How Not to Fall Apart: Lessons Learned on the Road from Self-Harm to Self-Care

by Maggy van Eijk

Ultimately, your mental illness lies to you. It’ll tell you that everything is wrong and that you have no future. It’ll tell you that you should be ashamed and you’re a nuisance and you don’t deserve to get help.

When I’m depressed, every single thing around me becomes a tool to hurt myself with. An impulse tells me to stand closer to the platform, to smash my face into a mirror, to down a whole bottle of bleach or run in front of a car. It’s exhausting and it colonizes so much of the good in my life.