Sitting in the ambulance, staring at the plain, white ceiling, my view interrupted by nothing except wires and the tubes coming out of me, I find myself completely at a loss as to how I got there. I never thought that I would be inside an ambulance, with EMTs circling me and asking me questions. I have to EMTs with me. They’re both very friendly, though I suspect that their everyday experience with tragedy is what makes them so personable. They know that life can leave just as it comes: in a moment. They also know that everyone has a story behind whatever event landed them in this hospital on wheels, so they are not quick to judge. They are also very blunt with their questions, a luxury I had never experienced before.

“Where did all this blood come from?” Says one, holding up my wrist to the light, as if that will make my blood clear.
“I cut it.” I answer matter of factly.
“Ah, okay. What did you use? How many times? How long ago was this? What were the circumstances surrounding it?” So he wants to know everything. I tell it all to him.

Never before has anyone asked me questions so directly. Never before have I felt he or she really wants to know the answer. If anyone asks, I always feel it is out of obligation. But I know that he really wants to know. Or, more likely, needs to know because it is his job. But a medical obligation is different from a social obligation, having to pretend to care. And that really made an impact on me. Because before he asked me, I never knew how much I wanted to tell someone.
…

We arrive at the hospital and the EMTs prepare me for the dismount from the ambulance. I admire their strength and feel self-conscious about my weight at the same time. With a few big thumps, I’m on the group, rolling towards the doors.

The doors spring open automatically and suddenly the air is filled with noise. People cough and babies cry. Nurses chat or yell for each other. Machines beep. The halls are crowded with people, overflowing out of rooms. And old man is lying on a stretcher with a brace around his neck, still in his street clothes that have blood on them. A few women look over at me as I pass, but I mostly go unnoticed. Sixteen year old girls coming in from ambulances are far from a rare commodity around here.

I’m moved into a room with curtains separating me from the others and lifted from the ambulance stretcher and into a hospital bed. Nurses surround me almost from the minute I’m in place, but I hear the EMTs wishing me well as they make their way out, on their way to pick up someone else, no doubt.

“Alright, can you tell me what pills you took?” One nurse asks me. She’s older and tired looking, with an edge of irritability in her voice. I give her the run down. As she asks me more and more questions, I can tell she’s more cautious than the blunt EMTs. She also seems more removed from the situation. I normally I would feel put off, but I overdosed on antidepressants. The nice thing about that is when I should be feeling my worst, my brain is overloaded with serotonin and dopamine. So I feel like I’m in my own happy world.

I begin to pepper the disgruntled nurse with questions. Did she like her job? Did she work the night shift a lot? Why did she seem so unhappy? Was she always unhappy or was it just the hour? (It’s about midnight by that point.) The disgruntled nurse got more and more irritated. When she turns away, I say to the other nurse in the room “I don’t think she likes me very much” very solemnly and then I started to giggle and I smiled at everyone that walked by. The nurses looked at each other, sighed, and got back to work, busily taking my blood and temperature and checking my arms and legs for more cuts. Clearly they were very used to patients like me.
I drifted in and out of different stages of awareness. For example, I don’t remember changing out of my clothes into a hospital gown, but I know I must have done so at one point. I don’t remember exactly when my Dad came into the room, or when he left to call the rest of the family, or anything he said to me the entire time. But there are bits and pieces I remember.

I tell the nurses and the doctors exactly what happened. I tell them what pills I took, when I cut myself, the whole timeline.

“Was this an accident?” One doctor asks me. I just stare at him. Is that even possible? Is it possible for someone accidently to take forty or so pills, when they are only supposed to take two? It is possible for someone to pull off multiple clean lines down their wrist with a razor by accident? If so, I don’t want to meet the people that can do that by accident. Clearly, those are some dangerous people.

I don’t think I ever answered his question. Hopefully he realized his stupidity and moved on. I don’t remember. However, one thing that I remember and will forever be ingrained in my memory is the charcoal.

I should be grateful I didn’t have to get my stomach pumped. I should be grateful my foresight and actions before I was taken to the hospital kept me from experiencing that torture. But the charcoal, for some reason, truly traumatizes me. It is only a twenty four ounce cup. It is to deactivate the poisons I had put into my system. But it feels like a punishment, instead of a treatment. And as I drink it down, I feel it burn in the places my stomach acid burned my esophagus hours previously. I choke it down and ask for water repeatedly, but I cough so much it is hard to make out my response.

…

After three hours in the ER, I am transported to the pediatric ICU. My heart is beating irregularly and I am fading in and out of awareness. My parents are sent home and I lay in my hospital bed, with a sitter by my side. I am under twenty four hour precaution, meaning that a medical professional needs to be at my side every second. I talk with my sitter, and she eventually asks me why I did it.

It’s interesting, because though out the whole process no one else has asked me that. I don’t know how to answer. I try to come up with an answer, but there are no words to describe my experience. How I felt before I attempted, how I felt during, or how I feel now. There are no words in my mind to really let her in on what it feels like. So instead, I fall asleep.

When I wake up, a new sitter is with me. She has a Brazilian accent. She talks to me all about her life, answering all of my questions, saving me from having to talk about my experience. My desire to talk about it faded after I couldn’t describe it to my night sitter.

I spend several more hours in the ICU, having tests done and waiting to be transferred to a behavioral health hospital. An admittance counselor from the behavioral health hospital comes over and questions me for about an hour. I spend most of my time sleeping until the ambulance comes back to transport me.

…

This occurred a year and a half ago. It was not my only attempt, though it was my first, and it was far from my only hospitalization. I don’t know where I am as far as mental health goes these days. I still struggle every day. And I am so tired of it. I am tired of this being my identity. Just like on that night, there are no words to describe what it is like to live like this. But I want to be living proof that one can live through this.