crash&burn.

I spent most of last night in a hospital for bodies, then in a hospital for souls.
Most of the time all I could think about was Tiger. Would if I had to stay? How could I tell her I was fine? The whole time I was trying to send a thought out to her, so I was chanting in my head. tiger, i'm okay. tiger, i'm okay. tiger, i'm okay. tiger, i'm okay. tiger, i'm okay.

They gave me staples instead of stitches.
I say: "They look like bridges." (six thin silver bridges and angry red water.)
He smiled nervously at that.
This doctor looks like a 50's television show doctor, with salt and pepper hair and paper doll features.

They take my blood, my urine, an EKG, every test they can think of. They gave me a blood pressure cuff to keep because it was low and they want me to check it.
After the tests, I am no longer my parents' daughter. I belonged to the state, and they [not they, but a single police man that doesn't speak] escorted me in the back of the car with the cage and bars on the windows to the state psychiatric hospital.  

The hospital is made of stone and it looks cold. I don't want it to be home. They're keeping me for a 72 hour evaluation, the admission man says. He interviews me for hours and asks if I can go home and be safe. I want to be honest and say I can't be safe with myself but I say yes instead. I beg to go home.
"Arianna, honestly, I'm very concerned about what I'm seeing. You're cutting to the point where you're losing control, and also to where you're going to physically need to be in and out of emergency rooms very frequently. This has got to stop. Your eating patterns are appalling, your mannerisms are very neurotic, and quite frankly I don't know if I'm comfortable to send you home and know you won't do this again."
Here's where begging comes. I say I don't do it again. I point out I have a horse I need to take care of, that my mom needs me to help take care of my great grandma, that there are 3028901380921 things I'm needed for.
"Here's the deal. I'll think about sending you home, but you need to be seeing professional help immediately. As in the next two days. You're going to call me everyday for the next three. If you cut again, even once, you're coming back and staying here."
"Even once?"
"Arianna, as I said, you're at the point where we can't risk it. You're sliced open, you're past all the tissue and the bone isn't much further. There's infections that need to be worried about. You could go septic with cuts that deep. Even once, and you're coming here. You're walking the borderline of where you can even be safe alone with yourself."
I stare at him after that. I keep thinking they're talking about someone else, to someone else. But he says my name and looks at me.
I wait outside while he decides. It takes forty-five minutes.
I get to go home. I got to go home.
As I'm leaving, he calls out the door after me. "By the way, you're not fat."
I laugh as I walk away.

On the way back, I'm relieved. But I don't feel like I had an epihany like everyone thinks I should have. I feel the same as I did going there. I had no wake up call. No big lightbulb over my head saying I'll nevereverever do it again. 
I don't want to go to the hospital. I don't want to cut. I don't want to binge/purge. I don't want to eat too little or not at all. But I'm not entirely sure I decide these things anymore. Despite every effort I still do these things and it's horrible I can't change it.

The best part is when I was having ER doctors talking about how bad it was and trying to figure out if stitches or staples were better, I still had a razorblade with me. In my  bra, wrapped up in a tissue. The thing that did so much damage and I should've known to throw away was still there. Do I have any common sense? I kept telling myself to throw it away. I wanted to throw it away, but my hand wouldn't move.