College

College, the best years of your life, or so I have been told.

Going off to college I hoped that things would be different, that I could get past the depression and everything all on my own, however, it obviously didnt work out that way. First semester of school I was doing well, I wasnt happy, but I wasnt harming myself so things were fine for the time being. I was going through the motions, hanging out with the friends I had made, making sure to not let the fake smile slip, crying myself to sleep most nights, I wished I were dead, but I kept going anyways.

I waited till after Christmas break to tell my parents about everything that was going on, in an email, as far away as possible. I was so ashamed, so upset. Our floor had a spare room and I locked myself in it that night and sobbed like I had never sobbed before, I was a failure, I ruin peoples lives. My parents wanted to come get me that night, but I knew that wasnt what I wanted, I didnt want to let myself give up on school, I had to prove to myself that I could do it, even through the inner battles I was struggling with. My parents let me stay in school when I promised to see the campus counselor. I saw her every week for the rest of the year.

After I came home for spring break and they started me on my first anti depressant, it had been nine straight months without self harming. It took one week on those meds to start cutting again. I remember standing in the hallway after I had cut myself again for the first time and just feeling pure relief. I looked at my friend who was going through the same battle and just smiled. Needless to say, she knew what I had done.

While everyone was going out to party and having the time of their lives, I was spending most my time doing homework and spending time in the bathroom, the only privacy I had to hurt myself. I would sit and break apart razors. It was a complete need, I started building up the amount of razors I had, x-acto knives from my art class, scalpels from biology, scissors, anything. I had to make sure I had something at all times, cutting every chance I had.

I started to give my roomate my blades, I knew I wasnt able to get rid of them myself. I even had to "check out" my scissors and x-acto blades from her when I needed them for school work. That probably should have made me feel worse, more pathetic, but really it helped. It was nice to have someone to hold me accountable, someone who I could talk to about it when I wanted to do it.

I know it is stupid, but if you are going through this type of thing you really arent alone. But at the same time, you cant get through it alone either. Dont allow it to take over your life, talk to someone, its so hard, beyond hard, but after you do you will feel better about it.

None of you are alone, if you have no one, you have me. Dont let your college years be the worst years, make them the best they can be.

Fear.

There arent many people who have been through all of this with me, from the very beginning, but one person that has is my best friend Angeleah Tena. When I decided to do this blog I knew I wanted to tell my story, but I also knew I wanted to get the perspective of people on the outside looking in, people who know me, who have seen all of the stuff I write about first hand. So I asked some people if theyd write an entry for me, on anything they wanted really, and Angeleah agreed.

July 17, 2011.

July 17.
Really, it began the day before.
My best friend and I decided to go to Seattle that day, just to bum around, visit Pike Place, eat some cheese curds... I had almost forgotten that I had plans that night to meet my mom for a show... Long story short, my mom was upset with me that night, and Sara felt like it was her fault. She was rather upset, but seemed fine when we said goodnight.

July 17.
Seemingly normal day. I get up, get dressed, not much going on. I have work at three. I'm texting Sara back and forth, nothing too serious. ...And yet, she still seems upset about the night before. I tell her it's really not a big deal, but it's her next response that changes my life.

She tells me it doesn't matter either way. "I'm done. I will always love you, but I can't do this anymore. I'm going to kill myself. Goodbye."

My heart drops, my mind races, I can't breathe. I have to stop her, I can't let this happen. But she's at work. Only a few miles away, but she might as well be across the country for all I can do. I have to be at work in an hour, she doesn't get off for another three hours. But I HAVE to do something. I try to just keep her talking. I know this isn't really something I'm equipped to handle alone. I call our youth pastor's wife, Megan. She counsels me that I have to realize that I ultimately don't have control over Sara's actions. ...It was an impossible idea to grasp.

July 17.
No words will EVER be adequate to describe what I was feeling. It was, without a doubt, the scariest day of my entire life. I've never quite been able to articulate those feelings, not even to Sara.

