My therapist forgot about me after I reached out for help. Again.

I was a little over 3 years self-harm free. Until yesterday.

Writing is... essentially my entire life. It's the only activity I've never quit on. The only thing I enjoy doing even in my worst days. I have so many stories to tell I'm constantly thinking about one or another - or some new one. I've been working extremely hard on my debut novel for over a year now, editing and revising to make sure it was the best I could make it. With that, I entered a writing contest, with the firm resolution that if I failed, I was going to kill myself. Well, I did fail. I expected to, but I still couldn't cope, and I spent a good part of my day yesterday slashing my arm up with a cleaver. I didn't manage to get a wound as deep as I wanted to, but I have several dozens cuts of varying lengths and depth. I failed at the contest and I failed at killing myself.

After the first few cuts, I realised that I couldn't keep going and after some hesitation, I called her. She told me she was in the middle of an appointment and asked if she could call back. Sure, absolutely; I wouldn't want to cut someone else's therapy short, especially knowing how much it can help.

She didn't call back.

I'm trying to rationalise, think of it logically, and not take it personally. She is a therapist - a good one at that. We're at the tail end of a two year-long lockdown that screwed with many people's heads. There's over a month of waitlist to get an appointment with her. People need help. People other than me. They have their own problems and their problems are just as valid as mine. I have no right to intrude on someone else's time. I am not deserving of attention more than anyone else.

Then maybe I'm deserving of attention less than others. Or not at all. Maybe I don't deserve to be helped. I'm not even sure I want to anymore. The thought certainly didn't cross my mind while I was destroying my arm. All I could think of was that I hoped I could manage to make one of those cuts deep enough to bleed and not stop. I didn't; what a shame. My arm still hurts.

I don't have the courage to keep going. I'm tired of being an incommensurable failure. I'm tired of forcing myself to work hard for dreams that are so unrealistic and inconceivable that I should be ashamed of even having them at all. I have nobody in my life; I cut my extremely abusive family off three years ago, I don't have friends, my ex dumped me a month ago (and, honestly, he was right to, given the mental state I'm in now). I no longer have the strength to live. But I don't have the strength to die either.

I'm not too sure what hurts most. The numerous wounds that I dug into my arm. The wound that this new failure inflicted on my pride. The fact that now, half a day after it, I'm already looking back at it and trying to understand why I failed and what I can do better, while not having the courage to try anymore and being certain that I would be better off quitting, which makes me think that the self-harm I indulged in was a pathetic temper tantrum and I never intended to kill myself. The fact that I will never truly have the courage to kill myself and I am stuck in an endless cycle of misery. Loneliness.

Or the fact that, after all this, I want to write more than ever.