As Seen On TV

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is my favorite binge-worthy show not produced by Netflix. As a lover of musical theatre and all things big, bright, and dramatic, this show is right up my alley. If you haven't seen Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and have thought of starting to watch it, please leave and watch all episodes out right now, and then come back to this post. I'd hate to ruin anything for you. Same goes for any current viewers who haven't seen the latest episode. Because that's all this post is about today.

If you're never going to watch a music sitcom (uhm, who are you? please do it), you need some context. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend follows the life of Rebecca Bunch, a Yale/Harvard Law Graduate who leaves her big practice in NYC to relocate to West Covina, California to find her happiness, NOT to get back with her drama camp boyfriend from years ago, Josh Chan. So she gets a job at a law firm, dumps all her depression and anxiety meds, and goes about getting the man of her dreams. It all goes wrong, at the end of season 2 he leaves her at the alter to become a priest, and sends her into a mental health spiral in season 3. It is a light hearted show with lots of original musical numbers, amazing, relatable characters, and a story line that could go on for seasons.

The latest episode ended with Rebecca attempting suicide. And I want to thank the creators of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Rachel Bloom and Aline Brosh McKenna, for this episode, especially Rachel Bloom for depicting the journey to a suicide attempt so beautifully and accurately. As someone who has attempted suicide and sometimes just lives in the zone of "suicidal but don't want to die", this episode highlighted a struggle I personally could connect to more than I would have wished to.

Watching Rebecca pull those pills out of her pocket, look at them, and form the idea to overdose, was a completely silent few seconds that felt like minutes. I remembered that feeling. Pouring the pills out, feeling how they tumble onto your hands, knowing that's a lot of drugs and its going to mess you up. But then not caring. Because you want to be messed up. You want to be so messed up that you die. You swallow them all before you can change your mind. You have to act on the impulse before you get too scared. That's always the thing about it for me, is that I know overdosing is a bad idea, I know suicide will do more harm than good in the world, but I'm hurting and I don't have anywhere to turn.

You know I have somewhere to turn, reader. I know right now I have MANY places to turn. But in those moments, always in those moments, I forget I have people to run to, people who love me. In my mind they are all pretending. They feel sorry for me, they actually hate me and are just pretending, if I go back a failure they'll all ridicule me....my brain is an asshole when it comes to making up reasons not to get help when I'm low. From the episode it is supremely evident that many people will miss Rebecca if she is gone. It is evident in my life that I will be missed as well. But sometimes, my brain wins. Sometimes, it puts blinders on me and tells me I've been deluding myself into feeling loved by my circle. I could tell that's how Rebecca felt in this episode, too.

This episode was a gift. I know I have friends who struggle with suicidal feelings as well, but I've never seen a journey to the darkness that is acting on your suicidal ideations from an outsiders perspective before. I recognized so much of it. The insomnia and then sleeping all day. The loss of appetite. The refusal to trust others. The isolation of oneself. I recognized, and I understood, and in turn, felt that someone out there got it, and that's all I've wanted for longer than I can remember. Is someone to get it. Someone to know how all of this feels. Because none of what I feel is good when I'm in a depressive low.

But there is always hope. The episode closes with Rebecca holding up an empty pill bottle and asking for help. There is a beautiful moment where the call button above her seat on the plane she's on, which says help, suddenly turns to the word hope, and that's when Rebecca pushes it. She's foggy from the pills, she knows she's in trouble, she sees a stranger with a friendly face (a very sweet flight attendant) and asks for help. She has hope. She doesn't actually want to die.

That moment was a revelation for me. I've never fully wanted to die. I don't want my whole body to die. I just want the "bad" parts of me to be gone. The parts that are depressed, and anxious, and the parts that assume everyone is going to leave me, the parts of me that hate myself, the parts of me that tell me that I'm going to die alone and friendless. I want the voice that second guesses every good thing I do, to be dead. I've always kind of hoped there was a way to kill that part of me (I know, go to therapy and get back on your meds), and I think that's why I've always ended up in a hospital. Because I realize that you can't just kill parts of yourself. You have to fix them.

This weeks episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend gave me something to connect to. I saw the events of my recent past play out, and I didn't lose any love for Rebecca, which made me realize that if I could still love and appreciate a fictional character, than my very real friends and family are still going to love and appreciate me, even when I'm broken. The love doesn't go away.

Thank you, Rachel Bloom. This show is a gift.

Alexis Olmstead is a 20something part time retail worker, full time diva, living and working in Bellingham, WA. When she's not working or sleeping, Alexis is working on her first photography series, Alexis Is Alone. For more updates, rants, raves, and letters from the road to mental health recovery, check back sporadically.

You are loved, there is hope. Keep moving forward. 

Painful Truths

I spent Thursday night in a hospital being treated for attempted suicide. For the second time this year I laid in a hospital bed, waiting for a social worker, wondering how it came to this. When did I, a girl who by most people's accounts was destined to thrive, become the girl who took 20,000 mg of ibuprofen and just waited for life to end?

For those of you who might not know, I struggle with depression. And lately it has been eating me alive. I have resorted to self-harming, suicidal attempts, and am quickly withdrawing from most people. I am now in constant crisis counseling, and am setting up intensive outpatient therapy with medication management. If I go back to the hospital for the same reason this year, I will be involuntarily placed in a mental hospital for treatment. I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing, I mean, if I'm desperate enough to try this again, maybe I do need 24/7 supervision.

