TRIGGER WARNING: GRAPHIC MENTION OF SELF HARM
I had caught enough times to land myself back on 1 to 1. I was about to head to a treatment team meeting deciding if my single room was going to be taken from me. I was devastated. I couldn't believe I'd let myself get this low. I sat outside the meeting room with Lily a few feet away watching like a hawk. "I'm nervous," I tell her.
"Why?" she asked me. I shifted in my seat anxiously and looked away.
"I know I've been messing up a lot lately but I don't want my privacy stripped from me. I feel like it'll only make things worse."
"Your single room won't be given to anyone."
"I guess that's a relief." Then the door opened and Mali motioned for me to come inside. I gave Lily one more glance and she gave me a thumbs up. I turned away and walked inside. The room had all the doctors and therapists on my case sitting in a semi-circle with an empty chair at the head. I sat down in the chair and tried not to give off how anxious I actually was. "Hello," I said under my breath. Dr.Peters looked up at me and smiled.
"How are you today, Margo?" he asks.
"I'm o- actually I'm really anxious. This whole room thing has got me in my head. I really want to know." He nodded and wrote something down.
"For the past month Margo you've been experiencing incident after incident, so we've decided for now that you need to at least be in a double room." Dr.Peters watched me, waiting for my response.
"I..um...ok."
"How are you now, Margo?" Mali asks me.
"I'll be honest, I'm kind of bummed but I guess I expected this. It's my fault." I look down at my hands.
"Take this as a learning experience," says Peters, "you now know the consequences of your actions and in the future, you can take that into account when you're thinking about hurting yourself."
"It's not that easy," I mumbled.
"What was that?" He asked me. I spoke up.
"It's not as simple as that. I can't just go 'oh I'll lose my single room!' then suddenly I'm cured."
"I'm not expecting that."
"Ok. Can I go now? I need to pack up my room and move into a new one now." Everyone in the room looked at each other. Peters nodded at Mali and she stood up and opened the door for me. "Thanks." As I'm walking out Mali says something to me.
"I'll be talking to you later for a one on one session."She says, I said okay under my breathe and left the room. I waited until the door was shut then I let the tears flow. Lily walked over to me.
"You lost your room?"
"I did," I said through tears, "but I'm not even upset about that really. I'm more upset that I can't keep myself together ever." I took a deep breath and attempted to compose myself. I met Lily's eyes. "I'm tired of this. I hate that I'm here. I knew I'd end up here eventually but I never actually believed that it would happen and look at me now, here I am." Lily gave me a concerned smile and nodded, she didn't know what to say. Shit, I wouldn't know what to say to me either. "Ok, Lily, let's go get my shit together." I started walking and she quickly followed behind.
***
I sat on my desk and looked at my nearly bare room. Decorations still hung on the walls, some shirts stayed in the closet, there were things scattered here and there. I took a deep breath and grabbed the last of my shirts I had decided to take with me and left my room. As I set the last of my stuff down I turned to Lily, "Who am I rooming with?"
"She's new to the unit, I don't think you two have met yet." Just as Lily finished my roommate walked in.
"Abigail!" I shouted. Abigail dropped her book and ran over to hug me. "You finally made it here!"
"Yeah," she says, "not too thrilled but it's better than that awful hospital room. What are you doing here?"
"I got moved into a double room temporarily because I'm a safety hazard basically."
"Well be glad you're rooming with me and not someone you hate or something. I promise I'm a good roommate." She walked back over to her book and picked it up. She smiled at me and winked, "We're going to get through this together don't worry." Then she walked out, clutching her book with both hands. I plopped down on my bed on top of all my clothes and groaned.
"Lily, what am I going to do?" No response. "Lily?" Still nothing. Finally I sat up and realized she wasn't in the room with me. I walked out and found her sitting at a table alone. "Aren't you supposed to be stalking me?"
"Oh you're only on one to one 6pm-6am now." I looked at her, startled.
"Um, since when?"
"Since after your meeting, they didn't tell you?"
"No..." I started to fidget anxiously. I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans. "Thanks for telling me." I then walked off and went back into my room to put some things away.
A few hours later I was going through my clothes I came across some of the razors I had stolen earlier that month. I stopped in my tracks. I didn't expect to see them, I thought staff had gotten rid of all of them. I shoved them in with my socks and left my room. It's now or never, I thought to myself. I walked around the unit until I saw Abigail, she was deep into a book. Good, I have time. I walked up to Mia and asked if I could have some towels for a shower. She grabbed me some, I thanked her and walked off. I made a beeline to my room and shut the door behind me. I stood in front of my sock drawer for a good 10 minutes before opening it. Eventually I grabbed a razor and retreated to the bathroom. I shut the door behind me and turned the shower on. I set all the towels on the ground and sat on them. I stretched out my left leg and started looking around to see where I could do the most damage. For a second I doubted what I was doing and almost left the bathroom. I immediately shook that off and continued in my self destruction. I decided in my lower thigh/ above knee area. I pressed down, swipe, I gasped. I went deeper than I expected to, but nevertheless I continued. The entire time I held my breath, afraid that if I left it out it might be a scream. Swipe. Blood started squirting out of my leg. "Fuck. Shit. What the fuck?" I dropped the razor and it fell into the toilet. "Shit." I said under my breath. I took one of the towels and applied pressure to my leg. The bleeding was really heavy and soon the entire towel was soaked. "Oh no, fuck." I tried to stand up and I immediately clutched the counter to keep from passing out. I crumbled down onto the floor and just kept cursing to myself while tears flowed from my eyes. Then a knock on the door.
"Hey, Margo are you in there?" It was Abigail. I tried to answer but nothing really came out. She couldn't come in though because I locked the door. Wait. No. I didn't. "Margo?" She opened the door and froze when she saw me on the ground. "Margo! Oh god, Margo, are you okay?"
"Yeah...yeah I'm fine."
"Apply pressure, I'm going to get help."
"No don't, I don't really feel that well."
"What do you feel like?"
"Like I'm going to pass out." My head felt heavy and the world began to spin.
"Please don't hate me for this."
"For what?"
"For this," she turned her head towards the door, "SOMEBODY HELP. SOMEBODY HELP IN HERE!" Then I blacked out.
***
I woke up in what looked like a hospital room, oh wait it was a hospital room. I was in a gown. "Look who's awake." I looked towards the noise and saw Briar sitting next to me once again. I sat up slightly and noticed an IV in my arm. "You lost a lot of blood. You had to get a transfusion, now you're getting fluids."
"Oh," was all I could say.
"Margo you cut an artery in your leg. If Abigail wouldn't have found you you could have bled out. Is that what you wanted?"
"No it's-"
"Were you trying to die, Margo?"
"No I wasn-"
"Then why do you keep doing this to yourself?" I didn't answer her because, well I didn't have one.