Disclaimer and Trigger Warnings:
Mentions of suicide ideation, vomitting, pills, surgery, death by Covid, hospitals, medical misevaluation, self harm, Covid, friend death, troubled teen industry, eating disregulation.
The media below is of me during it and then what was in my camera roll the following day. Iâve also added media from today, 6 months later.
To be clear, I canât place blame on any one person or one thing. The amount of issues occurring over the months leading up to this and up to the the week of were congruent. No one thing of any of these calibers would send me here (I was in an 8 month long abusive situationship in secret, as much abuse thrives in secret, with my favorite artist and I didnât try during that! âit is never just one person or just one thing).
It was the whole week of accumulating something deeply significant and triggering, attacking in a new angle each day that got me, on top of the creeping realization that April 3rd is 5 years since my dad was killed by the Covid-19 Coronavirus.
*I cannot and do not place blame on any one person or one occurrence.* With that said, I do know which events weighed on me in what ways and Iâll keep those as offline as possible to respect the people involved. It will be clear in this who I do not respect.
~~~~
It starts with being 11 years old when I experience the first time of what will continue to be an ungodly pattern, less frequent as I get older, hopefully ending at 26. But it starts at 11; that summer going to camp and meeting all my new friends.
Meeting Iz.
It becomes moving to New York at 24 and itâs much harder than everyone warned me and much harder than every scenario I imagined and rejected and resisted out of specialty pleading. Itâs not wanting to need help, but feeling lonely at times and knowing Iz is a 15 minute walk away. It becomes building the understanding that every time I text Iz when Iâm not okay, and I TRY to keep these rare, he will always ask me if Iâm safe. Iâve always said yes. Until 6 months ago today, I couldnât. Instead it was a consistent, disappointed and terrified âI donât know.â
It was
âno I canât open the window, Iâm on the third floorâ
âyes I added salt to my waterâ
It was not having an inhaler, or vapor rub or any menthol to put in the shower until it steams so I can run the water very hot and breathe very slowly.
It was breathing on beat to my favorite song, or every other measure, and picking Nikes by Frank Ocean.
It was not having a special snack or favorite food that I could take a small bite or sip.
It was
âYou are not scaring or burdeningâyou are utilizing the greatest tools at your disposal, your network.â
It was
âIâll see a sunset againâ
âFor many days
Many many
The sunset needs you the way we need the sunsetâ
It was staying on the phone with Alex B, my lifelong brother from Colorado, a perfect friendship in my life over and over again.
On the phone together for so long.
I kept apologizing. I was texting Iz, texting Luke, I texted Alexa, I texted the girl I was in a new and horrible situationship who just made it so much worse. Iâm still so angry at her for being so vile, so sinister and vitriolic in my life. How will I ever forgive her? How do you forgive poison for killing a plant? Itâs just doing its job.
I donât have to think about that right now.
~
Six months ago, I stayed on the phone with Alex and every time I had a bad thought or couldnât breathe or my body tingled so much that it felt like static TV, I said
âIâm so sorryâ
And Alex said
Over
And over
And over again
Every single time
âI love you Aliyaâ
âIâm so sorryâ
âYou have nothing to be sorry about. You know why? Because I love you Aliyaâ
âAlex Iâm so sorry I donât know how I got here againâ
âIâm just gonna say it every time you apologize to me. I love you Aliya. You have nothing to be sorry forâ
Do you see now why heâs my chosen family forever? Do you see that in my darkest moment, I could call him, hear about DND, our old friends (sorta could listen), his new-at-the-time dog, perfectly named âJellyâ, and feel how unconditional our love for each other is? Always. My friends are my heroes and my deepest loves.
There was one moment on the phone when I was reading some texts out loud from another friend to Alex. I told the friend what I was experiencing and he told me he goes through the same everyday. Out loud I said,
âEVERYDAY?! Damn, you really live like this everyday?â
To which Alex burst out laughing and said âA moment of clarity! Aliya that is so fucking funnyâ
And Iâm laughing about it now :â)
Alex stayed on the phone with me until Michael came over.
