I am exhausted. The past 24 hours (two weeks, six months, one year, three years, decade) have nearly killed me. For the umpteenth time. It started as a regular trip to the dentist to get a teeth cleaning and ended on the brink of suicide.

I’ve always hated the dentist. My childhood dentist had a stellar reputation of jabbing your gums, slicing open your tongue, etc. and blaming you for it, citing gingivitis. So it was never my favourite thing, but I managed well enough until the past few years.

I was due for a cleaning, and I could feel the anxiety building up inside me over the week before my appointment. I got so terrified that I ended up cancelling my appointment and avoided going back in for almost two years. I finally agreed to go in, so long as they gave me nitrate gas to keep me calm. That worked wonders for me, I felt barely any anxiety at all, and the dentist could work so much better without me crying throughout the whole ordeal.

So anyways, I went in to the dentist’s office yesterday ready for a quick and easy procedure, in and out. Big. Fucking. Mistake. Full disclosure, I have a substance abuse problem which I’m trying to overcome. I didn’t realize it beforehand, but the minute I started to inhale that gas, I awoke a craving deep inside of me. Immediately I had everything planned out: I would go to the pharmacy and pick my poison (sleeping pills and cough pills), go back to my mom’s house, take them all, and continue this high.

I knew that the dosage of what I was taking was most certainly dangerous and very well could kill me, so I wrote a quick little note to my boyfriend on the back of an envelope in my purse, telling him that I was sorry if something happened to me; that I loved him; and what he should do with my dog (goes to my mom) and cats (keep the or give them to my mom and brother). Then bottom’s up, I took my cocktail of pills and went about my afternoon.

I didn’t die (duh, I’m here, right?). But the amount of psychological suffering I endured in the wake of my poor decision left me feeling that I might as well have. Questions were circling around and around my brain. Why can’t I get this right? What is wrong with me? Why is it so hard for me, what the hell did I do wrong? Why can’t I be okay? If this is going to be the death of me, can we at least get it over with now?

I don’t have any of the answers. I don’t even know where to go from here. I know I need my medications adjusted, but my psychiatrist won’t return any of my calls. The only other alternative is to go to the all too familiar crisis unit at the hospital and spend the night, also risking the chance that they decide you aren’t mentally fit to leave on your own accord. I don’t want another hospitalization. I hate putting that burden on my family. My dad just had a brain tumour removed, my mom worries enough about me already, and my boyfriend can’t keep up with our three cats and our puppy by himself. So I’m kind of stuck about what to do.

The last few weeks have been so bad that I haven’t been able to do my yoga, or readings, or anything to try to launch me out of this depression. The only thing I’ve been doing consistently is walking my dog, because she doesn’t deserve to suffer just because I feel like firing a bullet through my brain.

School? Work? Yeah right! I went from a straight A student with “so much potential” to a part time college dropout who can’t even handle a part-time job at McDonald’s. It seems to me that lately I’ve had a lot of doors slammed in my face and very few windows opened.

So here I am struggling to tread through the murky waters of today, this hour, this minute. I can’t think of big picture things right now. The only thing I can think of is what’s going to get me through this moment right here. As long as I focus on that, I should remain alive. I’m certainly not okay, but I’m not dead either.