So it has taken me one week to actually sit down and attempt to write out my thoughts, feelings, and experiences from last weekend in Chicago. It’s been even longer since I have attempted to sit down and write anything, so let’s see if I still have “it”…whatever “it” is that I used to have.
Let’s start from the beginning. I almost didn’t make it to Chicago. My car has begun to fail me and in the weeks leading up to this event, I decided I needed to save every penny and dime for a down payment for a new car, and this would take quite a number of months. To date, I have/had only raised $30 of the $700 I was supposed to raise (as a student). I thought fundraising would be so much easier than it was. It seemed to come almost effortlessly when I fundraised for my mission trip to Costa Rica in 2006- but then again, 3 years ago my family wasn’t in turmoil and a lot of my funding came from them.
Yes, I was (am) able to pay the remaining $670 myself- and it’s not that I was against donating the funds myself (donating…to myself, so I could walk….) it’s just that that’s a large chunk of change for a college student whose car is about to die.
I went back and forth debating what I should do in the month leading up to the walk. I asked friends and family. I had already bought my plane tickets and secured a couch (or a floor) for the weekend. What it came down to me in the end was this was going to be an unforgettable event, one that I might not get to ever repeat in the future. I thought back to the grief I experienced last fall when I mourned my classmate’s untimely death from suicide. A lot of the feeling and emotion from those months have passed with time. I wasn’t grieving for him as much as I was in the fall of 2008, but I almost felt obligated to go participate in the Out of the Darkness Walk, on behalf of my classmate Brett. So I made up my mind once and for all, there was no turning back. I then began to get hyped up for my second trip to Chicago.
During that month I did a lot of reflecting on the past 9 years. My first trip to Chicago was as a younger twentysomething- fresh out of high school- rebellious, a bit angry and aimless. I was left in town while most of my other high school friends were enjoying their college experiences out of town, out of state. I was in & out of community college- mad because I had to stay, and confused because I didn’t know what I wanted to do in school. On a whim, I interviewed in downtown Jacksonville with United Airlines to become a flight attendant. I had never entertained the thought of that career before, but it seemed to fit me. I was invited on the spot for a final interview in Chicago about a month later. Long story short, I wasn’t hired and United said they weren’t allowed to say why. This was during the summer of 2001. Angry and bitter, hating the city of Chicago and United Airlines, I took my first office position in Jacksonville and went about my life. September 11th happened and friends from church, during the memorial services, would come up to me and tell me how thankful they were that I wasn’t hired. It appeared as though God had made somewhat clear to me and others that He had some better path for me that didn’t include a career in flying the friendly skies.
Time went on. Out of nowhere, this deep, dark depression hit me like a ton of bricks in 2003. At that point in my life I had never known anyone with depression. I didn’t know that it was a mental illness. “Depression” was never a part of my vocabulary. Most of that time is now somewhat a blur to me. All I remember is that I went from being a happy-g0-lucky optimistic girl to this person who couldn’t stop crying at work. Crying for what, I don’t know. I would be sent home because I couldn’t contain myself. I had started listening to the band Pedro the Lion a whole lot, which probably made my depression a lot worse. At home I would sleep for what seemed like days. When I would wake, I cried. It took more energy than I had to do anything at all. I didn’t understand what was happening to me. As the lyrics from the Dave Matthews Band’s song “Grey Street” alluded to- everything was grey. No colour in the world whatsoever, but rather a cloud that followed every move I made. I wanted to set fire to my life as I now knew it, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t understand how to make it stop, how to break free. I started to see a “counselor” at my church (years later I would find out she wasn’t a licensed professional). She didn’t seem to understand it, either. She tried. I don’t remember our conversations, but they didn’t center around my present-day circumstances or my “illness”. We started going back through my childhood and I remember feeling like our appointments were pointless. I didn’t have a regular doctor, but I found one and he gave me Zoloft to try at first. I went back to work that day and at my desk, I took more than I was supposed to because I was desperate to end my misery. Before I took the pills, I cried. I cried because I felt helpless. I didn’t want to become dependent upon a drug to make me happy and yet at that time, it was all I had.
I would email a close friend of mine throughout the day while at work. One Wednesday he invited me back to church that night. I suppose I hadn’t been in some time. I confessed to him that I had nothing else to do that night, and in fact, I had thought about ending it all that night anyways. So I went. I suppose I drew attention when I walked in, because one of my friends who was in the worship band caught my eye and motioned to me from the stage that he was going to pray with my after the service. I guess my depression was that obvious. The emotion and life had been drained from my face, from my life. I was a dead girl walking. After the service, my friend’s wife rushed up to me as soon as she could, embraced me, and whispered into my ear, “You would be missed.” I bawled in her arms. I didn’t understand how she knew.
