Thanks everyone. *Blush* A little later and a little less than I thought it would be, but your update. *Bows*
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The end of term was growing closer and I was completely overwhelmed. I had lost my footing and slid straight back down into self harm. I had masses of essays to write and no idea what they were about as I couldn’t concentrate on the reading for them. I hated the whole situation and didn’t know how to deal with it. I was still working but the threat of a breakdown grew stronger with every shift.
It was a Thursday evening and the fourth night in a row that found me clutching an increasingly stained towel to my arm. On a rational level I knew it needed stitches, as the others had, but I knew that I would still not set foot in A&E again. I didn’t bother cleaning myself up, I just waited for the bleeding to stop and went to bed. I couldn’t gauge how deep the wounds were on my lower arm any more, as the old scar tissue prevented them from gaping as much as they should. I was utterly exhausted and had no sense of care for myself. I had an expected fitful sleep and woke up the next day un-rested.
I dragged my sluggish brain through my last drama class of the semester and managed to retain almost none of the information relevant to the set essay. I spent my afternoon watching DVDs and headed to work in the evening. I felt my arm screaming at me in protest but ignored it, willing the 3hrs to go quickly. My co-workers never noticed when I wasn’t doing well and I was thankful – it meant I never had to try and explain myself. In fact, no one ever said a thing to me. Whether no one noticed or just didn’t care, I don’t know. I didn’t care.
Deadlines were on the 14th December but my dad was driving to pick me up on the 9th for the Christmas holidays. It was Saturday the 3rd, my dad’s birthday and I’d phoned him to wish him a happy birthday and lied through my silent tears as he asked how I was. We hung up and I sat back down in front of my laptop, willing myself to write something. I had taken the weekend off work, which meant I didn’t have to go back until the end of January as I would be working in the restaurant back home. I had taken it off to get on with my university work, but I’d managed to write the title and had gotten no further. I felt useless and stupid; I didn’t really understand the essay subjects or reading and I had no idea where to start. Mercifully I had managed to do some of my writing assignments but I still had a lot to do. I couldn’t think and I couldn’t focus. Instinctively I reached for a blade.
I succumbed to tears of frustration afterwards. I had no one to turn to, to talk to. My parents would be disappointed if they knew how badly I was doing and how badly I had messed up. I had the occasional brief talk with Emma, but I hated the thought of sharing my misery with other people in case it was infectious. I chose, once again, to bury my head in the sand. I cleaned up, ignored the papers strewn across my desk begging me to work and switched on the latest DVD I had bought. I had started university with 7 DVDs and by that Christmas I had all the seasons of House and Scrubs available and another 60 or so films. I always had a brief feeling of happiness whenever they arrived in the mail. I tried to fill my feeling of emptiness with everything – food, alcohol, shopping, cutting – with no results. I honestly have no words to describe the depth of misery I was in.
The last week I had to do work in was the shortest of the whole semester. I managed to write sporadically, though in no great quantity and then it was Friday night. My dad was arriving the next day at 3 to take me home and I had massive amounts to do. I went out and bought copious amounts of coke in the hope that the sugar and caffeine would help with the all-nighter I had to pull. Somehow I miraculously managed to get it done and had it printed and handed in to the resource centre at midday. I had done no research and had pulled random segments out of very few books to back up my reasoning and prayed that it would be enough. Instead of the relief I thought I would feel after getting it all done, I just felt empty. I packed up my stuff for the 6 weeks I would be at home and wondered if I would actually come back in January. I hated it so much that I never wanted to be in the city again, let alone at university. The city was too busy, and in my eyes, miserable. University was a pit of hate and I felt incredibly isolated and lonely. I wasn’t at all sure if I wanted to carry on with it.
Back home it was incredibly easy to slip back into bad habits. I went back to full time work at Pizza Hut and started my visits to the walk in centre again. My sleeping habits hadn’t improved, so I was working 10hr shifts on as little as 2hrs sleep. My parents either didn’t notice, or chose to say nothing and I was walking around like a zombie. Whilst I was at work, I put on my smiles, served my customers well and helped out and joked with my co-workers. The world was blissfully unaware that I was falling apart.
A few days before Christmas I was back in the walk in centre at around 3am; I had damaged muscle again and was half way through being stitched when a psych walked in. I had seen him before and he told me he had seen my name and came by even though I had declined the offer to talk to someone. He commented that it seemed to be getting worse, and then asked if I would talk to him. I agreed and after the stitches were done I was led into a non-treatment room.
‘So, Max, we haven’t seen you for a while.’
‘Yeah, I started university in September.’
‘Oh, that’s good. How’s everything going?’
I spent the next half hour detailing my time at university. I explained how I hated the course and felt isolated. I very nearly ended up in tears as I explained how I was falling apart and how no one seemed to want to help me. He just sat and listened, I don’t recall if he made any notes, though I don’t think he did. I poured my heart out to him and went silent when I ran out of things to say.
‘Max, do you think we can give you a care pack?’
‘It’s called a care pack. It has gauze, a dressing and some steri-strips in it.’
‘Hopefully it’ll mean you don’t have to come here so much.’
I had needed internal and external stitches and he wanted to send me home with steri-strips. I nodded dumbly and he went and got me one. I stood up and took it and went to leave.
‘I’m so glad you’re at university. Good for you.’
I made it back to my mum’s car before I started crying. I felt irreparably broken and worthless. I hated going to the walk in centre and that visit had compounded my belief that I was wasting their time and resources. I had never felt so ignored. After all I had said; how university made me suicidal and that I wasn’t coping. He was glad I had gone. Had he really not listened or was he just glad that I was no longer a problem for my home town? I don’t remember getting home but that night I slept soundly, dreaming that I would never wake up.
I made it through Christmas and thankfully enjoyed the festivities with my family. The good feeling from that lasted into the New Year and I successfully staved off urges and just focused on work. I may not have always enjoyed work but I revelled in the knowledge that I was earning money and paying my own way as much as I could. I loved the social aspect at the restaurant in my home town – I spent time with a few of the people I worked with outside of work and regularly went out with them. All too quickly the end of January approached and I had to decide whether or not I was going to go back. It would mean leaving my family and a Pizza Hut I enjoyed working at to go to a place that seemed to promise only more misery.
I had a short discussion with my parents about it and decided to give it another go. In their eyes I was a bit homesick but I would get over it. In reality, well, that’s been said and I didn’t want to disappoint them. My dad dropped me back a couple of days before the new semester started and once again I was fighting tears. I had never been one to cry, but I had begun to feel like a leaky faucet. He seemed oblivious and waved to me as he drove off. I reluctantly went back to my room to unpack. It wasn’t until later that evening that I bumped into anyone. I’d gone to the kitchen to get a drink and Emma and the others walked in. We compared Christmas notes and work that we had to do for the new semester. They commented that they weren’t sure if I had been going to go back. I laughed it off and said it had just been a rough couple of months, all the time wishing I were still at home.
I admit to being pessimistic about how the new semester would pan out, but it was soon better than I thought it would be.
I started socialising with a few of the friends I had made in my drama classes and found it more fulfilling than time spent with Emma and the others. I was even more delighted when, after I had a moan about having nowhere to live the next year, one of them was in the same situation. Lucy explained that her ‘friends’ had also bailed on her and asked if we could look together. I was relieved, grateful and a little hopeful.