Self harm and the past 48 hours

******trigger warning*******
So I have had a very interesting two days to say the least. Tuesday I worked 8-5 and then I tutored 5:30-8pm. On my way home I stopped for gas and some groceries and went home after that. I didn't get home until about 9pm. I checked on my animals and made sure they were all okay and then proceeded to the bathroom. While in the bathroom, I contemplated cutting, or self harm (something I have struggled with since I was 15).
With cutting, I go through periods of time without doing it and periods of time where I do it often. There really isn't an in-between. The middle of last week was when this period of cutting started. The first time I cut it was deep, but not that deep. I did it because I had hit a car in the parking lot and felt like a horrible person about it. I was worried about paying the deductible and how things were going to work out and my emotions were running rampant. The thing with my BPD is that when I feel any negative emotion I feel it intensely, like 100 times what someone without BPD would feel. So I self-harmed. The next day, I went to minute clinic and they put steri-strips on it and it was no big deal. This past Sunday I cut again, except it was much deeper. I was exhausted and had been struggling with thoughts of self-harm and suicide throughout the day. They came on for really no reason at all. And again, when I felt the negative emotions that suddenly came over me, it was extremely intense. I felt out of control of the world around me so I self-harmed. I bandaged it but after my experience with minute clinic wasn't sure whether or not it needed stitches so I decided not to go get it checked. I thought about it but never went. I learned later that I should have.
Then Tuesday night, after I got home, I sat in the bathroom for a decent period of time. I even wrote a dark poem to try to help convince myself not to self-harm. It didn't help. So I self harmed. I did one cut across my right forearm and the moment I did it, I gasped. I had cut really deep unintentionally and it was pouring blood. I covered it with gauze and as I looked at it, I knew it needed stitches. So I called EMS. BIG MISTAKE!!!!!!!!!!! The person from EMS over the phone told me what to do to stop the bleeding and I followed his instructions and he ended the call. Then less than 2 minutes later, I got a call from the sheriff's office, or first responders. They were asking about what had happened and I told them. Their first question was "was this a suicide attempt?" and I said no. The lady asked me to stay on the phone with her until the people arrived (I guess to make sure I didn't try to hurt myself further, which wasn't even on my mind at this point). The cops arrived first. There were 3 of them. I don't understand why it was necessary to send 3 police officers to my apartment for a self-harm cut. Once the police officers arrived, one immediately recognized me from my attempt back in October. I didn't recognize him. Another guy didn't say hardly anything. The last police officer I guess was the lead guy for the 3. He took my information down (I'm not sure of the reason) and commented on my animals. He took a picture of my bunnies and was talking about my animals. I had some poop on the floor (from my dogs who are left inside all day while I'm at work) and my kitchen was a little messy and the third officer just had to make the comment that the way I am living "wasn't healthy" and that he could report my living conditions to animal control and they would take no mercy on me and would take all my animals away. Considering the circumstances, I don't think this was necessary nor appropriate. I had just harmed myself and was obviously not in the best state of mind yet he threatened me. This just showed me how untrained police officers are when it comes to handling people who have harmed themselves and who have an obvious mental illness. This is a major problem with society. They do not know or understand mental illness and therefore treat the people who are struggling poorly with no compassion. 
Once the EMS people got there, they looked at my cut and asked me what happened. I told them, they wrapped the cut in some gauze, said I would need stitches and then I followed them out of my apartment. The police officers left and I walked to the ambulance. The EMS people were all helpful, caring and compassionate. They didn't see me as someone crazy. They wanted to understand what was going on. They treated me like they would a normal patient. I enjoyed my ambulance ride to the hospital, specifically because of them. I even laughed a couple of times with them. Then we arrived at the hospital.
The hospital they had taken me to is one I have been to many many times. Greenville memorial hospital. They handle most of the psychiatric cases for Greenville county and almost all psychiatric calls are sent to them. They have the largest section of the ER designated for psych patients. The problem with this though is that many of the staff are ignorant, rude and obviously don't care about the patient. If someone is suffering so much that they end up hurting themselves or want to hurt themselves, compassion is the FIRST thing that should be offered, NOT judgment! So they wheeled me over to the section of the ER designated for psych patients, helped me off the stretcher and put me in a chair because there were no beds or rooms available. The first person to interact with me was a tech. She came to draw my blood and ask for a urine sample (this is standard procedure). She was rude and uneducated. She tried to argue with me about what I did to myself. She said things like "we take these things very seriously here" and "we consider what you did a suicide attempt" and I tried to explain to her that it was not a suicide attempt, just self harm. Self harm is used to help me survive and handle life. Suicide attempts are me trying to escape life. BIG difference. She obviously didn't know that. She just assumed I would be committed to a psych hospital on involuntary papers and that would be it. I tried to advocate for myself and she wasn't having it. The nurse on duty that night was actually fairly sweet and kind to me the entire time I was there, which I really appreciated.
