January 2013, I was at one of the lowest points of my life.
I had just spent a week in the psychiatric hospital. My entire life I have been fighting against my imperfections, and here I was a complete failure at life. I couldn't tell anyone that I had gotten so depressed to the point of wanting to die and ended up in a psychiatric hospital. I became completely non functional. I didn't eat and shut myself off completely. The only comfort I would feel each day was when I could take my powerful combinations of medications and check out. I started working a lot to try and escape my head, but in the quiet moments right before I fell asleep, I would play over and over in my head what a failure I was. When I was in the hospital, they gave me a very serious mental health diagnosis. They claimed that I had Borderline Personality Disorder. If you look up what that is, it basically makes me look like a complete psychopath. I remember the burden this diagnosis put on me. I was never going to be normal again. I would need therapy the rest of my life. I could never succeed because of this diagnosis.
Because of that diagnosis, I was recommended some very serious therapy. I began going to Dialectical Behavioral Therapy three days a week. This meant that my life consisted of work, therapy, and going home and getting high. I was so empty, sad, lost, and dead inside. I stopped doing the things I cared about and shut myself off from the world.
During these months, I was taking the medications exactly as prescribed. After three months, I was completely addicted. I needed the prescribed dose just to feel normal. If I wanted any type of euphoria, I would need to take huge amounts of medications. Pretty soon, I was high every waking moment of my life. I carried so much shame and guilt that this was the only way to cope with life.
By May, my life was spiraling downward fast. I had ruined most of my close relationships and didn't even care. All I cared about was staying constantly high. Finally, I got back to that dark place that I was in the first time I had wanted to die. I had concluded that I was too low to ever climb out of this huge hole I had created. The only solution was to die. One night, I decided to call it quits and took fifty fiouricet/somas. Next thing I know, I am waking up surrounded my cops, paramedics, and my therapist. I went to the ER and got stable and then wound up in ANOTHER psychiatric hospital.
This hospital was even worse than the first one. It still makes me sick to think about how horribly they treated me. The purpose of this hospital stay was less about stabilization and more about cutting me off of my medications. This is when they cut me off the mood stabilizer cold turkey rather than taper me down like they were supposed to. The next few weeks, I completely lost my mind. Every doctor that I have told about what happened is shocked at the lack of care this hospital had when taking me off a powerful mood stabilizer.
Throughout the rest of the summer, I had a few days were I would take entire bottles of Xanex, but for the most part, I was pretty sober compared to the prior six months. When I moved into my sister's house in July, I remained completely sober so that I wouldn't get kicked out. At the same time, my back and neck were in constant pain and I craved drugs like crazy.
Until next time...
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