NO ONE CAN DO IT FOR YOU…BUT YOU HAVE TO DO IT

I’m lying in a hospital bed–crying, sweating, and nauseous. I am a prisoner of my mind. I had just slit my wrists and overdosed on antidepressants, and I knew that I couldn’t take back what I had just done. My boyfriend and my parents are standing around me, all with different expressions. My mother is standing in the corner as her face hangs in distress, clearly with a million thoughts running through her head. My father is visibly angry–his face is bright red, and I can practically see the steam coming out of his ears. He’s pacing around the tight emergency room space, constantly looking like he wants to say something, but never does. My boyfriend is sitting next to me, holding my sweaty hand, shifting between slight smiles when I look at him, and the furrowed brow of worry when he thinks I’m not looking at him.

The sounds of deep breaths and monitors beeping filled the room. The lights are so bright that I see spots. I glance down at my bandaged wrist and the IV stuck into the inner crease of my elbow.

I let out a deep sigh. “I’m sorry, okay?” I say tearfully with my head as far down as my neck will allow. “I never wanted to hurt any of you, and I know that I should’ve known it would, but I feel like I’ll never get past this. I feel so hopeless.”

“You know we only want what’s best for you, Lil. We know you’re hurting, and it hurts us to see you like this,” my mother says softly. “You have your whole life ahead of you, and I know it sucks right now, but I promise you that it won’t always be like this.”

“How can you be so sure?” I snap back.

There’s a slight pause. The tension is rising, and my thoughts become louder and more convoluted. My skin is glistening from the sweat.

“Lily, nothing we say is going to please you right now. You’re in a dark place, you’re not thinking rationally, and no matter what any of us do or say, it’s going to be the wrong thing. But that doesn’t mean any of us are going to stop trying to help you because we love you, care about you, and need you here with us, okay?” my boyfriend, Will, says as he squeezes my hand.

I lay there as the salt streams down my face. I’m so paralyzed by emotion that I can’t move or speak. Half of my brain was telling me that I didn’t deserve joy, that I deserved pain, and that I was worthless, and those intrusive thoughts had always just been so loud and relentless. Those voices had skewed my perception of reality several times throughout my life. The other half of my brain was telling me that my pain was temporary, that I deserved love and stability, and that it’s not too late to turn my life around. These two antithetical voices in my brain had created a brutal war in my head for as long as I could remember. I don’t know exactly how or when it started, but being here, I was realizing that it had gone on for long enough.

“I can’t keep living like this,” I say as I sob. “I promise I’ll try harder, I’ll take my medication, and I’ll go back to therapy, but please just get me out of this hospital. I can’t do this again. Please.”

My parents look at each other, then look at me.

“How can we know that for sure, Lily? This isn’t the first time you’ve tried to do this, and we know you don’t want to go through this again, but how can we know that this is really going to stop? How can we trust that you’re going to be okay without us watching you all the time?” my dad questions with the first glimpse of sincerity he’d shown me throughout this whole ordeal.

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know what to say that’s going to convince you because I know I haven’t been able to handle this in the past. But please, I need you to get me out of here. I promise this won’t happen again, and I can’t go through this again,” I reply.

“We’ll see what we can do, but you need to be able to prove to these doctors that you’re stable enough to leave,” my mom says.

“I know, I know, I just need to get out of here, please mom,” I plead.

“I know, honey, it’s going to be okay.”

My parents leave my room to go find the doctor.

“Hey, you’re going to be okay. But you need to start taking care of yourself, babe. Nobody can do it for you. We’re all here to support you, but you have to understand how tiring and frustrating it is for us to watch you go through this and not be able to do anything about it because you have to want to get better. And you need to cut yourself some slack sometimes. As much as we want to do it all for you, we can’t,” Will says.

I sniffle and nod in agreement.

“Please promise me you’re going to start taking better care of yourself. You’re going to go back on your meds and start going to therapy, right?”

“Yes, I promise I will. It’s really hard for me to accept help, and you know that, but I can’t keep feeling like this.” And for the first time, I say this genuinely.

A few hours and tests go by, with my breathing becoming more steady each minute. Finally, the doctors allow me to be released from the hospital. I walk to the car with my loved ones surrounding me. I drive home and look out the window as the warm sun seeps into my skin. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and begin to smile.

Zoe Frenchman’s work has been published on Vocal Media, and she has authored a self-published memoir titled “battles on the borderline” and a book of poetry titled “An Erratic Anthology of My Psychology”. Zoe is a strong advocate for mental health, having several mental health struggles herself. She is a songwriter and poet, as well as a content creator on YouTube, maintaining the channel Zoe Rebekah for over eight years, accumulating over 54,000 subscribers and 5.2 million views. Follow her on Twitter @ZoeRebekahF.