This is part two of a two-part story.
Previously, I talked about what began my battle to poison my body with medicine. At the age of eleven, I was already considering methods to severely hurt myself. Occasionally I considered jabbing myself with daggers, but mostly I considered pills. I always figured that they would be easy to obtain, painless, and quick. Since I didn't have access to pills by myself, I began to bite my arms instead. Some people noticed the teeth marks and wondered how I got them. Me being a brutally honest eleven-year-old guilty of not keeping my own secrets, word got around school pretty quickly that I was destructive and violent. Teachers and counselors were always on my tailbone about something or other, and I quite literally had no friends at school. Even the boys in my grade, who took great delight in playing violent video games and joked about blowing up buildings, steered well clear of me. Guess they were more afraid of me than I was of them!
Things came to an awkward lull between the ages of twelve and fourteen. Things pretty much flew by during these years, as I was number than an ice pack kept in a freezer for six months. At age fifteen, I seemed to begin regaining my violent tendencies, albeit I had no thought of hurting anyone in my school or elsewhere. I was angry most of the time and went to bed most nights wishing I wouldn't wake up.
At age sixteen, the school shooting in Connecticut threw me into an even deeper depression than I had ever experienced, even the one when I was eleven. When it was announced that the shooter was believed to have Asperger's, people began posting comments on social media such as "For every hundred likes I'll shoot someone with Asperger's," and "There's a kid at my church who has Asperger's. I'm alerting the authorities right away so he can be dealt with." Perhaps the biggest blow of all, however, was when a man who claimed he was a certified psychologist wrote a document online saying that ninety-two percent of all shooters had autism or Asperger's. I can't even count how many days I went to bed wondering if the world hated me.
By the time I was twenty, I had been hospitalized twice for attempts to self-harm. The first time I was contemplating drinking a full bottle of cherry cough syrup. The second time was more serious, as I had actually taken seven Advil to try and numb the pain and stress I was dealing with. After that time, I was barred from living on campus for several days, which was the worst thing ever. The people on my campus were (and still are) my biggest influences on why I keep fighting the urge to knock back pills on a daily basis. Doctors didn't help anywhere near as much; in fact, they usually made things worse. Every doctor I spoke with appeared to talk down to me as though I was a calf being inspected on whether or not I should be freed by PETA or thrown into the slaughterhouse for veal.
After this period, I spent five days at Butler hospital as a part of their outpatient young adult program. While it sounds like something horrific, it was actually the highlight of my journey. Never had I felt happier, more accepted, or more loved in my life. It's like that quote in the film Heavyweights: "You're not the fat kid; EVERYBODY'S the fat kid!" I wasn't the "crazy" person, we were all "crazy people." It also made me realize just how those with mental illnesses are treated in this country. Nobody I met there so much as raised a fist at me or called me a name, despite the violent stereotype. More than that, everybody looked like someone you'd see walking down the street every day. It was a big slap in the face that even though I may be "mental," I'm still a human being.
It's been about four months since I was discharged and placed back into the real world. I wish I could give you all a "happily ever after" ending, but in reality that's not the case. Living with mental issues is a lifelong battle and will ALWAYS be a lifelong battle for me. There are so many days when I lock myself in my room thinking that I'm a miserable worthless person and wishing that I could just go somewhere where nobody knew who I was, so I could just do whatever I wanted and nobody would care.
But in reality, that's ALSO not the case. People do care in my case, at least two dozen on the RIC campus alone. It's through their friendship and kindness that I find the strength to show my demons who's in charge. I can't say that I'll never think about numbing my pain again, nor can I promise that I'll live a happy, fulfilling life. But one thing I can promise is this: "No matter the problems, no matter the pain, no matter the can't or the can, when it comes to my life and my comfort and care, pills are not in charge; I AM."
