The reflection in the bathroom mirror before me was unrecognizable, desperation had finally come. Without any rational thought the now empty aspirin bottle was still in my grasp. My grandparents sat unaware in the adjacent living room. I should have been looking forward to summer, the end of school…something. No reasoning was available to explain my intent, but can anyone explain their depression fully. I had but a frantic need to not be anymore. There was an overwhelming sense of immense desolation, followed by weight, and eventually relief once the final realization had come. Just like Virginia Woolf’s agonizing yet determined first steps into the cold dark wet depths, I was always just there…on that theoretical ledge, in which most of us encounter at some point in our lives, but inevitably retreat from. It can end, I can make it end, I thought to myself. It was the only control I felt I had at that point was my ability to end it.
My father arrived from work to pick my sister and I up and take us home. I am sure on the ride he spoke, I wasn’t there. My mind had already accepted the event I set in motion and I was completely disconnected from everything and everyone. Once we arrived at our house, I headed straight up the staircase to my bathroom where I proceeded to take what there was left in the bottle of Tylenol, about 55 to 60 pills. While methodically swallowing each capsule, washing it down with water from the sink faucet I wasn’t crying, screaming, I felt nothing. When you know it is over, there isn’t anything to be emotional about; you will be free from the pain.
The faint sound of my father’s riding lawn mower filled the air as I laid down in my bedroom drifting in and out and suffering waves of worsening nauseousness. My floral wallpaper began to dance and the pictures on the wall kaleidoscope with the sunlight flowing thought the gauze curtains. All my belongings that I had collected and that I had expended so much energy arranging and adorning my room, they were just things now. They were unnecessary objects and any meaning attached to each one of them had been discarded with my desire to live. I had no connection to anything or anyone anymore. Curled up on my bed alone my mind swung rapidly from relief to an abandoned panic, however physically I remained motionless. Spaces of time seemed to disappear, blankness filled my thoughts until I soon found myself laying in the backseat of my parent’s car hurdling down the highway towards the hospital. My father glanced back at me as he sped, no words were uttered. His face, his expression, was it disappointment, fear, or confusion? What he must be thinking of me, was I weak or selfish? I was unsure myself, I wasn’t sure of anything anymore really. My mind began to race again and the chaos of the moment consumed me. No solid thought process was attainable in that moment. No logic existed anymore, only diluted fractions of reasoning and the overwhelming despair that remained. This blackness had taken over and had one objective, to swallow me whole.
The intense nausea and confusion of events enveloped me. At the emergency room immediate action commenced and the next thing I knew a tube was being placed down my nasal cavity to pump my stomach contents out; I felt a single tear slide down my left cheek. It was as though everyone was moving in slow motion, I could see the fear in the faces of people who loved me, but I didn’t feel it myself. Maybe this was all I was supposed to live for, the moments that had passed. I offered no more to the world than my cynical commentary and an interest in history. I didn’t feel as though I was going to do great things or even small things. I was only here for a limited amount of time, for a moment, just a footnote to be mentioned less and less as the years continued to accumulate.
The medical staff surrounded me, garbled conversation wafted in the air, the clamoring of equipment and shuffling of feet melding together into a faint white noise. My father sat beside me, fixated on my face and gripped with emotion. My mother stood by his side in a complete panic that was only evident in her eyes. Slowly I began to realize this wasn’t just my life, it wasn’t just my sadness, and it was all of their sadness. I could give up and leave the pain behind, but behind for whom, everyone I love and everyone who loved me.
The first night in the hospital was cycle of administered medicine, convulsed vomiting, and interrupted sleep. The charcoal-like substance I had begun to regurgitate in bouts, it came forth with very little warning. With one instance causing my sister who had come in to sit with me while my parents went for a smoke, to hurl a bed pan towards my lap to catch it in. The liquid medicine the nurses gave me every four hours to control the toxicity had an extremely bitter taste. To deter some of the disgusting flavor they decided to mix it in Coca Cola, my favorite soda. Which in turn resulted in an aversion to coke for many months following the daily intake of the concoction.