~~~~
The thing about New York is everyone is close physically, but not close otherwise, at least not in times like this.
I have lists for everything so I had a list of all my friends in the city âthe same way I had a list of friends who I could count on at the start, and throughout, the pandemic.
I couldnât figure out who to call because somehow almost everyone was away. ZoĂŤ and Ness were both in Connecticut. Colin was across the world. I was in a fight with my family which is what pushed me to the edge and finally snapped the straw or whatever the fuck the camel has to do with it⌠so they were not coming over. Valerie had moved away by now. I think I messaged Julia and forgot to message back. By this point my friendship with Max was contributing to this pain so I wasnât going to reach out to him even though he possibly wouldâve been the closest person distance wise.
Anyone I could see on Find My Friends was far away. Except Mikey. And donât think that this was a long process of figuring out who I needed to get to me. This was a quick check to see who was nearby, grief and fear to see my little sims scattered, pain to again see my dadâs contact forever on the loading symbol, and then seeing who has my location. Iâm not sure I told Jesse until the next day.
There was something too real about it that if I told Jesse, my best friend of 10 years, that I was doing it again.
I would hurt him so badly.
I donât know how long I hid it from him but it was probably less than 12 hours. Jesse is my lifeline. Similarly I didnât tell Ness until a month or so later when I saw her in person again. I told Juls a few days later.
Slowly, one by one, I was letting all my best friends know what happened.
It was FaceTimes I braced with fear only to be met with love.
Natalie said she wished she was still there to be with me and take care of me, as she will say 24/7 365 like an angel. Alexa told me âthis might not make sense but Iâm so proud of youâ because I got through it and came out in the other side. Of course that made sense. Alexa is my sunshine.
I remember Sarah was so loving when I had to tell her. I know I told Ciera at some point soon after. I told Kellyn the day I went to the ER. I couldnât tell my Garden friends for a really long time. I think it wouldâve been really horrible for them as so many of them are long distance that they wouldâve felt helpless to me being in crisis. I donât know.
Even Iz told me during our last hangout that he felt helpless.
I told Colin the next day when she was oddly, divinely home. Lisa spoke with me daily. Rhiannon, another chosen older sister just like Lisa, was so sad to learn about it. I think the last person I told was Dani a couple months later.
And then instagram stories. I donât know if I told Elyse. I know I told Craig. I know Julia knows. I know Haley knows because Haley always knows. I know Eddie was trying to reach me and I couldnât answer him that night because I was so angry and so hurt.
Gina Marie knows because Gina Marie knows everything because I let her know everything. I think Wesley knows but I hate that Wesley knows because it makes me feel weak and all I want to do is be someone he can look up to. How you look up to me when Iâm the one on my knees?
Jara and Jevon know and they love me so much. Lex knows and she cried expressing how much I mean to her. Mama Liz, if you see this, Iâm so sorry this happened. I donât know which Nicole knows what. I donât know if Simika knows. Theresa and Jocelyn do, I think. They do now. Will and Lau? Iâm not sure. Faye? Idk. Mariah knows because Iâm so many ways, we are always in sync. Grace and Crow know and that hurts because oh my god I could never do that to them. Matt, Arielle, Cami, Jayden, Brezaja, Blake, Michi, Katie, Rickie, Em, Kolbie, Salem, Margi, Jenna, Aidyn, Syd, Persephone, Lani, Net, Di, Sam, Anna, Arba, Ava, Rhianna, Josanne, Melanie, Olivia, Cole, Sophie, Talia, Dari, Alex, Taylor, Jonathan, Hannah, Anya, Ben, Nate, Jacob, Andi, Ella, Kelsey, Scout, Moriah, Marika, Cassidy, Gnat, Marc, Isabel, Charlotte, Eshan, KMGI, Claire, Louis, Saoirse, Lin, Bella, Rebekah, Russell, my family, my friends, my online friends, I am telling you now I suppose.
I still think Max doesnât know.