July 17.
I finally convince her to come meet me at work after she gets off. Megan plans to meet us there shortly afterward. I am so scared. Terrified actually. No matter what she agrees to, I have no guarantee that Sara will do what I ask. No matter how much I beg her not to leave me, plead, threaten, she could change her mind and I'd never see her again. It would be over.

I'm not sure I fully appreciated her before that day. She'd been with me through so much. Had stayed by my side through all the shit I had gone through in the last few years, been strong for me despite how much she was struggling. She was my confidante, my partner in crime, my best friend. I could not lose her.
...Well, you know the next part if you've read Sara's story of that day. That first night was the hardest for me. She had assured me she was not mad, but I couldn't help but question if I could've done something differently, something better...

Fast forward three weeks.
After Sara left Fairfax hospital, she gave me a letter she had written me during that time. The progress she felt she had made, her thoughts, the friends she had made. Those were a rough three weeks for me, only getting to visit her once, so I was glad to have a look into her experiences. There were two things that really stood out to me.
1. She assured me once and for all that she was not angry with me, never had been. She was just angry with the situation. It was a relief.
2. At the beginning, she said that one of her goals by the time she was released was to be able to thank me. . And in the end she did.

Sara thanked me. For not giving up on her, for standing by her when things got tough, for doing what I had to do even if it meant she never spoke to me again...

But most of all...even though I've never felt like I deserved it, Sara thanked me for saving her life.

In the Beginning

Some wonder how it all starts, how you turn to cutting as an out. Well I am not not going to pretend I know, because honestly I dont, I dont know how it started, I just know that it happened, no thought just an action. I wouldnt say there was a specific cause either, but I can tell you what i was dealing with when it all started.
I had been depressed for a long while before that first cut and I hadnt been hanging out with the best of friends and the use of drugs and alcohol by others made me extremly anxious. I felt a responsibility to keep them safe and I would not let myself walk away because if I did something could happen and it would be my fault. We had a lot of fun together, but at the same time I knew that that was not the life I wanted to be living, it wasnt healthy for them or I. Nonetheless, I stuck around for years, I felt like they were really my only friends. So every weekend we would be out causing trouble and all I could think was that I had to keep them safe, alive, out of trouble.

Self harm never even occured to me. There was one night that was kind of a limit for me, I could take no more. I recall that I had left them so upset that night and they had no clue anything was even wrong with me. It was late when I got home that night, my whole family asleep, and I went to the kitchen and grabbed scissors from the drawer. I have no idea why I did because I truly never thought of self harm as an option and never desired to do so, however, I spent that night cutting myself over and over until it stung too much to keep going.

I was so confused after that, why I had done it, why did it feel right, why was I so broken. It took a couple weeks before I did it again, but after that I didnt seem to care, I just needed more.

Your Thought

So here we are, we have pretty much gotten down to the nitty gritty. Since I am not only writing this blog for myself, but for you readers out there, however many of you there actually are, I'd love to hear from you. As a whole I try to get all the information to you as best I can in words, but Im sure some things are unclear or hard to understand. Your thoughts are important to me, any questions you want answered are important to me, you the reader are important to me. So let me hear from you, send a comment, send an email, say whatever you would like, this post is dedicate you, even if youre reading "just a thought" for the first time.

A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open. -Francis Bacon


Great things are only possible with outrageous requests. -Thea Alexander

Psych!

Walk in, large metal doors close behind you, there is no getting out now. You walk down a overly bright hallway, open doorways along the way, and are seated in a lone chair right in front of this window that held the nurses. You sit there about fifteen minutes as a bunch of patience walk past you and stare as though youre new meat, then youre taken to this dark, stuffy room to sign and fill out a bunch papers, like what kind of things do they need to do if you have a meltdown. You then go meet the patients in the common room right before they all have to head to bed. You sit there, alone, exhausted, overwhelmed, unsure, until they finally let you sleep. I guess thats what you get for wanting to kill yourself.

