now my name is on the line

Total eclipse of August 18, 1868. Le soleil. 1875.

Last Frontier Village and Silver Slipper, December 1958

As I am sure everybody knows at this point, about a month ago I broke up with my partner, and deleted the discord server that had served as my primary social hub for nearly two years because I was slipping into an extremely paranoid state where I believed everybody in there was mad at me. Deleting the server is just one example of the myriad of ways in which I have hurt those who become close to me. The discord server has essentially been remade without me, which people have the right to do, seeing as it was also a place of connection for them and it was unfair of me to destroy it in a fit of rage, but there is a part of me that feels a huge part of my life is gone and will never come back. 

There was some drama surrounding me, and I’m sure that there are still a few people who are talking about me behind my back, but whatever people have said about me the reality of the situation is worse. My mental health has been declining and at the very least now a decently sized group of perfectly innocent people do not have to bear the burden of my own issues – most of all my partner, Evan. If I can think of one good thing I ever did, it was introduce Evan to somebody who they now consider to be a sibling, and their found family type of relationship seems to be very good for them. 

Everybody in the friend group wanted me to get help. They cared about me. They knew I was struggling and that I didn’t mean any harm and they forgave so many transgressions that I can only be surprised that they put up with me for so long in the first place. Even the night before I ruined everything, they said that they wouldn’t abandon me. I could have just logged off. I was scared, I had nobody to talk to, when I went to my father he just started yelling at me, I felt like there was nobody there for me that night. It’s been almost an entire month since this happened. None of this really matters now. These people are all gone from my life, and even if I do get help and become a better friend, they’re never going to be my friends again. The sooner I accept that and move on, the better I will be. 

There have been a few people who have reached out to apologize for the things they said about me, and some have even talked about reinstating friendship under certain conditions. One person who I will keep anonymous told me last Saturday night that they wanted me to go to the hospital to seek immediate treatment, and they would cut off all contact with me if I didn’t. I told him that I wanted to get help but I also wanted to do it working in conjunction with my therapist and psychiatrist and when I am back in my hometown. To him, that meant I didn’t want to seek help at all. I went to the hospital the next evening, after taking pills (not nearly enough to overdose on) and cutting my wrist (not nearly enough to do damage). I spent most of the day in the hospital, and all that resulted from that was getting some stuff sorted out with one of my prescriptions. Since I was deemed not to be suicidal (which I genuinely wasn’t), I was released after I had been seen by the psychiatrist. I told them that when I return to my hometown, I would seek out more long-term treatment, but I was given nothing resembling a formal release plan. 

None of this really matters. I turn 26 in less than two weeks. The entire group of people who I had hoped to celebrate my birthday with do not want to be in my life anymore, and they are perfectly justified in doing so. I truly feel helpless at the moment. Individual people have reached out to me, and I appreciate every single one of them, but it’s just not the same as having a group of people to communicate with. I have never been very good at one on one communication and haven’t had many in person friendships during my adult life – I turned 20 during June of 2020, with restrictions still in place, and I was pretty socially awkward even before that. Whatever mythical opportunity I had to make friends, I’ve squandered it. I’ve wasted so much time being afraid of people, starving myself, hurting myself, hiding myself, I’ve never been able to make friends in person. And it should be plainly obvious why. 

I feel truly hopeless. Most days I have periods of time where I feel like this, and the closer my birthday comes, the stronger the feeling is. I’m almost out of clonazepam – I literally only have half a tablet left – and because of some bureaucratic shenanigans I can’t even get the refill that the pharmacy says I’m supposed to be able to get. I already endured a five day withdrawal period which was one of the most jarring experiences of my life. If I had more, I would take enough to knock me out and hope that I can just sleep away the feeling. I don’t want to die. Death terrifies me. But I also don’t feel like I have any hope for the future. I am almost 26 years old and am totally socially stunted, still living with my parents, barely know how to be a person, no in person friends to speak of, and every close online friendship I develop crumbles into dust sooner or later. Even having somebody fall in love with me during a very dark period of my life couldn’t save me, and if that’s not enough, I hurt them a great deal too. So I suppose I deserve to feel this way.

But I also think that it should be possible for me to get help. But what does help even look like? I have a therapist. I’m seeing her on Thursday of next week, and hopefully seeing my psychiatrist at the same time. I’ve been spending half of my life on various antidepressant medications that haven’t worked and for the past year or so have been trying to do ketamine assisted psychotherapy, but waiting lists and such mean I’m not sure when I can get that help. And once I do get it, I don’t know how I’m going to afford it. 

The last time I went to the hospital, nothing meaningfully changed. On the contrary, it was a rather traumatic experience, texting a helpline, telling them how scared I was, and then having the cops show up at my house at 3 in the morning and getting rushed to the hospital where I was subsequently put into a room with nothing except for a mattress on the floor after having all my belongings taken from me. At one point, I lifted up my shirt for some reason or another, and noticed that there was a cotton swab on my arm, which meant that bloodwork had been taken. I do not recall having had bloodwork taken.