Schizophrenia

She was the valedictorian of her high school, graduated with high honors and received a full-ride scholarship to a very prestigious university.

She received straight A's her first semester.

Then the voices started.

At first it was only at night when it was quiet and if she turned on the TV it drowned out the whispering. "He's looking at you. He knows you're scared and is laughing. Someone is behind the door. They can see you. When you're asleep he'll come out and hurt you. He'll laugh when he rapes you. They're watching. If you turn your head real fast you'll see them." Soon they were there all the time and no amount of noise could drown them out.

She became convinced that there were groups of men stalking her, waiting to catch her not looking or asleep. She would stay awake for two or three days and then fall asleep in class. She kept thinking she saw something out of the corner of her eye. She spent her days exhausted and terrified. Her grades plummeted. Once meticulously groomed she now forgot to bathe and change her clothes. Then a new voice started. It told her if she died no one could hurt her.

Tonight she is laying on my ER gurney, unresponsive, intubated with blood on the pressure infuser running into both arms. Massive blood transfusions are already completed and despite all of our therapy she is going into DIC, blood is starting to leak from IV sites as well as her NG and ETT secretions. Her chances of surviving are becoming smaller and smaller as the moments tick by.

Tonight she decided not to wait for them to come and rape, torture or kill her, she climbed into her bathtub, turned on the water and sliced open both her arms. Being an A+ student, she read how to slice open the arteries for maximum effectiveness and by the time her tub flooded the dorm room below and the TA entered her room she was all but dead.