As the night progressed, I was really bothered by a variety of things. Two different people were put in restraints for being un-cooperative and it seemed like that was not necessary for the situations that were occurring. Some patients were screaming and were rude to everyone and it was chaos for a period of time. Once it calmed down, the charge nurse came to me and apologized for the mess and asked if I was okay. I told her I was anxious because of what happened but was fine otherwise. She ended up making a joke that it was "free TV". Other staff repeatedly talked negatively about patients and laughed at them, in places where the patients could hear them. This really bothered me. They are people too. They didn't choose this illness. It is something that happened to them! The stigma attached to mental illness runs rampant in the one place that should be the most understanding of all, the hospital. If people are brought in by their loved ones who are concerned for them or if they bring themselves in, they should be treated with the utmost respect. Other patients in the hospital aren't made fun of for their illnesses. Staff doesn't joke about them. It's only the psych patients. This is the problem. If people are going to be laughed at and judged when they reach out for help, they are less likely to seek out help. I know for me, there are many times I have either attempted to end my life or self-harmed and not sought out help because I knew how poorly I was going to be treated and wasn't going to subject myself to that.
Anyways, the night continued on and I waited and waited and waited to be seen by a doctor. Finally, a nurse practitioner came around with a social worker and looked at my cut. They asked me a question I had already been asked at least 5 times - was this a suicide attempt? No it was not. Part of me wanted to look at them and tell them that if I had been trying to end my life, I would not be cutting myself. If I was trying to end my life and failed, I would be unconscious and would have to be dragged there. They also asked me many times who called EMS. I did. They were shocked by that. The social worker asked a couple questions further and then left. The nurse practitioner told me that I would need stitches and that she would be back soon to stitch me up. She also determined then that she would want me to be evaluated by a psychiatrist. So they found me a bed and put it in the hallway. The nurse practitioner came and stitched up my cut. 7 stitches in my arm. She also commented that my cut that I had done Sunday night should have also been stitched up but it was too old now to do that. She was nice the whole time and asked me questions and we had a good conversation. She ordered my medications and gave them to me as I would normally take them at home, which has never happened in any of my experiences at the ER or even in the hospital. Staff continued to make fun of patients into the wee hours of the night. I slept off and on but didn't get too much sleep. Thankfully they allowed me to keep my stuff which doesn't usually happen and this helped me sleep. In the morning they gave me breakfast. I saw 2 more social workers, another nurse practitioner and then was interviewed by 2 psychiatrists and a med student observed. After all of this, they determined that I could go home. I went in around 11pm Tuesday night, was not stitched up until 3:30am and did not get discharged until after 2pm.
Overall though, the sad thing is that this was my best experience with that ER to date. Most of the staff were kind and compassionate, to me at least. They got me what I needed and handled the situation appropriately. There were other patients there that weren't as lucky. Many were made fun of, laughed at and talked rudely to for no reason. I was glad to leave when I did. I was also glad they did not try to commit me to a psych hospital. It was an overall interesting experience, but one that saddens me. There needs to be more training for first responders, police and hospital staff about psychiatric illnesses and how they should be handled and how people should be treated. If this meant an extra course in college or a yearly training, it would be so worth it and would make a huge difference to the patients. Attitudes toward mental illness need to change. People deserve help and shouldn't have to go through unnecessary suffering to get it.
As of now, I'm still in a very unstable position. Thoughts of self-harm are intense and almost constant and I'm having a hard time fighting them off. I think about reopening cuts, including the one with stitches. I know it sounds horrible but it is the struggle of my life right now. I'm doing all I can to hold on, but at times it doesn't feel like there is anything to hold on to. I go to the psychiatrist next week and hope that maybe through that I can get some help and maybe some medication changes to help the thoughts in my head. It's been a rough 48 hours but I have survived. I know now what to do if that situation were ever to occur again and will hopefully be able to avoid all of this mess in the future.