My Most Recent Self-harm Experience

I am writing this journal entry the next day (on the 30th). As I think about what happened yesterday, I find it quite challenging to consolidate my mental state with how I usually feel. I was so irrational and off the wall. I couldn't string together any reasonable thoughts. Looking back now, it was pretty frightening.

It took me about four hours to write this, almost as long as the experience itself. I wanted to make sure I got as much detail as possible.

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Monday, August 29, 2022

What a shit day.

I was doing fine for most of the day. At around 3:30, my wife came home from an outing and was very crabby. When I asked her how she was doing, she beaked off that it was just another day of her struggling to find a reason to keep living (she has a diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder). We argued a little bit about some stupid self-esteem stuff, and she went upstairs. That put me in a foul mood.

I got off the chair a little later (30 minutes or so) to move our temporary cardboard doggy gate. As I shifted onto the footstool, it sagged into itself. Thinking nothing of it, I did what I needed to do.

When I went to sit back down, I put my keen on the footstool so I could get into the chair. The top of the footstool collapsed under my weight. I was confused and, thinking back on this (from the next day as I am writing this), that is when the rage started. I flipped the footstool lid over and took the cover off. Its bottom (made of laminated particle board) cracked and spread apart in about six different places.

I started thinking about what I needed to do to fix it, and the more I thought about it, the more the rage grew. Within a few minutes, the anger was out of my control. Looking back, I realize it wasn't actually related to the footstool. That was just the final straw that fueled my mental state.

As the rage swirled inside my head, I realized I was done taking any shit. I was supposed to be on medical leave to get my stress levels back under control, and I had already wasted one and a half months getting nowhere because my real-life stresses seemed to have increased, and I couldn't catch my breath from it all. I felt everyone was ignoring my purpose in taking this break and pushing more shit on me since I was now "on vacation" and not working 9-5.

I was done with my life. I couldn't find any redeeming factors in it. Self-hatred was spinning through my head like a tornado.

After sitting there ruminating, I concluded that I should make a statement so nobody could ignore how I felt. I decided that instead of killing myself, I would stab myself a couple of times in the belly fat. If I was going to stay alive, I didn't feel the need to inconvenience myself too much, so I began planning how to do it. In amongst the planning, a tiny voice in my head was telling me I should talk to my wife or reach out to my therapist. It just wasn't loud or compelling enough, so it was easy for me to ignore it. That tiny voice tried a couple more times with no success.

As I continued planning how to do it, I thought about which knife I should use. It had to be the sharpest I could find. I had "played around" with this idea before. At that time, the knife couldn't pierce my skin. I am overweight, and there was too much give to allow the skin to break. This time I would have to strike much harder and faster. I thought about using a steak knife, thinking smaller was better. I also thought I could try somewhere else on my body that had less give.

As I continued to plan, I started thinking that the less damage I did, the better because I was planning to see the next day. I switched from a steak knife to a paring knife. I argued with myself about how many times I should do it.

I was whipping through these bits of the plan while still caught up in the storm of my negative thought. I thought I might kill myself a few times so that I could check out. If I did that, much less planning would be required, and I wouldn't have to give as much thought to the consequences.

As I was wrapping up and now committed, my daughter came downstairs. She was going to make herself dinner. She is a young adult with a mental disability. Part of her personality is that she loves to chat non-stop. When she finished making her dinner, I told her that this one time, she could eat in her room so long as she cleaned up any potential mess. The last thing I wanted at this point was for her to hang around, making me stew on my plan. She took the opportunity and left.

It took me another 15 minutes or so. I was committed, and I started having brief second thoughts. Each time the monster in me would crush them by saying that if I didn't stick to the plan, I was weak, and my personality would fade away, meaningless to everyone else.

Finally, I got up, went to the kitchen, grabbed one of the pairing knives, went to the bathroom and lifted my shirt (no point ruining a good shirt). As I stared into the mirror, I was getting a bit more nervous, maybe even a touch scared. I stared for a little while more and then just stabbed myself.