Well, that was my first night. I was put into the south unit the first  night, which is for people who battle drug and alcohol addictions as well as mental health. Its an odd thing actually being in a room with a bunch of people that understand what youre going through. Being the new kid, though, all the patients were wondering how the smiling young girl that sat in the corner, knees to her chest, got drop in the crazy house. Several of them explained why they were there, "suicidal and heroin addict", "suicidal and meth addict", "suicidal and alcholic", you get the point. Anyways I said "I cut and and suicidal", that seemed to be a suffcient response to their questions.

The next day they moved me to the central unit, I can only describe the central unit as the crazies who arent the craziest, thats the north unit. Ill say most people in central are bipolar and depressed like me while the northies were more the schizo and violent. They walk me in through another set of large metal doors, you hear that click and you know that youre stuck there, locked in. I had nothing but the clothes on my back (I wasnt expecting to end up in the psychward when I got up or I would have prepared) no laces, belts, or drawstrings, but they give you zipties for your shoes, how sweet of them huh.

I was in the first room in the new overly bright hallway. I had two roommates, Rosemarie and Emma, Emma was the only person who was actually my age so we got along quite well, she was an odd one. Once you walk into the community room (they had all the cartons of chocolate milk you could think of, we drank alot of it) everyone is nice, once again wanting to know my story. Its weird how people can become family in only ten days, but those people in the central unit became family, we all looked out for each other, we also had a lot of real good laughs. No, they werent "crazy" they were normal people, just like me, well most of them. Even the regualr nurses were considered part of the family, even the ones we really didnt like, Adrian.

I spent ten days with the central unit. I had a few visitors, ate some pretty good caf food, played some basketball, went to every group session, went to all the personal sessions with my psyciatrist, took my meds out of my little white cup every day, I did everything I had to do to get out of there. Im gonna be honest, it gets real lonely after about five days, you just want familiarity, but people have lives and cant go at the weird hours to visit you.

After the ten days, and a few tearful goodbyes, I was on my way...to out patient. Out patient was way more laid back, group of about five of us, Emma being one of them, groups all day, but I had to drive out to Kirkland everyday which was a pain in the butt.

When I was completely done with the program, I felt good, not like I wasnt depressed anymore, but I guess I had a minute of hope, hope that maybe I could stop self harming and get better. Obviously that didnt last, but a month, but Im on my way again. I did learn alot from my experience in the psych ward, many coping skills that worked for me, I even learnd about being bipolar and how our mood swings go and such. I really enjoyed being there, I wouldnt recommend it to anyone, but it was a good place that put me on the right track to recovery.

Two Months

Its funny how when youre trying to overcome something the little things are so important. In the beginning its the days that were important and then the weeks and when the number of weeks is too hard to remember you start counting the months. Today, January 15, 2012, it has been exactly two months since I last self harmed. People tell me how proud they are that I have made it, but I wouldnt say that I am proud at all. I feel like two months is nothing, plus being hopeless for so long its hard to have even a little bit of hope that I  will keep it up, I mean, I have been here before, two months then fail, one month then fail, nine months then fail, its hard to think I will actually make it for good.

What is different about this time is that I decided that this is what I wanted, every other time it was because people pressured me to do so. I needed to do it at my own pace and everyone else wants to see quick results. I want this for myself, I want it for my loved ones, I want to do it, period. Its been a tough road the last two months, but hopefully this time it actual lasts and in ten years I can blog again about how far I have come.

For now, I guess, that I should be proud of myself. Two months is better than one day.

July 17, 2011

Where were you July 17, 2011? What were you doing? Was it just a normal day of work? Did something major happen? Nothing at all? Well for me, July 17, 2011 was the day that I was going to die.

