If you wake up after, the first thing you need to know is that panic is normal. Your body will be in shock. Your thoughts might scatter. You might be in pain. Or you might feel nothing, which is worse in some ways. Here's the blunt truth: survival isn't always clean. Especially with methods outside of SN or inert gases. Overdoses—particularly with benzos, painkillers, or prescription cocktails—fail
constantly. And they fail
messily. We're talking liver damage, seizures, vomiting blood, coma, and cognitive decline. You don't just "wake up and feel tired"—you can wake up permanently worse off.
If that happens, you have two options:
- Go to hospital/urgent care. If there's any risk you've done serious harm (especially organ damage), this is the only choice that might preserve your ability to function if you survive. Yes, they may section you depending on where you live, but many attempts—especially non-lethal ODs or cuts—don't lead to longterm psych holds if you're coherent and noncombative. They stabilise you and let you go once you're physically cleared.
- Wait it out. Risky. If you're still sick, vomiting, delirious, or fading in and out, you might be in real danger of dying slowly over days or doing irreversible damage. People have destroyed their kidneys, gone blind, lost speech function. This isn't hypothetical—it's documented.
You mentioned cutting. You're right: urgent care often treats that as self-harm, not an attempt. It gives you more anonymity than showing up post-SN. But deep cuts that hit arteries or cause heavy blood loss can also leave you in shock fast. And staff
will know the difference between a cry for help and a deliberate, anatomical attempt.
You're not wrong for wanting your options open. Everyone here wants a safety net even if we don't admit it. But if you're serious, you need to plan not just for success, but for failure. Because the failure might be worse than what you were trying to escape.
Whatever you choose, own the full scope of it. Not just the moment you go to sleep but what might happen
if you don't.