This post will contain mentions of self-harm, suicidal thoughts and whatever else may accompany those kinds of thoughts/actions. Reader discretion is advised.

I originally didn’t know whether or not to add a warning to this post, as I wasn’t sure how deep or descriptive into the topic I was going to dive. I figured it’s better to be safe than sorry – I didn’t want to unintentionally trigger any trauma for anyone reading. I honestly didn’t even know if I’d ever write about this as not even my family knows these things about me, and I doubt I’ll ever tell them. At least, I won’t just offer it up.

This was something that had been on my mind a lot this week because of an incident that happened at work. I’m not sure where my head was at, but I was not focused enough on what I was doing. I was making small, obvious mistakes left and right that one of our managers kept having to ask me to correct. I could tell it started getting on his nerves as much as it was getting on mine. There would be times when I would be so unsure of myself and losing confidence in my ability to catch things that I started asking him basic questions that I knew the answers to. But I began not trusting my own judgement and knowledge for a couple of days, so it became everyone else’s problem. I felt stupid; I felt inadequate. I pride myself in being one of the best workers at my job, no matter where I was. I made myself an important and crucial member of the team because I like being able to be reliable and provide help and support in all areas. I like being needed, and I project that heavily, wrongfully onto my career.

A lot of movement has been happening at my current company lately, and the current team of people we have are all very competent in their positions. I’m grateful for this; it’s a bit too much when you’re left picking up the slack from people who don’t want to put in the basic amount on effort. It’s been nice that everyone works so well together, and everyone seems to know what they’re doing. It’s nice to only have to focus on me and my role, but that in itself is part of the problem. I overthink a lot, to the point of thinking that if no one talks to me for at least an hour, they’re mad at me. This is a problem I need to be able to work out myself, I realize, but God knows how long that’s going to take. And in the meantime, I’m stuck dealing with the side effects of my own mind trying to sabotage me.

There were a lot of times this week where I felt like I wasn’t being as helpful as I usually am, which was pushing me to try to take on more than I could handle so I could prove to myself that I was still valuable. It didn’t help that it seemed that everyone had such nice things to say about each other’s work ethic and help in certain projects, but those comments were never made to me. I was falling behind in my tasks with the hopes that someone would see how much effort I was putting in to help everything run smoothly. I was skipping lunches and breaks hoping that would help me catch up on what I was letting slip. I barely made myself eat the snacks I brought, or drink enough water, or even go to the bathroom when I had to in a desperate attempt to get a pat on my shoulder and “good job” at the end of the day. I know I shouldn’t have been doing all of this for recognition, but I can’t help it. Blame it on my upbringing, maybe – a young kid who only saw positive feedback from adults when they excelled in school and learned that was a good way to stop them from fighting too. Distract them with excellent grades and good remarks made by teachers, and they’ll forget to pull out those bottles at the end of the night or continue the fight they’ve been having for the last 10 years. Whatever it was that taught me to value that attention and put worth in myself almost solely based on the work I completed has really put a damper in my personal growth.

It’s not all terrible though; I actually have gotten better in some ways regarding this toxic trait I still carry. I’m not quite as hard on myself as I used to be when I mess up. I feel like I can stay a bit calmer in stressful situations and I’m less afraid to admit these days when I don’t know something. Because not knowing something doesn’t mean I don’t know anything – it just means I don’t know everything. Who does?

I’ve been very proud of this progress I’m making, but there are still times like this week when it’s hard to be proud of myself when I lapse back into bad habits so easily. That day, I was talking a lot with that manager I mentioned before about how to set up a specific job. I thought I was understanding what he was saying so I felt confident. As I was setting it up, I caught myself making a mistake before sending it, and felt good that I could correct myself in that way. I sent it off feeling good that while I had a lot of other shit to deal with and projects that I made worse by touching them, this would not be one of them. But I was wrong. It could have been that both of our communication styles are different, so what I thought he meant while he was explaining things wasn’t what he was actually trying to convey, and he thought I was understanding the way he explained things because I really believed I did. I really thought I did too. But I kept messing it up anyway. We wasted a couple hundred dollars’ worth of material because of my mistake which is not unheard of in our office. Everyone messes up at some point in this job to the point of wasting material and money and it’s always stressful, but ultimately not held against anyone. But I had never messed up like that before and because I’ve been there nearly two years, I took it a lot harder thinking this shouldn’t happen at this point. Maybe it’s more forgivable when you’re still relatively new, but not when you’ve been there as long as I have. I kept telling myself that and so many more terrible thoughts.