The stupid knife didn't go in. It left a tiny red mark despite me going plenty fast and with plenty of force. Immediately I felt like a failure. My nerves and fear evaporated. I jabbed several more times with no success. I checked the tip of the knife, and it was sharp enough, but the tip was a little round. I went back to the kitchen and grabbed the other paring knife. Its tip did come down to a pretty sharp point.

I returned to the bathroom, and a little doubt set in. It was for real now. I decided I only needed one stab wound, and there was no point adding more damage. In that same vein, I cinched up on the blade, so only about an inch or so was exposed from my fist.

I steeled myself for it; no going back. I jabbed the knife into my belly in the same area. Incredibly it pushed my skin into my belly fat just as the first knife had done. I got pretty frustrated at this point and jabbed several times more in and around the same area. The fucking knife wouldn't go in. I started thinking my skin came from a Rhinoceros. I couldn't believe that I couldn't even do this one stupid thing right.

I felt like I had something to prove at this point. I jabbed one more time, increasing the strength I used quite a lot (I'm a pretty big guy with lots of power to spare). It didn't feel any different from the other attempts. I lifted the knife for another shot and saw a thin bloodstream shooting from a tiny hole in my belly. It was like poking a water balloon with a pin.

I was surprised and confused for a few seconds, watching the blood squirting into the sink. I pulled myself together and said, "shit". I put my finger over the hole with a lot of pressure to stop the bleeding, left the bathroom and shouted as loud as possible, "FUCK!!!". Then I paced aimlessly around the kitchen for a couple of minutes. The fight had left me, and I didn't want to put any more effort into stabbing myself.

I had made my statement, but nobody knew about it. I texted my wife, "I think I need your help downstairs. I stabbed myself, and I don't wanna get blood everywhere", then continued my pacing.

She came downstairs, saw the blood in the sink, saw me, and went back upstairs growling, "oh, for christ's sake". I had failed again. I was an inconvenience to everyone. I said to her back, "I'm sorry I'm such an inconvenience". she kept on going. I felt like such a loser.

I heard talking coming from upstairs. My wife was coming back downstairs, and I could tell she had called 911. I returned to pacing around the kitchen, thinking I didn't need an ambulance. It was just a tiny poke hole that would heal in no time. I was grumpy because now I would have to face paramedics - strangers. I was in no mood to entertain people in my house.

My wife was running around the house, performing every task the responder gave her. Confirm your address. Describe how to get there. Put the dog in a room. Unlock the front door. I stayed out of it. I didn't see the urgency at all. Also, I was still pretty grumpy and non-cooperative.

I could hear the sirens in the distance, coming closer. When they arrived, I pulled out a dining room chair and sat in it. I may as well be comfortable and lazy if I wasn't getting my way.

I was surprised that it was a cop that came into the dining room, not a paramedic. He pulled up a chair for himself and started asking questions. To his credit, he was very patient and considerate. I fed snark back to him. He asked what I thought were stupid questions, like why he was here, what I did, and so on. I would have thought it pretty obvious, especially since dispatch would have given him all that info on his way over. I was uncomfortable in his presence, so I made him work for it.

The paramedics showed up a few minutes later. One of them pulled up his own chair and sat down with us. He mumbled to the cop something about being allowed to talk with me. Then I went through it all over again with the new guy. He had a different approach, though. The cop was a younger guy, no older than his early thirties, was my guess. The paramedic was much closer to my age. He just started in like we were old friends, and it worked. I loosened up and gave him the same story but with less attitude. After finishing his questions, he bandaged me up while we cracked a few jokes. They were stupid jokes, to be sure. We were waiting for the other paramedic to get all the personal details, like my list of medications, etc., before we could go.

I felt pretty claustrophobic in the back of the ambulance, but I didn't let on. Ever since the paramedics showed up, I had brought up my "be pleasant to others because it is not there fault you are having a bad day" attitude. I didn't want to, but that is how my parents raised me.

