Finding Hope

Today I ask for help for the first time in my life. Today I take charge and latch on to my future. It is a thrilling and terrifying moment that I have worked towards for so long that I never believed it would happen.

"Don't talk about blood, or the emo boy over there is going to go cut himself," my friend snarks, eliciting a quiet, if awkward, laugh from the people around her. It is a stereotype that the only people who cut themselves are the emo teenagers—you know the ones. They sit in their dark, possibly painted black, bedrooms listening to The Cure and writing bad poetry about how no one has ever liked them. These are the teenagers who have one or two spare suicide notes lying around "just in case," so obviously these are the only people who harm themselves.

I'm laughing, too. Just the same as everyone around me, but if my laugh is a little more brittle and forced, then who is to know? Because the fact is, I don't fit the stereotype of the emo teenager and yet I have a strong history of self harm. It goes great with the depression and anxiety.

I am twelve when I cut myself for the first time. My best friend and I are sitting in her bedroom for yet another sleepover. I have spent the night so often that I have my own toothbrush and clothes here. I have no need to pack a bag or prepare at all. Normally we spend our time watching anime and listening to music. If her brother is gone, we sneak into his room to read his comic books. Tonight, though, is different. Tonight we have chosen to stay in her bedroom, and for the first time we each hold a knife and cut into our arms. We have no intention to kill ourselves. The silence is broken by the sound of our breath catching, hissing through our teeth as we mark our arms with our own names. When we first talked about it, it seemed like a good idea. Now, I am not so certain. I never have been fond of pain.

It does not take long for the blood to bead and rise to the surface and I stare, fascinated. It hurts still, and my name is so much longer than my friend's, but the endorphins—a word I have only just learned in class—are starting to rush and I am left with a heady feeling of weightlessness. There is a sense of peace and relaxation as I close my eyes and breathe out slowly. Life, once so hard that I felt this need for pain, suddenly looks so much brighter, so much fuller, so much more. Pain is the answer to my problems, I decide.

Pain is not always an escape, I eventually learn.

I collapse at work when I am twenty-one, a sudden pain in my chest that is rushing through the left side of my body. I am found twenty minutes later, late coming back from my break, by my supervisor who was sent to find me. I am rushed to the hospital with a suspected heart attack, and all I can think of is my two-year-old daughter at home with my mother.

The wait to see a doctor is terrifying in a way I have not experienced before. I am alone in a waiting room, surrounded by sick and injured people, only the ache in my chest and arm for company and compassion. My throat rattles as I struggle to breathe. It seems the air around me has turned syrup-thick, sticky and sweet as only hospital air can be, and I find myself choking on every breath I take. When I am finally admitted into the back, the doctor barely looks at me before writing on my chart.

"What you've experienced is an anxiety attack," he tells me. The look in his eye says that I have wasted his time and I flinch. I work in a high stress job, I admit. A call centre that provides technical support is an understandably stressful place to work, but I am ashamed that this stress has translated into this pain.

I leave the hospital feeling lessened by my experience and turn back to the painpleasure of a knife. It helps for a time, until I experience another anxiety attack. And then another. At my mother's request, I turn to my family doctor and she prescribes Ativan, a small white pill, barely the size of the head of the pins I remember my mother using when she had the time to sew. I slip it under my tongue and I am lost. This is not the last time I lose myself to the medication.

My attacks continue to come without warning, just a sudden shot through my chest as my teeth grind together, leaving me gasping and fumbling for purchase even as I am fumbling for the Ativan. It is such a tiny pill for the relief it brings—like a shot of whiskey, according to one person, or like smoking the good weed, according to another. I would not know; I have never smoked weed, and never been fond of whiskey. What I do know is that the Ativan leaves me in a haze and removes the pain. I close my eyes and breathe deeply, each breath sparking golden hot as I draw it in, coming out mist-black with anxiety and depression and anger and hurt.

Exhaustion overcomes me, drowsiness pulling at my eyelids and tugging them downwards: another side-effect of the Ativan, one that I welcome. Insomnia is an ongoing concern, one that I have come to expect—if not welcome—with open arms. I can often be found joking that the only reason I have managed to complete many assignments on time is a direct result of my insomnia.

Right now, insomnia is not a problem.

I collapse into bed, eyes closed tightly as my mind races. I cannot stop thinking any more than I can stop breathing, and it is almost physically painful in a way that the anxiety attack was not. I can breathe freely now, but it is not enough. With every breath I take my mind races, tumbling down through half-formed thoughts and ideas.

I run my fingertips over the smoothbumpy wall, writing words in the hope that I might remember them come morning and wakefulness. Is this what an opium haze feels like? The thought is etched across the paint by the touchdrag of my finger and then it drifts away, lost in the sleep-slurred mess of my imaginings. My last conscious thought is of a knife, steel glorious and tempting, urging me to seek relief in harm, in cutting myself again.

Morning after is fuzzy, the drug taking its time to clear my system even as I stumble drunkenly. I need to squint in order to place my legs in the holes of my pants, and dressing becomes a chore of epic proportions. I know the words traced upon my bedroom wall by the way my fingers remember them and I sit in front of my computer, furiously typing before they slip away for good. The vision of the knife remains, a temptation I long to resist and yet long to give into. My nails scratch across my arm, digging in along the scars I bear, and I catch myself, surprised and appalled at my subconscious behaviour.

Ativan has its flaws, and being addictive is one of them, so I make it a point to use them sparingly. I prefer meditation or yoga to calm myself as much as possible instead. Insomnia returns when I stop using the Ativan, and I am left fatigued and drained even as I toss and turn, unable to sleep. I lose all sense of who I am, twisted and torn apart by depression and anxiety. Realisation comes slowly, a painful process where I learn that I can no longer do this alone. I need help, surprise, surprise.

I finally make the decision to go see a doctor. The trip is riddled with anxieties and second, third thoughts. The wait gives me fourth and fifth thoughts. Finally I am brought into the examination room. I look at the doctor—his brown hair, brown eyes—and for the first time I talk. I talk about how I can't sleep, can't concentrate, can't breathe, how I'm not myself anymore. Help. Please, help me. And he listens. This is the strangest part. He listens, and it's like my Ativan, dragging away the stress and anxiety as he agrees to help me. Together we work out a plan—not for me to be free of these issues, but a way for me to manage my problems. The relief is so profound I begin to cry, startling myself.

When I leave the doctor's office I smile, relieved and at peace.

Today, I find hope.