A letter from December 31st, 2017

Dear FutureMe, 2017. By January 31 I was found on the floor of a high school bathroom stall. I wasn't hurt, I wasn't crying. This was just where I sat when things got bad. Or during lunch. But this was exactly one day before I was going to commit suicide. I had planned it out for years and this was the time I was actually going to do it. I was sure of it. It was strategically placed between birthdays and holidays so I would have the least impact, this was it. I had gathered up a good amount of my old Zoloft and a little lexapro.... but instead I found myself in the counseling office. In just a few hours I saw 5 school counselors, 2 administrators, one SRO, one crisis line operator, my mom.. everyone. They told me I would have to go to the hospital. I was to numb to really have any feedback. I just went home and packed my things. In the hospital I met a lot of interesting people. I spent most time alone still. I was there for 10 days. I was later sent to an outpatient program for 3 weeks. This is where I met the closest thing I had to a friend in years. She went to my school and would sit with me in the counseling office during lunch. Im not going to go into detail on her situation, but a few months later she stopped showing up to school. She deleted her Instagram. And I never found out where she went. I still consider her my personal Schrödinger's cat. If that makes sense. I felt terrible. And I'll still probably never find out what happened. Around mid March I found myself sitting on the floor of my closet. I tried to slit my wrists. I bled enough to get lightheaded, but then it stopped. I have had problems with self harm since 13, but I had never before done it with intent to end it. No one found out about this until June. In June I cracked the code to the med safe. 358. I talked to my therapist about how I wished I was dead. I asked if she would even care. When she said she would I swore she was lying. I was pissed. I was hurt that she would lie. Looking back any reaction to that would have set me off. But she didn't do anything about it until a day later when she called my parents in. Once again, I was threatened with the hospital. And I was furious. Because I had hidden a bottle of Abilify in my closet and I was ready this time. While I was packing my things I chugged what I could of the bottle. I would later find out that it's a very weak drug and all that happened was I got super tired. When I got to the hospital, they didn't know about the attempt. But they did find out about the last one. I saw my dad cry. He asked me if I would ever actually do anything like that, or if I was serious, I didn't answer. In this hospital stay I got closer with the staff. I met some new people. But I didn't give out information this time because I knew what happened if you got too close. I was in for 13 days this time. After this I went back to outpatient where they sent be back to inpatient just over a week in. Said I was too high of a risk. They kept finding me punching walls and burning myself with erasers. This is when they started to threaten residential. I was in the hospital this time for only 7 days, but... Instead they sent me to a small nonprofit crisis unit. It was just me and one other girl for a long time. And she was completely opposite from me. From politics to pop culture to style and everything else. For example she was really into Kodak Black while I'm more of a Nirvana and Brand New kinda person. But we got along, we just didn't talk about ourselves or each other much. Here I was told by an online psychiatrist that I wasn't trying hard enough. It was like a knife to the stomach. God I had been trying every goddamn skill I could, and what was she doing? Questioning me from her home office in New Jersey. Yeah I don't trust anyone from Jersey anyway. But the rest of the staff and very kind to me. And I met this trans boy I still wish I had given my black veil brides magazines to. Overall it was a nice break from everything. It was one of the better stays. By this point it was August and I immediately left for a trip to Chicago. This i believe was the only good thing that came out of this year. It was a great trip. We also went to a lake house in Wisconsin. I only cried on one bathroom floor and that was just because I had been in the car with four other people for days. Here I am now on New Years Eve. I'm trying to write little essays at the end of every year. I'm planning again, so I don't know why I'm even writing this, I could be dead in a week. We'll just have to see. In conclusion, kiss my ass 2017, I never liked you. Also PS time is a concept. Good luck in 2019 I guess