~~~
Michael got to me at around 12:30 and Alex and I hung up as I let him in. He brought fries and chicken tenders and a chocolate milkshake from sonic. I had just seriously contemplated ending my life and I asked
âCan I Venmo you for this?â
We live in such a fucking worldâŚ
~~~
One of the many incredible things about Michael is that he is music incarnate.
I heal through music.
But this was different. This wasnât me hearing my favorite song in this moment, you see, Mike Jake teaches voice lessons. So when I was slumped over my knees and barely breathing and barely eating as I lost food pretty early in September, and, do you remember? This was the 21st night of SeptemberâŚ
Thatâs three weeks of running on nothing but matcha and sparing chicken wings when I could get them as they were my hyperfix.
Anyways. Barely eating, barely breathing, but luckily Michael teaches voice lessons.
âYou want to breathe from down here, not with your shoulders âbreathe with me.â
Breath by breath, we breathed.
I breathed normally for the first time in hours. My panic attack was 6. Fucking. Hours. Long.
Combine that with ideation and for the first time in so many years, lacking the safeguarding I have.
~~~
I do so much to safeguard. As someone who will hit TEN YEARS CLEAN of self harm on May 3rd, 2025, EHEM!!! I have had to safeguard for a decade now. I still hate exposed knives and I used to ask my 2018 roommate, Maddie/Milky, to hide her nail scissors. Actually, I wouldnât even ask. It was one time I said, âHey Maddie, you know your nail scissorsâŚ?â and she looked at them and immediately knew to hide them. I will always be grateful for that. Alas, I still had a weekend like this one in 2018.
And you know what it wild is Iâve been a lot through this since October, 2018. You think I experienced my dad dying from across the country without ever getting a goodbye with him and getting locked out of the Zoom funeral by the rabbi and didnât have to live on the hotlines I shared for others online? I called Christina everyday for weeks so I wouldnât go looking for traffic, as if there were any cars on the road at the start of the lockdown anyways. No, Iâve been here before.
Over
And over
And over again.
But this was the time that reminded me of 2018. Haley helped me then. As I said before, she always knows. I knew everything was okay then when I saw a sunset over 29th street mall and Frankâs Strawberry Swing played in my earbuds from SoundCloud and I cried at the bus stop and breathed in awe of the orange sky waves. Getting groceries was the hardest thing to do that day. But I did it.
~
Even in 2020, I didnât actually HAVE anything I could use. Just me, my thoughts, my near-heart-attacks and a *really bad* dream.
But this time fucking sucked and was fucking different because I got my dream surgery in June and got my life fucked over so fucking horrifically by my job in July and I didnât realize how a trauma of the physical body followed by trauma of the emotional and spiritual bodies couldnât be healed via âgetting my life on trackâ with to-do lists and visits to government buildings (the soul suckers of the planet) of accomplishing adult tasks and I didnât realize I still had mold in my room, the same room I went through two situationships, one horrifying call, countless sleepless nights, COVID FROM MY FUCKING EVIL OLD BOSS THAT MADE ME MISS MY BEST FRIENDâS GRADUATION AND THE WEDDING OF A FRIEND WHO I WILL NEVER SEE AGAIN BECAUSE SHE DIED LAST YEAR, RIP SWEET ANGEL, and now! a near attempt! and I thought that even with all of that and even with the week I was having though it felt like walking through a minefield and every single day I stepped on a new fucking bomb that I could be OKAY to have the pain meds in my room THAT I NEVER WANTED IN THE FIRST PLACE BECAUSE I WAS AFRAID THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN
and it did.
It almost did.
I had three bottles in my room.
~~~
My surgeon had placed a drain directly on a nerve on the right side of my body. I had to take three pills then. That was meant to be it.
I always hated pills because Iâve seen my friends die from them -the charming price you pay for being in the troubled teen industry.
When I had the first pill the day after surgery, I liked it. I didnât want the second pill. I never wanted to need the third.
When I got the drains out, the left side was weird. It felt like pulling a straw and necklace chain through a piercing hole.
The right side.
The right side.
The right side.
The right side felt like being skinned alive.
