5 Days Too Many

Day One

I was admitted today, following my latest suicide attempt. I can't even muster a scoff. This wasn't my first. It wasn't even my tenth. At this point, I've lost count. Maybe it was my thirteenth or fourteenth attempt. Honestly, it doesn't matter. This life feels meaningless, as if I'm just a shadow passing through. I feel like a stain, an unwelcome presence that lingers despite every effort to make it vanish.

Death doesn't scare me anymore; I've come to welcome it like an old friend. I'm ready for it in any form. Whether through my own hands or by some accident. I go to bed every night wishing not to wake up, downing pill after pill until the room blurs and fades away, only to wake up again in the same dark cycle. This bleak routine has become my reality:

Wake up, hoping for an end.

Go through the motions at school.

Come home, heavier than before.

Eat dinner, the only meal I bother with.

Take more pills, wishing for peace.

Sleep.

Wake up, and repeat.

I used to cry myself to sleep every night, overwhelmed by sadness without a clear cause. Now, there are no more tears. Just a deep, endless ache that refuses to leave. I know that the only true escape is to stop existing altogether.

But today was different. I didn't wake up to my mother's voice. Instead, I opened my eyes to the blurred ceiling of an ambulance, an oxygen mask strapped tightly to my face. Rage flooded through me - how dare they bring me back! I was finally free, and they had the audacity to pull me back. For the first time, I'd felt a fleeting peace.

Then I saw my mother's face, pale and streaked with tears, as she held my hand on the way to the hospital. Her sobs cut through my numbness. She was crying... for me. I felt something shift, like a flicker of warmth trying to melt a wall of ice. But my heart remained cold and empty.

The doctors outside my room spoke like I wasn't even there, discussing my "need" for hospitalization. They talked about me like I was some broken object, something to be fixed. So here I am, stripped of my clothes, searched for scars, handed a bland set of blue sweats, and ushered into this sterile ward where every sound echoes off cold concrete.

Others are here too - eyes staring, measuring. Some seem curious, others cautious, wondering why someone like me is here. A pale, thin girl with tangled hair who looks like she could break with a strong gust of wind. They look healthier, almost as if they belong here in a way I don't.

Doctors came in waves throughout the day, asking the same questions over and over as if they were searching for a different answer. "Why are you here?" they'd ask, and I'd answer with the same each time: "I tried to kill myself." Each time, they'd act like my words weren't quite enough, as if the truth needed to be polished.

One of them shoved a protein shake into my hands. "You need to drink at least three of these a day," he said, his face stern. "You're seventy pounds underweight. It's a miracle you're even alive." I didn't argue, just nodded and examined the small carton. Seventy pounds underweight? The number seemed absurd. Was I really that far gone?

They gave me medication too. Two for depression, one to help me sleep. The doctors hovered to make sure I swallowed each pill, like they didn't trust me to save myself even if I wanted to. I spent the rest of the day drifting in and out of conversations and staring blankly at a book I'd pulled from the common room's small shelf.

As I lay on the thin bed, wrapped in a flimsy blanket, the exhaustion pulled at me. I curled up, clutching the pillow that was hardly more than fabric and air. Sleep came easily, but it was the kind of sleep that felt lonely, where even dreams offered no solace... Just empty shadows.