As I was fixing the project for what must have been the 5^th time, all I could think about was how I was the reason my coworkers had to spend their time redoing something that should have been done by now. I was thinking about all of the other mistakes I had made this week that were simple and shouldn’t have happened, and I repeated to myself continuously how someone must have been mad at me, and rightfully so. If they were all mad at me, I would have understood; would have felt like I deserved it. These thoughts wouldn’t stop spinning around in my head as I worked to fix the thing I screwed up, so I was also trying to calm myself down and tell. Myself I wouldn’t let this affect the rest of my day. That I would fix this mess and move on and just keep pushing through until the end. I was trying so hard to not reverse the progress I had made on myself, but while all this was happening and as I was putting the last couple of changes on the files I needed to, I felt a strange sensation on my hand.

The pointer finger on my left hand felt wet. This was weird, as I had not been recently touching anything wet nor had I just used lotion or anything similar. It was such an out of place feeling that it stopped all of my thoughts in their tracks as I pulled my eyes away from the screen they had been glued to for the last 30 minutes. As I looked down to the source of the feeling, I noticed my hand was also getting mildly warmer around my thumb. When my eyes landed on the small scene unfolding at my desk, I noticed blood spilling out of my cuticle coating my thumb in a red stickiness. I looked to my pointer finger on the same hand and noticed blood on the nail of it as well near the tip. I stared at my hand for about a minute before my brain could comprehend what must have happened. I had been picking so badly at my thumb that I ripped the skin wide open and it was now bleeding decently over my desk. I felt a sort of shock run through myself; I pick at my skin regularly (a terrible habit I’m trying to break) but never had I picked so vigorously and so deep to cause any part of my body to start bleeding like this.

What’s even worse, I realized as I sat there watching the blood drip dangerously close to my keyboard, I didn’t know I was doing it; didn’t feel a thing. Usually, when I skin-pick, it’s a very conscious action. I can feel the urge pop up and try to talk myself out of it as much as possible. If I do start picking at something, I make myself stop immediately. Never had I started picking at my skin and not noticed. Never had I not felt the pain that comes from ripping apart the skin to the point of spilling blood. But here I was, so lost in my own head and self-deprecating thoughts too preoccupied by trying to calm myself down that I didn’t even feel my own body causing itself harm.

Though I still felt a bit shaken by this new experience, I made myself get up and go to the break room to wash my hand off. I sat with a paper towel wrapped tightly around my thumb to help stop the bleeding while a couple of coworkers came in and out looking for leftover coffee. A couple saw me and asked if I was alright. My voice seemed strangely calm even to myself as I answered evenly that yeah, I was fine and that I just had in fact picked at my thumb too hard. They seemed to understand, and one even commented that they did the same thing too sometimes. They were trying to relate to me; trying to make me feel better. I didn’t tell them that I’ve never done this so bad before, or that I was doing it because I was spiraling from the stress I put myself under. I just smiled politely and let them move on with their days. After most of the bleeding has stopped, I wrapped my thumb up in a bandage with some antibiotic ointment and went back to my desk still wondering how I couldn’t even feel myself doing that.

I couldn’t stop thinking about this incident all day and at some point, I was reminded of a video I had just recently seen online about things you didn’t know were a form of self-harm. Skin picking was one of them. I didn’t know it could be, but it later made sense to me that it was. I understood that it must not be the case in all instances, but I could see the correlation for some. But not for mine. I always attributed mine to stress and anxiety which makes sense for my life. I thought it was an interesting take, but ultimately it didn’t have any relation to me. Until today. I couldn’t stop thinking about that video and looking at my bandaged thumb wondering if this is what that was. I pointed out to myself that I was also under a lot of stress this morning after feeling so useless, so it makes just as much sense if this was my more regular stress-related behavior. But I still couldn’t shake the voice in my head saying, “maybe not every time you’ve done it’s self-harm, but what if sometimes it is.”

What do I do in that situation where I’m self-harming without even meaning to, without even realizing I’m doing it? There’s no one in my life I would want to talk about that with

That thought never left my head that day, and I went home thinking about something else from my past that I also never told anyone; not even my therapist when I was regularly seeing one – I hadn’t been seeing her long enough to feel comfortable enough for that and then I switched insurances and never got set up with a new one.