I went to the hospital alone, driven by the kind soul who is letting me sleep on her couch, and had no company but the teddy bear I've had since high school. I sat in that room, hooked to IV's and an EKG machine, throwing up into a bag, not allowed to have anything in the room but my bear and the water cup, not even my own clothes, and I sobbed. I cried for the girl I used to be. I cried for all the people who are buckling under the weight of trying to help me shoulder my burdens. I cried for my loss of joy. I mourned everything I had lost and felt I will continue to lose because of my disease.

I felt (and still feel) like all the joy has gone from my life. I looked at my arms and wrists, all cut up, and cried because my scars make my once clean arms ugly. I looked at my legs, scarred from constant picking due to anxiety, bruised because I can't get enough iron to stop myself from bruising like a banana, and cried because never again would I be the girl with long, beautiful legs. I looked at my stomach, starting to pooch out beneath the hospital gown I was wearing and thought about the amount of weight I had put on since going back on citalopram. I cried some more.When the hospital tech came in to hook me to the machine that monitors your heart, it was a man, who had to put stuff on my hips, and it gave me an amount of anxiety I couldn't describe because I was already hysterical. I later explained that unknown men touching my body was currently an issue due to some sexual assault I had suffered recently. They explained he wouldn't have to touch me again, but he would be back to monitor some stuff and I cried again. I basically just cried from 10 pm to 130 am in the morning.

Sitting there I felt every single thing I was losing and could almost visualize it slipping away before it my eyes. I was in intense pain, I was sick to my stomach, and there was no one there to hold my hand while I got poked and prodded to get my blood drawn for all the tests I needed to have done. I took an amount that could have shut down my organs, and made my blood acidic. Luckily, I'm young and fairly healthy, because it just made me throw up and fucked up my stomach lining for a few days. I did a horribly dumb thing. I wish I had cried out for help in a different manner, but here we are.

Living with depression means that I think of lots of ways to die. It takes a lot for me to actually act on these ideations. I'm not going to talk about what pushed me over the edge, because to a point, I don't know. I kind of know. But I don't really. For a person who prides herself on being logical and insightful, I don't know what the fuck is going on in this brain of mine. A large part of it is some abandonment issues related to moving all the way across the state from most of my family. Some of it is intense stress due to the fact I've been here for months and have yet to find housing. In fact, I don't even know where I'm going to stay after Friday night. Some of it is the fact that a year ago I was alerted to the fact that a body was found that police suspected to be my father, who disappeared some years ago. His birthday is looming, along with the anniversary of my best friends death. I am drowning.

I was recently diagnosed with a personality disorder and PTSD. I have been sitting in therapy sessions recounting past trauma, and current trauma. It is all very triggering. While it should be a weight off my shoulders to recount all this to someone else, it isn't. It dredges up memories I'd have rather let stay asleep. I have been manic, anxious, and unpredictable. I am so far outside of who I normally am that I'm afraid I'm going to lose the girl I once was.

This is not a cry for help. I have help. I'm getting help. A lot of it, now. This is mainly just me being honest with all of you. I have told a few people off lately, stating that I couldn't handle them currently. And it is true. I can't. I cannot handle any problems but my own. And I'm barely handling those.

For a long while I've been embarrassed about the fact that I'm suicidal as fuck. But I can't be embarrassed about it anymore, because it has stopped me from getting help. I'm not ashamed that I'm sick. I'm ashamed that I have taken less than desirable routes to get myself help for these issues, and have almost lost some very important people in the process. But no more.

Currently, I will be worrying about me. I will be putting my mental health and my happiness first. If I think that you're not going to help that journey, you're out. Because anything that might push me over the edge is a major threat to me right now. I am currently a girl who can not be left around ibuprofen unsupervised, because the slightest thing might compel me to take the whole bottle. Because of this, I cannot be around anything that might give me that reason in the first place.

For everyone who I love and who loves me, thank you for your continued support and love. I will be okay eventually, and I'll be bigger and better than before. But I will not be the same. I am changing, and I hope that I'm turning into the girl I've always wanted to be.

Here's what I need you to do, though. I need you to change the way you talk and think about people who commit suicide. For a long while I haven't wanted to tell anyone because I am afraid of being called, stupid, or selfish. I am neither of those things. I am hurting, I am sick, and on Thursday night, I saw no other way to cope with that. So often I see people commenting on how suicide is so foolish, how the people who die by suicide should have said something, should have reached out. If they just would have said something, they could have gotten help. I'm in the mental health system. I've been trying to get help. Sometimes that's not enough. Sometimes your brain just wants to kill the part of itself that spews evil thoughts and hatred into your mind relentlessly. I have said things, I have reached out. This time, I was ready. I was ready to be done hurting. Because I hurt a lot. A LOT. I guarantee I'm not the only person you know who is like this. Maybe you're like this. I get it. Let's agree that suicide is not the answer.

With intensive counseling, I will be getting the tools that will help me learn to cope with my issues, that will teach me to work through them in a healthy manner and not do things like cut up my arms or take a bottle of pills. I need help, and I'm getting help, and this blog will now be the chronicle of that.


Alexis is a 20something hot mess working and living in Seattle, Washington. She is on the search for inner peace and small amounts of joy. For updates on her journey to wellness, check back sporadically. 

If you or someone you know is in danger of committing suicide, there is help, and you are loved. Please call the number below or go to their website for assistance. And as always, I am here for you.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-(800)-273-8255 (online chat available)