Crossing the Line by DeeprBlue

Since my last photo post…I have very little to say. I’m in a place that I have never been in before.
Sure, I’ve come close, very close to being _{in that place} but never have I actually crossed that line and “made it there”.

I want to apologize….to anyone left on here that has followed anything I’ve posted.
I want to apologize for failing.
I want to apologize that, despite all plan A, B, & C’s…I failed and hence what was mean to be a photo left for memory’s sake turned out to be something I am now deeply embarrassed about but not for the reasons some might think.
I’m deeply ashamed, embarrassed and more than anything else there brews within me a silent but controlling torrent of deep rage that i failed.

So what I’m going to say next may be…difficult or even unreadable for some and for that I again…apologize…but I’ve been out of the hospital now for a week after being in for 3 weeks starting Feb. 24th. I’ve not had anything to say to anyone, with one exception, on one occasion and I cannot bring myself to burden anyone’s life with my …malady.

After I posted that “Fade To Black” photo; one I took about a month or two ago, on that very night, I broke open every vein I could find on my wrists and made quite certain, repeatedly, that I did the job correctly.
Then I swallowed 2 full bottles of some very potent medications.

I soaked my wrists on hot water but couldn’t risk laying in the tub as I knew I could easily be found and rescued before I died.

This took place around 9pm and I was finished a few hours later. I must say that suicide by wrist cutting isn’t easy. I made a horrible mess trying to make sure I would be thoroughly successful.
Then to cover any other possible errors I swallowed all the pills.

There was a line. There is this line that is more difficult to cross then I ever thought possible but once I crossed it….there was absolutely no turning back and I was completely done with the pain.
Right or wrong, it was what it was.

It was a complete fluke that the next day I was found.

I only have flashes of memory of that moment in time other than a screaming rage that I was alive.
I remember the ER doctor telling me if 15….morwe minutes….had passed I would have been successful.

That….haunts me. Every day.
15 minutes more. Fifteen Hundred seconds.

23 stitches and 3 weeks of hospitalization later I asked every doctor I could ask….every nurse…every chaplain….The Question: "How do I get back from _{that place}?

I have no clue as to how to _not be There and to be back on the other side where a person typically lives from day to day; having a desire to live or a desire to fight to live.

That scares me. My intellect has turned into a very small voice that tells me I need to back on the side of the “living” but I have no tools….hence I feel very stuck in this very eerie sort of place.
It’s almost like….I DID die…..and was brought back. Perhaps I did….perhaps I was bagged in the ER…I don’t know. I remember nothing. I DO remember being told later I was completely catatonic.

That’s all they told me other than when they….~brought me back~ (?) that I was in such a rage that I was alive that I needed restraints.

I remember walking around during those weeks in the hospital feeling like I wasn’t really there…..that I was watching myself from somewhere else.
I was numb and cooperative and deeply withdrawn.

It was 10 days before I spoke any substantial word/s at all and eventually it started feeling like a very safe….warm….supportive…social environment where ones every need was attended to whatever that may be on whatever level….

Eventually I began to realize that it was a “false world” like being in a womb of safety.
The aloneness …the severe isolationism I was living in before I did what I did began to bring some level of healing….but I knew it was only a matter of time before I was released and I worried about….what I would be once I was returned back to the real world.
I asked….I tried to get an answer to the Big Question: HOW do get back to the other side of that placer I crossed over to……it’s really a sort of place of a near literal “no return”.

Can anyone understand this?

Although meant to be a 3-4 day stay to level a person out, I was the 3 weeker.

On my way out the door I was told by several nurses that all I ever had to do was come right back to the ER and I would be re-admitted ANY time and my insurance would cover it.

Yes. I want to go back.
That world is safe.
People liked me there. I mean people really like me. I was looked up to, looked after, and even began a small yoga class with some other patients.

_Val…..everyone knew _Val
Was it b/c I had so little to say? So very little. Maybe I had something that others liked and wanted to be around and I often found myself nurturing many others and being the sort of mama figure on the unit as so many came and went and I was always the one that was always there.

Naturally it brought back memories of when I did this very thing for a living for so long. It felt a bit off….but nothing….really mattered, not ultimately.

Now I sit waiting….back in my motor home again….every day….when I’ll ever get a call from the services that are supposed to be keeping me afloat so to speak. It’s been 2 weeks and nothing. I was supposed to be go straight back in to the 6 week, 2 days a week, day program but that all was placed in the hands of the governmental agencies assigned to the poor. Need I say more…? Nothing has come thru….no calls…no putting me on their …..Waiting List….for the Day Program and no phone calls as promised….just nothing.

It was a most critical next step for me and it made feel a bit safer ….safer in what way?
I think it made feel safer that I might be able to keep that connection just enough to make some progress in finding a way back.
I cannot find it. I cannot find the life inside of me where so much death occupies me now.
Does that make sense?

So, well….this is my first writing or communication (other than with one Redbubbler friend here who lives thousands of miles away, and I cannot ever bring myself to burden this person again with my inability to cope). My gratitude is profound however.

I have only really had you guys as far as communication goes and it is so hard for me to type due to my brain injury and now…..the damage added to that due to the massive overdose. It was much too late for stomach pumping.

If this is looked upon as grotesque or morbid I am humbly apologetic.

I’m alone in the purest form aloneness takes.

I’m painfully numb, and I see myself slowly falling back to the night of Feb 23rd, 2009.

Where _nothing could have possibly stopped me or changed my mind.
I know that….it could only take a small thing….but I’m already _there.

I never found my way out of that Place. Now all it will take is a catalyst….it could be anything….or a repetition of shut doors that were supposed to have my name on them to keep me safe…to get me the help I needed once I was discharged.
It could be just waking up one night from this new type of sleep I have now. Just a thought….just a sense of finality in efforts….or a growing-ness into the dense and dark reality that is my world….
My wrists are just horrifying now and I don’t think I’m functioning cognitively as well I had fought so hard to regain prior to this.

I used to beleive…..and I won’t deny it…I still have this belief. It may sound ….hmm…like magical thinking or whatever but ever since I was a child I always KNEW that I was meant to be in a foreign country making a difference with some charity group or whatever it took….to just get there and do what I so deeply desire to do….help those lives. Make a difference in this world. Take photos of what matters…..somehow reach the world through those photos….almost like Ron Fricke did in some of his scenes in Baraka.

Anyway….it still calls me. But It’s likely too late for me.

I just want you to know how sorry I am that I posted that and then I failed.
I failed a “full proof” plan to end my life here. I made it as absolutely full proof as I possibly could….crossing all “T’s” and dotting all “i’s” before I began the ending of my existence here.

I don’t know what else to say. If I try to say goodbye to you , my kindest of supporters, and fail again, I could never, ever “face” you again….but if I didn’t say goodbye it would be wrong…..

I respect and love you all so much. This is such a beautiful place but I fail to keep up due to confusion, brain misfires, etc….and that has made me fade away from you all as well and as hard as I’ve tried, it’s just seems impossible for me to keep up with everything in order to be an ACTIVE member.
I try and try but then I look up at the clock and hours have passed and I’ve not so much as made a dent on returning comments or visiting your works.
I am so sorry. You don’t know how bad I ’ve wanted to be more involved but I keep failing.
All My Love and Respect,
Valerie/DeeprBlue

“Apology is a lovely perfume; it can transform the clumsiest moment into a gracious gift.” ~Margaret Lee Runbeck