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turnip
Member
- Jul 30, 2024
- 9
Hi all — new here. Needed to get some stuff out. Apologies if this isn't allowed.
I think I've been mentally ill since the day I was born. I can't remember ever feeling truly happy. My last memory of really looking forward to a distant future was in a house I moved from when I was 8. And it's not like the outside world was causing it, if I'm honest. Sure, my dad left when I was 3 and visited so inconsistently that I'll have irreparable abandonment issues until the day I die, but there was no reason for me to be having a meltdown and a half every day of my life. My poor single mother probably didn't do all the right things, but I was a nightmare. It was just her and I. What was she supposed to do?
I got suspended from school for talking about my suicide plan at 11. I started antidepressants at 12. I started cutting at 13, and my first attempt was around that time too. This entire time I'm bouncing between incompetent child psychiatrists and the odd therapist for a few sessions at a time, as my mom's insurance could afford. I went to the ER many times through high school for help, but was sent home almost every time for not having a specific enough plan. The one time they didn't send me home, they sent me, on my own, to a room in a run-down nursing home in a part of the city I'd never been in solely for the benefit of having a nurse on site. I was 18 at the oldest and still in high school. This is also when I was diagnosed with BPD (surprise!!!) by the outpatient psychiatrist.
I haven't been able to find a psychiatrist since. I'm 30 now. My family doctor says she has no one to refer me to. I've been to the ER many times. In college, I tried to get help at Health Services and got told I was "lucky to not have the police called on me" after I admitted to having punched an emotionally and sexually abusive then-boyfriend — the thing I felt so bad about that it was the reason I sought help in the first place. When I finally got admitted to a hospital at 27 (only because I lived alone on a high floor at the time) the psychiatrists were rude and dismissive the second BPD came up. I had to self-advocate, in a psych ward, to be prescribed an antidepressant because "BPD doesn't need meds." As though emotional regulation skills are so easy when every emotion you're feeling is double what anyone else's are.
And I guess now, after a year of being evicted from my home, leaving a 9-year relationship and losing most of my friends, here I am again. In the place where the suicidal thoughts are all that's left. Don't get me wrong — I'm suicidal every day of my life. Even on my best days, I know without a doubt that my cause of death will be suicide. If I got better tomorrow, my cause of death would still be suicide, because 30 years of ideation has destroyed my ability to plan for the future to the point where I can never retire.
It's been a long time since I actually attempted. To be honest, I'm terrified. I feel like I'm just waiting for things to get bad enough that emotion takes over and I do it impulsively. In an ideal world, I'd love to get better. But all I know is how badly the supports I need aren't there. The doctors don't exist. More work accommodations will get me fired. Government disability is poverty. The stigma of BPD will always overshadow my ability to get care.
One anti-choice argument is that legalizing MAID for mental health will encourage people to end their lives because of lack of supports. I guess I just don't see what the problem is with that. If doctors and housing and disability assistance were in the works, sure. If we seemed like we were even making progress in that direction, maybe. But we're obviously not. Things are getting worse. I would love to stop suffering in a way that accommodates everyone. Just to function in society. But since that's not an option, please just let me die.
I think I've been mentally ill since the day I was born. I can't remember ever feeling truly happy. My last memory of really looking forward to a distant future was in a house I moved from when I was 8. And it's not like the outside world was causing it, if I'm honest. Sure, my dad left when I was 3 and visited so inconsistently that I'll have irreparable abandonment issues until the day I die, but there was no reason for me to be having a meltdown and a half every day of my life. My poor single mother probably didn't do all the right things, but I was a nightmare. It was just her and I. What was she supposed to do?
I got suspended from school for talking about my suicide plan at 11. I started antidepressants at 12. I started cutting at 13, and my first attempt was around that time too. This entire time I'm bouncing between incompetent child psychiatrists and the odd therapist for a few sessions at a time, as my mom's insurance could afford. I went to the ER many times through high school for help, but was sent home almost every time for not having a specific enough plan. The one time they didn't send me home, they sent me, on my own, to a room in a run-down nursing home in a part of the city I'd never been in solely for the benefit of having a nurse on site. I was 18 at the oldest and still in high school. This is also when I was diagnosed with BPD (surprise!!!) by the outpatient psychiatrist.
I haven't been able to find a psychiatrist since. I'm 30 now. My family doctor says she has no one to refer me to. I've been to the ER many times. In college, I tried to get help at Health Services and got told I was "lucky to not have the police called on me" after I admitted to having punched an emotionally and sexually abusive then-boyfriend — the thing I felt so bad about that it was the reason I sought help in the first place. When I finally got admitted to a hospital at 27 (only because I lived alone on a high floor at the time) the psychiatrists were rude and dismissive the second BPD came up. I had to self-advocate, in a psych ward, to be prescribed an antidepressant because "BPD doesn't need meds." As though emotional regulation skills are so easy when every emotion you're feeling is double what anyone else's are.
And I guess now, after a year of being evicted from my home, leaving a 9-year relationship and losing most of my friends, here I am again. In the place where the suicidal thoughts are all that's left. Don't get me wrong — I'm suicidal every day of my life. Even on my best days, I know without a doubt that my cause of death will be suicide. If I got better tomorrow, my cause of death would still be suicide, because 30 years of ideation has destroyed my ability to plan for the future to the point where I can never retire.
It's been a long time since I actually attempted. To be honest, I'm terrified. I feel like I'm just waiting for things to get bad enough that emotion takes over and I do it impulsively. In an ideal world, I'd love to get better. But all I know is how badly the supports I need aren't there. The doctors don't exist. More work accommodations will get me fired. Government disability is poverty. The stigma of BPD will always overshadow my ability to get care.
One anti-choice argument is that legalizing MAID for mental health will encourage people to end their lives because of lack of supports. I guess I just don't see what the problem is with that. If doctors and housing and disability assistance were in the works, sure. If we seemed like we were even making progress in that direction, maybe. But we're obviously not. Things are getting worse. I would love to stop suffering in a way that accommodates everyone. Just to function in society. But since that's not an option, please just let me die.