There was a point in my life where I wanted to die. I was in a terrible living situation that was causing me nothing but physical and emotion harm. I was sick and nearly completely co-dependent which made it feel like it was impossible to leave the situation I was in. Every day was exhausting to get through and left me more tired and hurt than the day before. I was tired of being stuck in the middle of dark, murky waters full of uncertainties and verbal abuses thrown by the people I loved the most at each other. I was tired of being stuck in the middle; being used as a barrier between people who were at war with each other while pretending everything was alright. These were all things I had been doing for years, but the difference this time was that I was alone in all of it. Everyone else in the house with me, aside from the perpetrators had left. One by one, they all had a chance for an escape pop up for them, and they took it as soon as they could. I couldn’t blame them really, and I was happy for them. They had made it out maybe not in the way they were hoping, but still. They were free; they could live and breathe and eat in the comfort knowing that no matter what situation they were going into, it would be better than the one they left. The one they left me behind in. Which is not a fair way to look at it because it wasn’t like that at all. But as time passed with me trapped there restricted by my body and health it became increasingly more difficult to think of it as anything but.

While I laid there in that house wondering if I would ever be well enough to leave too while the yelling and drinking continued around me, and while my health continued to not improve in the slightest, I began to feel completely trapped. I convinced myself I’d never get better, as nothing I tried gave me any improvement. This thought led to the mindset that I’d be trapped here forever with them, all alone. I started to believe that was my destiny – to be stuck, never really feeling safe or at ease or cared for in the way that I needed. Nothing was going to change. And I became depressed.

Bad news after bad news about my health, never-ending chronic pain that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once, and yelling so loud the walls couldn’t contain it. Doors and cabinets intentionally slammed. Recycling bins filled with glass and plastic bottles that made it smell like a distillery on the side of the property. Feeling unimportant and small until someone needed something to turn their attention to other than the person they were fighting with, only to complain about how it was that person that was in the wrong. Long, sleepless nights filled with trying to keep myself occupied by learning new skills while trying not to focus on the fact that the nightmares were keeping me up just as much as the fighting was.

I was trapped – and there was no way out. I didn’t know what to do anymore, but I knew I couldn’t keep living like this. It wasn’t even living at this point; it was fulfilling my basic needs so that my body didn’t die. There was no happiness or enjoyment in anything, only the bitter feeling that there was no point in living if life was like this. So, I didn’t want to live.

I struggled with that feeling for about a month, trying not to let it go any further but it did. I started finding comfort in the thought of escaping even if it was like that. It unfortunately was the only source of comfort for me at that time. I had people I could have talked to, those who left, but I didn’t want to burden them with what I was going through, and above all else I didn’t want them to feel like it was their fault for leaving. I kept it all to myself and the feeling grew.

I even decided on how I’d do it too – I was sick and being prescribed so many different types of medications to try to help. But a couple of weeks into a new pill, you learned if they didn’t work. If they didn’t we tucked the rest of the bottle of pills into a cabinet in my bathroom where it would sit until the city announced the next day they’d take old bottles of medication for disposal since you weren’t allowed to just throw those away. I must have had close to 10 bottles half full of random medications, some low dosages some high; all of which should definitely not be mixed. If I combined all of those with the 7 or so meds I was taking currently on a daily basis, I knew it would work. It would be painless. It’d be just as easy as falling asleep, and then I’d be free.

I contemplated this for weeks. I would go into my bathroom, line up all of the bottles side by side and just stare at them. I would count the number of pills each one had until I was satisfied it would be enough to stop my heart, and then I’d put them back. I would go back to the couch in the living room and sit down in my usual spot as if nothing just happened and continue to play my role in the house.

I felt the feelings getting stronger – the need to escape growing. My attention and mind zeroed in on this one idea, as if it were my only option. I convinced myself it was. One day I lined up all of the bottles next to each other and my mood changed. I didn’t feel anything which concerned the small part of my brain that could still think apart from the suicidal thoughts I’d been having. I took off all of the tops and combined all the pills into one bottle. I put a cap on the bottle and shook it around, watching the pills mix and match with each other. I held that bottle in my hand for what felt like hours just staring at it. I opened it back up and peered inside, looking at the different shapes and colors, breathing in that familiar medicinal powder smell they come with. I looked around for some water – I didn’t bring any. I looked back to the pills and imagined taking them. I thought about how they might react together in my body – would it cause any pain at all? I imagined feeling my existing pain slowly being drained from every corner of my nerves in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. I saw myself closing my eyes and drifting asleep peacefully in a way I hadn’t been able to for months, finally getting the rest I needed.