The right side felt like someone was pulling a ribbed sword through me.
The right side felt like being burned through as if everyone who had ever prayed for my pain was punishing me all at once. It reminded me of the witches who were burned alive. I thought it was my past life karma.
~
In the surgeonâs office after the drains were pulled,
I cried
saw myself in the mirror
and stopped.
I talk about my pain online. It took me over three years to finally cry in front of Juls last week and I only did out of pure exhaustion. I try hide my pain like a cat. I try to be sunshine. As Iz told me when I saw him most recently,
âdonât limit yourself to sunshine.â
~~~
The third pill knocked me out but I didnât hate it. And when I joked to people that I didnât hate it, they jokingly went âuh oh, careful!â and that was it.
~~~
Michael left at around 1:30am. When he left, everyone I spoke to agreed for him to take the pills.
On their own they came up with this same idea. Iâd give this a metaphor of trees communicating or synchronicity even, but luckily the common thread is just common sense.
Michael spent a good 5-10 minutes crossing my details out on the bottles with a fine-tipped, inky pen as I couldnât find a sharpie. He took them with him and I donât know what he did with them.
Itâs because of Michael I lived.
Itâs because of Iz, I lived.
Itâs because of Alex and Wexa and Luke, again, and every other person who has ever continued loving me that I lived.
I called my mom at 2am. I told her what happened. She was really sad. She told me what she was trying to say when I repeated to her the phrases that set me off, sent me over the edge. We hung up. In the moldy room, I fell asleep that night.
~~~
The next day, I went to Jersey City to see my brother. I think this was the first time I was seeing his apartment.
He took me to get Cuban food and I was so glad to eat, though I couldnât stomach much at a time, still so glad. I smiled for the first time.
We walked in the nearby park. I walked barefoot in any attempt to ground. I had to go slow because my body was, maybe some pun intended, killing me.
I showed Harris my video of my surgery countdown as I stood at the car door outside the PATH station and watched him look at this video I spent so much time and effort making. He was in awe of it! He asked how I did it! He laughed. He smiled at all the right parts.
There was one time earlier in the year when I had gone to see Avatar the Last Airbender live in concert. I was not doing well then either. I was on the train to this new part of Brooklyn and I could see people across the platform waving at any stranger who would wave back at them.
I did.
I did and we waved and waved and waved back at each other, grimacing more and more until the train started to pull away. I wrote in my notebook
âTo the strangers on the platform waving to me, I think you just saved my life.â
To Harris, as you know, because I would never let something of this magnitude in meaning go unspoken for me, your joy saved my life.
I wrote it on his birthday card, just over a month and half after this.
Seeing Harris smile at my creation (that he helped me film in San Francisco, my favorite place!!!) saved my life.
My brotherâs joy saved my life.
This is part of why I champion yâallâs joy as much as I do. I, and many others, need it more than you realize. Itâs contagious medicine.
~~~
I know throughout this, I say â*someone* saved my lifeâ many times.
Thatâs because my life is something that gets saved continuously. Itâs not a one time deal, a one and done thing.
Especially in crisis, when I am so fragile and sensitive and weak (in my unkind eyes), my life is on the line religiously.
So to everyone who has saved my life, thank you! You saved my life!
Everyone say thank you to Iz, Alex B, Luke GD, Michael, Wexa, for getting me through that night. To my brother whose smile saved was the first joy Iâd felt after completely losing all security in reality. ZoĂŤ for understanding I couldnât come to the party the day of because I just got told by the girl I loved âthe first girl I ever fell for 7 years priorâ that she downloaded a dating app the one day I didnât talk to her and went on a date the night before and kissed some girl after telling me sheâd kennel her dogs, drive 13.5 hours each way and stay in a hotel here just to see me for two days the next week. She is in part a cause of why it happened, on top of about 10 other debilitating things that happened each day, one by one, two by two, 4 on the day of. Sheâs also why I vomitted for 10 minutes straight and ended up in the ER a week later.
Letâs go karmic lesbians.