The first morning after being admitted I awoke to discover a significantly more puffy version of myself. My mother was asleep in the facing chair that sat in the corner of the room. Light sifted through the drawn polyester curtain, casting a vague renewed sense of promise, but failing still to alleviate my despair. No weight was lifted, there was not a drastic sudden awareness of the finality I had narrowly averted. I stared in the mirror at this image of a girl so alien to me. Had I failed myself, was I relieved or angry that I was still here? The day progressed before me, still detached from the this reality that had apparently succeeded in relenting me from its clutch. A constant stream of nurses, doctors, meds, and the attempt to ignore the incessant reverie in my mind pushing me to the ledge I was pulled back from. It still existed some place in there; just beyond the chaos of the moment waiting to seize me again. I don’t think it can ever be fully surmounted. Yes, counseling and drugs, treatments of all kinds can be utilized to slow down the process or quell the pain, but it is there just below the surface. A marginally difficult moment or a lapse in confidence will most certainly allow it to come roaring back. Conceivably it may also at times slowly re-infiltrate the mundane of your daily life, seeping in so gradually you or anyone else for that matter don’t even notice it until it has all the control again.
The third day I was there a nurse entered and explained that a girl about a year older was admitted for an attempted suicide a couple of days prior and would like to meet with me. She was a cheerleader at the high school, so we knew some of the same people. However, I was still in junior high so we had never met ourselves. She rolled into my room in her wheelchair, dark long hair and perky expression. As she spoke I could not comprehend what she was saying entirely, my mind just wouldn’t settle on the reality of anything. She did seem very upbeat to me or I was so unhappy that everyone seemed euphoric by comparison. She suggested we exchange numbers for support, I never called her.
After this failed resolution I wasn’t sure what I wanted or needed. I knew I did not want to remain in the hospital nor did I want to return to the treatment facility, which is what my psychologist was recommending to my parents. I requested to speak with a priest from my father’s home town in Tennessee. The need to understand or at least converse with someone closer to God than I took precedence. “The suffering would only end when you are able to face it. You have to utilize the strength provided to you by God. You have more control than you are allowing yourself to believe you do.” Was he right? I knew his words were of good intentions and the inspiration definitely impacted me. Accepting that this was bigger than me was one thing, maintaining the faith in my ability to conquer it is another thing altogether.
On the last day of my week in the hospital my father sat down on the side of bed. Without facing me he shared his personal struggle with depression. A lot of his stemmed from his time as a door gunner in Vietnam and loss of so many friends, which eventually led to his issues with alcohol. This counted as one of the only two times I saw my father cry in my lifetime. He was deeply scarred, I think far more than many realized.
It was decided I would get to go home though and continue my outpatient psychological treatment and re-enter to school. I myself wanted to be positive and be excited about life. My father had fended off his depression for many years, mostly with the help of alcohol, but he was alive. I myself tried to understand it and allow it to be, move forward and with determination I kept most of the control. From this point forward, I vowed to never outwardly reveal that I was depressed…deficient. Still, days would come that were utterly normal and I would end them curled up weeping lost from myself.
The term “moving forward” is suggestive that one progresses. For me it was more of a gradual ascension in age while carrying the same burden of despair. Fully extinguishing the torment within was futile. I frequently fought in school, skipped classes, and spent a lot of time in detention. Even skipping that on occasion, which really pissed off my mother. Sneaking out of my house became routine, on one occasion I jumped out of my sister’s second story window to “borrow” her 1960 something Dodge Dart. First crawling to the side of the house to catch my breath, as I had knocked the wind out my chest from the landing. When I returned I reentered my house through the unlocked kitchen window, why I didn’t exit that way is beyond me. My mind was attempting to replace the internal dejection with externally driven self destruction. Possibly I was just reminding myself I was alive.
The relationship I entered into during this period is difficult to describe. “M” was a degenerate and controlling. Narcissistic with traditionally rebellious good looks. There wasn’t any autonomy on my part, his superficial command of our peers kept me submissive to his will. Shifting from overtly romantic gestures to emotionally and at times physically abusive behavior. He was aggressive in his initial pursuit of me. This however would mutate into a game of manipulation and at whim he would to flip from adoration to passively rebuking me,“You make me sick” he would often greet me ahead of classes. You don’t necessarily seek out these kinds of relationships, you fall into them from sheer indifference and lack of confidence.
Often, I would retreat from him and our common group to more sincere or impartial friends. Likely, I was attempting preserve parts of me that were still unaffected by his dominance. The genuine parts of myself that although were conceivably mad, they were essential and they were still mine. Following a disagreement I wrote a letter to a mutual friend seeking guidance, a letter that should have remained personal. “M” confronted me in the middle of lunch with the note wadded up in his fist and forced it in my mouth in one sudden motion. I spent the next class period in the bathroom cleaning up my bloody lip and fixing my makeup. You don’t necessarily seek out these kinds of relationships, you fall into them from sheer indifference and lack of confidence.
Finally after many moments of drug fueled emotionally abusive rants directed at me. Having had enough I just broke it completely off, as I could feel myself slipping. Falling back into the rabbit hole, the abyss, and off the ledge.
GYPSY WYND 