I thought about my body lying on the floor while everyone was gone for the day; I thought about how cold I would be, how strange it would be for a once lively form to fall silent and still. And then I thought about my family. I thought about the people coming home and finding me and what it would do to them. The panic it would cause as they tried to wake me up while calling an ambulance hoping it wasn’t too late and being confused as to how it even had gotten to this point. To everyone else, I was still trying to be happy, to be strong for them. I didn’t let them know what was going on inside in the slightest, so coming home to find this would have been a huge shock. And my family; I couldn’t even imagine how they’d react when they found out. I couldn’t help but think how long it would take for them to get over what I did if they ever managed to. I thought about Christmases coming and going with little celebration; birthdays passing by without a card being sent or time being spent together because maybe everything like that would be too painful because of me. Maybe they’d never move on, and they’d be stuck in a permanently sad existence, never being able to fully enjoy life again.

I knew they loved me, and I still loved them. Just because I didn’t think I’d be happy again, didn’t mean I wanted to ruin their chance to be. I didn’t want to be the thing they blamed themselves for the rest of their lives. I didn’t want to be the memory no one could get over or stop blaming themselves for. I didn’t want to take the fragile rifts in our lives and rip them wide open beyond repair. I didn’t want to hurt them. As much as I was hurting, their pain was more important to me and I couldn’t do that to them.

I dumped the pills out of the bottle and started to separate them again by color and size. When I was satisfied that I separated them back into their like groups, I poured each group into a random bottle not remembering exactly which pill was what anymore and making a mental note not to go back to any old medications again unless I got a new bottle. I went back to the couch where I curled up and pretended to sleep. At some point, I stopped pretending and when I opened my eyes again there were people there. Nothing had changed; the situation was still the same. But I was still there.

The next week I told my doctor about everything – the situation, the pain, how it felt like there was no way out. I told her everything except for the pills. I never told anyone about that. She told me I had to get out, which I knew already, but didn’t know how. She kept telling me how sorry she was, and how stupid it was for those people to put me in that situation. She validated my feelings, which is something I didn’t know I was in deprivation of until that moment because at the end of the talk with my eyes puffy and red and overflowing with tears that wouldn’t stop, I felt heard. I felt seen. For the first time in my life, I felt like someone could see all of me and what’s more, they cared about all of me.

I left that day feeling more hope than I had in months, and soon after, I moved out of that place and in with someone who didn’t mind supporting me for a while until my body healed. And it did.

Since then, I haven’t had any other thoughts or tendencies towards ending my life. Life has been hard, and at times I have fallen back into depression but never has it gotten that bad again. I am much better physically and emotionally now, and I have become the type of person I wish I had at that time in my life. I find a lot more enjoyment in life now, even in small things, and when I’m feeling this way I let myself be grateful to the me who decided not to take those pills that day. And even when things are difficult now, I find a small amount of happiness in the thought that even feeling the pain reminds me I’m still alive.

As I ended that day at work and walked to my car with my thumb wrapped up in a blood-stained bandage, remembering the time when I felt most hopeless, I wondered if this meant those feelings were coming back. My commute is a decent length, so I had a lot of time to reflect. I ultimately decided that no, I wasn’t feeling like I wanted to die nor was I in the early stages of feeling like this. I hope above anything else that those feelings never come back, and because of how scared I am now to feel that way again, I internally monitor that very closely. But this week came and passed and nothing else happened. My thumb is healing, and I took a chill pill at work and tried to stop taking on new projects for a bit before I could at least finish my old ones.

I don’t regret anything that has happened to me in my life at this point, because everything I’ve gone through has made me who I am. I like who I am, and I wouldn’t want that to change. I still trip myself up from time to time, and self-sabotage a lot like I did this week but I’m still growing and I need to remember that. Just because I fall backwards sometimes doesn’t mean I’m not making progress. It just means I’m human; it means that I’m alive and trying my best like everyone else.

Please, for your sake and the sake of those who love you, if you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts or self-harming, reach out to someone. Anyone. If you feel like you can’t tell your family like me, tell a doctor. I can guarantee that there is someone out there who cares about you deeply and will miss you terribly if you’re gone. You are the reason someone’s world is a brighter and happier place to be, and I promise you that what you’re feeling can and will pass even if it truly doesn’t feel like it. If you need any kind of support, please call 9-8-8.