Definitely what 1 said. You’ve given so much to others but never gave yourself a chance to heal from the emotional toll it takes. It’s a lot!! It’s okay to take a step back, tell them “I’d like to help you but I’m burnt out and unable to give you the assistance you need”, and let someone else you trust handle it.
And suicidal kids, well they weren’t always that way but it started more in junior high. I was the one who saw the marks and asked how people were doing, i was the one handling midnight phone calls and talking people down. It’s always been like that for me. This year in college, I’ve made new friends who didn’t know me as that and had other people to lean on and it was so new and I felt like I could breathe. One night, one of my college friends was venting and feeling down and
Sometimes I think I’ve got to be a bad person because sometimes when my partner is having a really bad time for several days in a row and I stay up all night making sure they don’t kill themselves, I sometimes wonder what would happen if I didn’t answer, would they leave me? Would they go through with it? Would it make anything easier? And then I feel disgusting and I stay up another night anyway.
I immediately was going through my checklist of making sure they could be left alone or if I needed to stay with them or if I needed to get them to the hospital, when they were calmed down, they asked how I was so calm during that and I told them the whole list and how I’m barely keeping a panic attack back because I don’t want to lose them. They ended up comforting me after that.
I have one friend left from highschool that I talk to regularly and that’s because they’re my husband and he has severe trauma as well as a couple disorders and he is very suicidal, anytime he starts sounding too sad or down, I immediately have to figure out the danger level and what to do to fix it. He tried to kill himself two months ago now, a week after our wedding. He’d been using our wedding as “I have to make it to this” marker and after it, didn’t have something to look forward too.
I’m still the one he called, still the one that convinced him to go to the hospital, got his mom to pick him up. I’m always panicking when I think anyone is getting sad because it’s always been sadness = possible death to me and I can’t unwire my brain to it now. My stepdad was having a moment randomly in the car the other day and said “I’m worth more as a corpse than alive”, I guess my mom was changing his insurance policy or something but I couldn’t even try to help because my body just froze
Nothing is wrong with you. It sounds like you’ve been taking on others emotions for so long that it’s just about become second-nature to do so. You stepped up and gave as much as you could give, and you helped a lot of people. That’s extremely commendable. But you can’t pour from an empty cup. I think the best way you can possibly help others now is by giving yourself the freedom and space to feel your own feelings, and set emotional boundaries with others.
Sometimes my husband hurts himself before he talks to me so some of those are to check for that. Are you alone? Is anyone home with you? Are you okay? Mentally? Physically? Do you want to talk about it? I’ll listen for however long you need me to. You’re not a burden. Are you bleeding? How bad? Did you take anything? How much? Do you think we need the hospital?
(If bleeding but no hospital) Can you go clean and bandage those for me? You didn’t do anything wrong, it’s not your fault. You’re doing a good job, it’s going to be okay, I’m here for you. Do you want a distraction now? We can watch a movie or I can rant about a fandom? Would you like to go to sleep? Promise you’ll be okay? Pinky promise? Okay, good night, sweet dreams.
That’s basically the script I follow that I came up with, it obviously isn’t the exact same everytime depending on what’s wrong and there’s usually more in there as I handle the emotions of them, but it’s basically that, check how bad it is, reassure them, offer something else to do where they continue to talk to you, make them promise they’re safe to go to bed.
It’s happening again tonight, I know the pattern, it starts slow with him able to handle it and then I need to start staying up to keep tabs on him. the last time it was this bad was four months ago and I didn’t sleep for more than an hour a night for a week. And it only stopped because my friends told him I was going to end up hurting myself with exhaustion and he started calling me at night so I could fall asleep to him being okay. It’s going downhill again and I’m home and can’t just call him
I feel like I’m going to lose him this summer and sometimes I get scared because I don’t seem as upset as I should. He’s the love of my life and I used to sob for hours when he got bad. Now I just stare at my screen and go through the motions of calming him down and staying up until I can’t anymore. I don’t know how much longer I can do this