Hi everyone! My name is Norah and I recently started trying to get sober. It’s been increasingly hard, but I know it’s going to be worth it. I’m going to share my story below, it’s kind of a long one, so I appreciate anyone who stays. Trigger warnings for food, eating disorders, self-harm, suicid3, and SA.
I started my struggle with self-harm at the age of 12. I vividly remember sneaking upstairs in the middle of the night to cut my arm with one of our kitchen knives. When I reached 7th grade, covid hit, and I had never felt more alone. I tried to commit one night by swallowing a bunch of pain killers, but immediately ran to the bathroom to throw them all back up. I continued to struggle with self harm throughout 8th and 9th grade.
In 9th grade my parents started to notice, and they took me out of school so I could participate in an all day mental health program. While I was there, I made some friends who were…not the best people. After I left, we stayed in touch, and I would sneak out of the house so they could drive me to parties and other places I was definitely not supposed to be. I would come home drunk and high, and go to school hungover. No one knew but them.
one night one of my friends said she was setting me up on a date with a boy that was her brother. At this point I was about 15, and she told me he was 16. He was neither 16 nor her brother. After that I pretty much cut her off completely
Around thanksgiving of my sophomore year, my mom found some letters I had written just in case. She freaked out, and pulled me from school, taking me immediately to the hospital. They held me there for about a day and then moved me to a psychiatric ward. I remember being terrified. They were treating me like I was going to do something while they were watching, and strapped me down to the stretcher since they took me in an ambulance. I thought it was completely overkill.
I spent about a week there, and then right after I got out, my parents had me go back to school. At this point I was barely eating anything. I lost tons of weight, and eventually my parents noticed and had me taken to the hospital again. This time I had to stay in the psychiatric ward that was in the hospital, where they were massively understaffed and everything in general was just wild. I was there for about a week and then they moved me to an eating disorder facility.
I spent almost 2 months in an inpatient facility with an NG tube. I have some crazy stories from there too. None of the doors were locked, but they were all alarmed, so there were a couple girls trying to escape and run away. One time I was put on “scissor protocol” (meaning no scissors) and one of the staff gave them to me anyway. All in all it seemed like a hot mess.
Eventually I was able to step down to PHP, but then I got drastically worse and had to go to the hospital again for heart problems. They gave me an IV and sent me back to residential. I got an NG tube again, and spent another almost 3 months living in the hospital. I spent Christmas, New years, my birthday, and valentines day all in a hospital.
I’m finally back to my normal (ish) life but I still struggle with ED thoughts and self-harm thoughts. I still don’t think that what I went thru was “bad enough”, but I’m learning how to give myself the same love and compassion that I extend everyone else.
. Coincidentally, I did a bunch of research when I was about 14 or 15 because I thought that I might have BPD, and brought it up to my therapist. She laughed it off and said that even if I did, there was no way she could diagnose me with anything until I was a lot older. Right now I’m diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and anorexia, but I’ve done extensive research on BPD and my behavior is almost word for word what I’ve read. I also understand that it’s an extremely difficult diagnosis to get, since as a young adult, technically my personality is still developing.