Of course the day didnt start out as the day I wanted to kill myself, I went to work early, was working hard in the sun, however, by late afternoon killing myself was the only thing that I could think about, nothing and nobody was going to stop me. I dont think that I can explain the feeling of wanting to commit suicide to those of you out there that have never felt it, but its like nothing I have felt before. My mind went blank. I wanted to be done with work so I could end it all. I felt peace, knowing the internal pain was gonna be over.

As I got closer and closer to being done at work I decided it a good idea to tell my best friend goodbye. I imagine this is the part that God comes in because if I hadnt told her I would be gone right now. She was scared, obviously, and decided it a good idea to tell someone else. This someone else was Megan Rayburn, for those of you who dont know her, she is the youth pastors wife at my church and someone I considered a good friend. After work I ended up at starbucks where Megan made me make the decision to go to the hospital.

We got in her car and the only option I had was to go along or fight every moment, but I had to call my parents first. My parents? I sobbed at the thought of that, them knowing how messed up I really was. Anyways, I didnt fight it, I went along with Megan all the way to Seattle and sat in the ER with her, her husband, my mom, and my dad, and this male nurse, named Darrell, who kept coming in and bugging me cause he was on suicide watch. I will admit, the number of people in this ER room coming and going while I felt horrible and like there was no point being there was super overwhelming, my anxiety levels were sky rocketing.

After six hours and a fake plastered smile on my face we decided that I would go to Fairfax Psychiatric Hospital. My main goal was to just get my meds worked out and who wouldnt like to get away from life for a bit? As for the psych ward....Ill tell you about that later.

The Roots

Families are like fudge - mostly sweet with a few nuts.  ~Author Unknown

I'd say that I am that nut, that one lone nut in the little square of fudge, some wish it wasnt there while others want more. Nonetheless, family has always been a huge part of my life. What in the world would I do without the crazy group of people who are my family. Therefore, I dedicate this post to the fam so that you, the curious reader, can get a better look into the roots of Sara Benson.

We will start with my mother, I like to simply call her "ma". My mother is a tough woman, one of those ladies who are little but you know you dont want to mess with because she would definitely kick some major butt. I have always looked up to my mom for her strength as well as her loving heart. Things got rough between my ma and I at the end of high school becasue of everything I was going through. It was one of those things I wanted to tell her and she kept asking what was up with me, but I couldnt do it, I couldnt tell her I wasnt ok, that I was weak and needed help. I am not sure I would say things are great between us now, but I think that things are better. Like any parent she just wants to help me, but isnt sure how to go about that. I dont blame her.

Next up is the dad. That is Richard Benson. He's mostly known for his height, people say "oh youre the big guys kid" or "i didnt know that big guy was your dad". He is also the contributor to my height and freckles. My dad and I arent close, but arent not close. Do you know what I mean? The relationship is neutral, it definitely has its ups and its major downs. Now, what most people dont know about my dad is that, for the most part, he is just a big softy. Dont tell him i told you, but he cries at shows and movies more than my ma and I combined. When my dad found out about my depression he cried, when he found out about the self harm he cried, when he found out I wanted nothing more than to be dead he cried, I dont blame him, but I hate people crying, especially because of me. Now, he just tries to help, maybe too hard sometimes.

My older sister is Meghan. She is 22 and just graduated college, woo hoo for her, huh?! I barely made it through my first year of college and there she is graduating. I wouldnt say that we are close, out of hundreds of photos on my computer this was the only one of two with both of us. We butt heads quite often and thats mostly due to the fact that we are pretty much polar opposites. She is loud, I am quiet; she is messy, I am organized; she isnt mentally ill, i am; she tries to be more sporty, Im artsy, you get the picture. As a whole our relationship is rough, but in the end we are there for each other no question, if I needed her she'd probably take awhile, but she'd get there for me, and if she needed me I'd drop everything for her (she wouldnt believe that) but she's my sister, if she doesnt have me she'd have no one.

