I'll Take You In
Pairing/Characters: Ashley and her therapist
Rating: PG - 13
Summary: Ashley's therapist loves her a lot.
Warnings: Suicide, depression, anxiety.
Word count: 845
Disclaimer: There isn't really one, except that any similarities to any entity real or fictional are unintentional. Didn't write this with any Real Person or character in mind.
I held the knife up to my throat. I wanted her to save me from myself, but I also really just wanted the pain to end. I was so tired of everyone telling me that in order to feel better, I had to do this and that. “What? You’re still feeling or thinking this way? You have to choose to think or feel differently in order to think or feel differently. You’re just not doing it right. You’re not trying hard enough.”
Maybe they were right. I wasn’t trying hard enough for change, but I was trying as hard as I knew how to try. As hard as I could. I mean, could they imagine finding the strength to try harder than they could try? Trying past the feelings of dread, the feeling of dying, the feeling of panic? The process of getting better was invalidating, and it should have been. It only made sense. To change how you were, you had to invalidate the erroneous thought processes that you had accumulated over your lifetime.
I didn’t really understand why invalidation hurt so much. I didn’t think I expressed that clearly enough to my therapist because she kept trying to just nudge me over into “sane person” territory without stopping to analyze what exactly it was that kept me from trying things that really seemed quite easy. Like talking.
“You’re crazy! You’re terrible! You fail!”
Those words happened when I tried to take her advice. It meant that she was right and I was wrong about something really important. I was wrong. I failed. It meant that I was a horrible worthless person who didn’t deserve to live anymore because I got something wrong.
No matter how many times she told me that wasn’t true, that I wasn’t my thoughts…it didn’t mean anything. She just didn’t understand. When the thoughts inside my head told me that I was worthless, I was worthless. And because I was worthless, I had no right to argue with them. It was just the truth of things. There was no disputing the truth.
I couldn’t just choose to believe something else. If something was real, then it was real. The truth wasn’t something that a person could just choose, right? The only entity with the power and authority to change the ultimate truth was the creator of ultimateness and truth. And He didn’t seem the type to want to budge on that sort of thing.
I felt bad. I felt like even more of a failure because she couldn’t help me. I felt like I was wasting her time because I was holding a knife to my own throat because I was tired. I was tired of trying. I knew that she couldn’t change my mind, but I also knew that it would have hurt so many people if I really gave up - her included. The moment I was holding the knife to my throat was a moment in which I struggled with myself tremendously. I didn’t want to let anyone down, but I certainly couldn’t handle facing another day. No, not as a disgusting failure.
Changing was too hard. So I wanted to give up.
“Ashley, please put the knife away. I can help you - “
“No, you’re not. You’re just going to send me away.”
“I won’t. I promise I won’t.”
“But you have to. It’s required. If you don’t, you could lose your job -“
“Look, nobody has to hear about it. I won’t tell them if you won’t. You can just walk out of here and go right home-“
“I don’t have a home to go to!”
“Well you can come home with me.”
“Why would you bother doing that? You’re just doing way too much.”
“Because I really care about you, Ashley.”
When she said that, it was hard for me to process. I wanted to fight her back. I wanted to argue. I wanted to prove that I was so tired of fighting because I wanted her to see how much I was suffering. I wanted her to help. I wanted something to change.
While I was trying to process things, I was too distracted to notice the tears pouring down my face and the fact that she had her hand around the hand holding the knife, and had managed to pull it down away from my throat. When I came back to consciousness, I sobbed and dropped the knife. She wrapped her arms around me instantly and smoothed her hand down my back.
“It’s OK Ashley. It’s OK. You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”
She petted me and caressed me and gave me little kisses on the top of my head. The tears just kept rushing. She knew how desperately I needed that kind of affection.
“It’s OK baby girl. I’ve got you. You’re a part of my family now. We get to go home together, and I’ll set up a room for you alright? And then we’ll be a small happy family. I love you and we’ll always be together now. Always.”