~~~
I thank my Grandma bc sheâs my favorite person and I got to FaceTime her two days later. Sheâs 92. I am now realizing how fucked it wouldâve been if, and I hate this concept, âshe outlived meâ.
I thank Christina who saves my life weekly and without Christina, I would never had made it all these years. Truly, everyone who loves me needs to thank Christina. My ultimate hero in every lifetime.
I thank Colin for somehow coming home for one-night-only the day after I said âI wish more than anything you were homeâ and being the one a week later to tell me to get care while FaceTiming me at 5:30 in the morning from across the world when I couldnât breathe.
My cousin who works in the ER unit I went to a week later who wrapped me like a burrito in 4 blankets because I was freezing because hospitals are so freezing.
My mom for meeting me at the ER and asking her doctor friend and her own doctor what to do to help. And taking me to get Matzoh Ball Soup after I was discharged. And for everything in general.
Conan Gray for being the show I went to the same day as the ER visit which feels honestly VERY Conan Gray. Iâll add the video below as well.
To the doctor who told me that he could diagnose me with Borderline for having the overlap of adhd and anxiety after a ten minute evaluation⌠to which I responded âif you tell me right now I have borderline, I promise you, I will never recover from that,ââŚ. I hope the care you receive from the medical system for the rest of your life is the same level of incompetent, irresponsible, disgustingly harmful care you gave me in a time of pure crisis. Schmuck.
Thank you to Clairo for writing Alewife and showing me I could write about at least some of attempts in music and giving me a bat signal to my friends. Itâs incredibly telling if Iâd be seen posting a song on main these days. Youâve given me the perfect âhelp meâ sign.
To Kait for sitting with me at the park for hours and giving me a Snoopy temporary tattoo on my wrist and to Cece for making sure that happened (that Kait could come meet me because you knew more than anyone else what I meant when I posted Alewife.)
Cece was actually the person this time I thought of for why I couldnât leave. Aidyn and Jenna, too. Obviously my whole Garden but usually thereâs one person or one reason.
In 2018 it was Ness, itâs always still Ness, but this time it was Cece. They call me their North Star. I remember seeing myself as a drowning star for the months after. Iâm finally back in the sky.
~
Itâs Iz and I talking about it last month in our most recent hang, my heart breaking as I asked âwhat were you doing when it was happening? I know I was interrupting something.â To which he replied, with the most earnest smile, a little ache in the air,
âI was making pizzas with my friends.â
I still canât stomach this which is definitely why Iâm writing about it now.
I asked if anyone noticed. He told me Saeed asked if he was good and he told him he was okay. Iâve always wanted to see Saeedâs dj set live. I wouldâve missed that.
Iâve been writing for two hours now. I started at 1:52am and now it is 4:32am six months later.
Wrapping this up is hard because that feels finalizing, but maybe this is giving me closure.
Alas, Iâve added the pictures in my camera roll from September 22nd, 2024. Iâve added pictures and videos from the night itself.
Hopefully it ends here, at 27, six months later. Iâm sitting in a cafe editing this, eating an assortment of Persian food. I never had Persian food before February, but it utilizes rose, one of my favorite flavors. I cannot imagine missing this.
5 hours of writing so far. 1:40pm. 5 hours is how long I slept last night because I thought someone was at my window.
6 hours of writing now. 2:45pm. I think Iâm ready to share. Iâm so sorry. Mostly to myself.
If youâve read this, thank you. I process my emotions by having them seen and seeing othersâ emotions too. Thank you for looking at me in my biggest âplease donât see thisâ moment. But I donât need this to thrive in secrecy as shame dies in the sunlight.
This is liberation and setting myself free. If you chose to look, itâs because we both consented and allowed this and in knowing that you chose, too, I know this is not a burden I dropped on you, at least not one without warning.
If youâve read this
Iâm sorry
I forgive you
Thank you
I love you.
Having dark hair really fucked me up. For the first time in over 4 years, part of me looked the same way I did when my dad died.
This is a video you have to click to play:
Today
And my Conan Gray TikTok:
TikTok - Make Your Day