That kid over there, the one with the glasses, he is trouble. He is one of my little brothers, his name: Justin. Justin started as a foster child in our home and a few years later we ended up adopting him. Fostering was fine, but adopting, keeping the kid forever? that was a whole new odd concept for me to comprehend. Justin started out as my mini-me, or so people say. He looked up to me and by the time he was in kindergarten he thought he could talk and act just like me. Problem with that is that that quarky charm works for me, for a five year old it just equals trouble. This kid is real smart, but he ruins it with his big mouth and lack of thinking before speaking. I guess my parents are working on it with him, or something.

My babiest baby brother is Matthew; age seven. Also adopted. You know that kid who has been told he is cute his whole life so he turns into a total tool? Well, Matthew is well on his way. Although, I do agree with everyone that he is super cute, he annoys the living day lights out of me. This kid has the biggest mouth and attitude I have ever seen is a seven year old. What DOES make him cute, though, is his need to tuck in his shirt and wear his pants high, now that makes him cute. Since Matthew was a baby he has been a worrier. When I went into the "hospital" aka the psychiatric hospital he worried every single day I was gone, asking me when I would be home everytime I spoke to my family on the phone. He's a good kid with a crap attitude.

As you can probably tell is that I am kind of the black sheep of the family. I have come to terms with that years ago and just call it character. Without me they would be pretty boring. Plus you know the saying "cant live with them, cant live without them"....

My Story

My story is one that I often dont share, however, for the sake of this blog I am going to tell it, all of it. I guess my story started nineteen years nine months ten days and a hand full of hours ago, but lets just fast forward to about four years ago. The reason we are starting there is because thats about how long its been since I remember being happy. I started feeling depressed about junior year of high school, I cant really say there was some specific reason that I felt that way, I just know its how I felt.

 I made it to senior year and couldnt take it any longer, I started coping by using self harm as an out. For the next two years I used self harm as a place to hide, something that was mine and i could control, I ran to it for nearly everything. Second semester of my first year of college, with the help of a good friend, I filled my parents in on everything that was going on. Telling them was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I felt so much shame and like a complete disappointment.

I have now discovered that telling my parents was the begining of healing. I came home for Spring break freshman year and my parents got me straight to the doctor, I mean literally I got off the plane and went straight to my doctor. I was put on an anti depressant called Zoloft. In a weeks time I was off to school again in hopes of this new medicine working.

 At this time it had been nine months since I had self harmed, however the medicine made me feel worse and I started up again. The last couple months, while everyone was having the time of their lives, I was fighting my own battle. As soon as school got out and I got home for summer I started therapy with Beth and started working with a psychiatrist named Marty.

As Marty started messing with my meds to see which combination would work I still got worse, I was on two different anti depressants and all I wanted to do was die. The fact that I wanted to kill myself didnt go over well, obviously, and I ended up going to a Psychiatric hospital for about three weeks. While there they diagnosed me with Bipolar disorder. This was a whole new ball game, complete different meds to work with, but I didnt feel well enough to wait fo anything to kick in, I just wanted to be "better".

As of now I am in a healthier place. I would not say I was healed or am completely healthy, but Im on my way. It is a tough battle, but I refuse to let myself give up, refuse to let the depression and bipolar and self harm and anything else beat me. With the help of a bunch of friends and family I will get through this.

My first thought

Thats me. Im Sara. Im 19. My favorite color is yellow. I like tie-dye. Im odd. I am a nobody in the grand scheme of things. So why a blog? Well, I am starting this blog to talk about life, my life, and all the goods and bads that come along with it. My story is just one of billions, thus not so very important, however, if sharing my story and life experiences could make some kind of impact on one persons life that would make my life that much more worth living. So anytime you feel like leaving a comment with a question, thoughts, things youd like to know,I would love to hear from you. Also you can email me at BensonSar@gmail.com. For now I leave you with a simple bible verse that has helped me get through a lot of tough times:

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18