passwords? Is my house clean enough for people to come and pack up my things? What if I just walked in front of that car? Should I just jump off this overpass? Who do I want to connect with one last time before I go? These thoughts are there all the time. I dream about them, I wake up with them, I contemplate them through the day, and I fall asleep to them.

Nothing quiets my mind like planning my funeral. I have a planner filled with names of who I want to be contacted specifically and invited to my funeral. I have written my eulogy. I have the playlist I want to be played while people are coming in and leaving. I have the name of the funeral home and their contact information. I have my cremation plans and suggestions for my headstone. I have a letter written that I would like to have read at my funeral. I have suggestions for catering and for location. I have all of my banking information together, my student loan paperwork, and copies of my driver’s license and health card and etc. I don’t want to feel like a burden, even in death, and these choices can be overwhelming for others to make in the midst of grief.

I would love for people to be able to gather, to spend time missing me while being able to grieve in a safe space surrounded by people who are all feeling the same. I hope that my funeral is able to be streamed as I have far-away friends and for many, attending a funeral gives closure, which can be hard to come by in deaths by suicide. I hope that they can find the time to laugh and to reminisce while together, near or far. I hope they tell stories of me. I struggle with feeling loved and imagining my funeral makes me feel like I’d be loved and missed and that is why I cling to the planning.

The general assumption is that as kids grow into teenagers and teenagers mature into young adults, they will have imagined a future. In this future, they have an idea of their ideal career, ideal home, ideal partner, and ideal lifestyle. The classic “house with a white picket fence” dream. I have never planned a future for myself. I have spent my entire life hoping that I wouldn’t have one.

If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.