We walked into the hospital through the back door, sat down at some station in the hall and gabbed some more. It was getting more and more difficult for me to make meaningful sentences. Weird ideas would pop into my head, twisting whatever I was trying to say with the occasional random word thrown in. I had lost my ability to focus and felt a bit off balance.

A guy from the hospital came over and sat down at the computer in our station. The paramedic opened his laptop to recite all of his notes, which the guy then typed into the computer. All I could think about was how stupid they all were. Why would they pass the information like that instead of transferring it directly by the computers? It didn't take them long to go over it, but it was a fair bit of time afterwards before we went on to the next stage.

I was shown to the general ER waiting room and told the triage nurse would eventually call me. "Great move", I thought. "Put the psycho who cuts in with the general public". Never mind that I was a failure when it came to cutting.

I texted my wife to tell her where I was and what was happening. We had a long discussion. I was beaking off about what a worthless loser I was and all the other usual self-hate. We both cried while I was waiting. I did my best to hide my tears, and thankfully I had to wear a mask so nobody could see how badly my nose was running.

What seemed like a long time later, the nurse finally called me. Instead of being taken to the triage room, she put me into an empty room with a few regular chairs and one of those bed chairs. When the nurse left, I was satisfied that I would finally get some privacy and time alone, away from all the excess people surrounding me. I shut the door, and within ten seconds, the nurse returned, telling me the door had to remain open. She swung the door wide open and left again. Shit. I was worse off because instead of hiding amongst a bunch of people, now everyone who walked by the door would immediately stare in, silently judging me.

I sat there stewing for almost a full hour. My wife and I resumed our conversation for a while, but she got frustrated and couldn't handle my negativity anymore. I tried to read a book to distract myself. That helped a bit, but I would still notice all the people within view of the door staring at me. It drove me nuts. I took my wife's suggestion and started typing a text message to my therapist. I had gotten about three words into it when a lady came in, shut the door and sat down on the opposite side of the room.

The lady was from the Community Response Team. They are supposed to offer support for those in emotional distress, so idiots like me. I am usually a pretty laid-back person, and since I was trying not to make anyone else suffer from my bad mood, that is how I approached my conversation with her. I'm sure she was a nice enough lady, and I could tell she was trying, but I struggled to talk to her. She kept offering suggestions like talking to someone online or seeing someone else. I had already told her at the start that this chat would be awkward because she didn't know anything about me and that it took years to build up the relationship and trust I had with my therapist. She got frustrated, and I got a little belligerent. I didn't mean to, but my mouth was spewing the first thing that came to mind. When I would correct what I was trying to say, it came out some other stuff that didn't quite make sense. She and I were both frustrated, and eventually, she said she would let the ER doctor know she was done so he could come in to check the wound. She left, shutting the door behind her.

Now that I finally had some perceived privacy, I tried reading a bit more since I expected a long wait ahead of me. I remembered I had started a text to my therapist, so I resumed that message.

I was mostly done and needed a couple of minutes before I could send it off when the ER doctor showed up. Surprisingly, the CRT lady came with him. She didn't say much, but as the doctor gave me the spiel for the fifth time of my evening, I would answer, and she gave a slight smile when I sometimes indicated that we had also talked about it. After he chatted with me, he quickly checked under my bandage, said it looked pretty minor and that someone would come in soon to clean it up and give me a tetanus shot.

Alone again, and the door was closed once again. They must have gotten the clue that I was no threat to myself or anyone else. The nurse only took about fifteen minutes to get to my room. I thought they might want to get rid of me so they could free up the room. He asked me to remove the field bandage, after which he scrubbed off the dried blood and cleaned up the almost non-existent wound site. He put on a small butterfly bandage and sent me on the way. I jokingly asked for my lollypop and texted my wife to please pick me up.

It took about ten minutes to get home. We got there around nine o'clock — what a waste of the day. When I got out of bed late this morning, my head was finally clear, and mentally I felt back to normal.