I was prayed for by a multitude of people and while being prayed for, it felt like the heaviness, the dark weight was pulled off of me- literally. Afterwards, I still felt the depression to a certain degree, but I felt lighter.
I’m not saying that prayer doesn’t work, but the lightness didn’t last long. I don’t remember what transpired between that night and the coming months, but September 22, 2003 I had made up my mind. I didn’t plan my ending that well at all. I simply wrote a very short blog post on my online journal at the time- I asked someone to please take care of my beloved cat Bella. I got in a bath, lit with candles, and put on The Smith’s “Asleep”. I had some Sam Adams beer, but I wasn’t drunk. I was scared and nervous. I had taken a razor blade from my grandparent’s house and began cutting my left wrist.
I wasn’t quick enough. There was a knocking on my apartment door and I quickly started yelling “Hold on! I’m coming!” I dried off quickly, threw on a denim skirt and a tee shirt and got to the door. Cops. How?
I don’t remember the conversation but I’m pretty sure they asked how I was doing. There was two. One asked me to step outside, the other rushed in. They kept the door open and Bella was trying to come out. I asked them to close the door so my cat wouldn’t escape. I was questioned and I tried to lie- saying I was ok, and that I had changed my mind before they came to the door. The other cop said that he had found the razor along with beer bottles floating in the water.
I didn’t know what a Baker Act was. They handcuffed me, and found the keys to my apartment and led me away. We sat in the parking lot, with me in the back seat bewildered. The cop was typing away on his computer, continuing to ask me questions. They drove me through the streets of Jacksonville- where, I didn’t know. We pulled into the back driveway of a place I would come to know as the Mental Health Resource Centre. As soon as I walked in, they had me take a breathalizer test twice. I don’t remember what I blew, or how much I had to drink (it was maybe 2-3 beers).
I don’t know what time I got there- it was in the middle of the night and since I was a brand-new admission, they put me in a waiting room with a tv and some chairs. I was there for HOURS. They brought me a tray of breakfast in the morning. I wasn’t hungry. The very large black man sitting next to me asked if he could have my orange juice.
When I was finally able to see someone, he took me into a room and began asking me more questions. I kept telling him- “Just call my mom. She’s a social worker.” I thought my mom, my super hero, could get me out of this. She’s a social worker! Of course she could!
When he finished with me, they admitted me into the “Competant” ward, because I appeared to be NOT insane. They didn’t tell me what was going on or when I would be released. I had nothing but time on my hands. There was a community room where there was a couch and some chairs and some tables and some books. The bedrooms were along the sides of this room, and a door that led to an outside patio where the smokers would hang out.
I just wandered around in this strange holding cell. The others felt almost comfortable in being there. I was silent and scared. The strangers would strike up conversations with me, asking me what led me to this place.
The patio was quite sad. There was a concrete barrier between us and the outside world. There was, I don’t know how else to describe it except decorative holes in the wall that would allow us a glimpse, a taste of freedom. I could see the tree branches swaying in the wind. I could hear the birds singing. I saw the brightness of the sun. But I couldn’t touch it.
We were allowed free time outside- but within the walls, and only once at a specified time. We were ordered to go outside, even if we didn’t want to go. They lined us up against the wall and counted us as if we were in preschool. We went outside where some of the men would play basketball, but there wasn’t much else for the rest of us. Just a patio table. Someone brought out a radio. I just sat there, still wondering what was to become of me.
There was a phone in our ward. I think the first phone call I made was to my best friend, John. I had to leave a voice mail. I told him where I was, what I had done, how much I missed him, and how sorry I was- in case he had somehow heard the news. At some point during the 72 hours, I called my sister and asked her to update my journal so my friends would know I was safe. I’ll never be able to grasp or understand what they thought, or how they felt in the in between time between my suicide note and that update.
I’m not exactly sure when or how, but I made contact with my mother, and I asked her, when she came to visit, to bring some belongings: a change of clothes (along with the undergarments I wasn’t able to grab) along with my sister’s bible. Yes, they had a bible there- but I wanted a family member’s. They almost wouldn’t allow me to have it. Reading the Psalms, from my sister’s pink bible, was one thing that got me through. My sister, mother, and brother in law came to visit and we went into a back room for privacy. I don’t remember the conversation at all. I remember not wanting them to leave me. I knew they couldn’t stay, I knew I couldn’t leave with them (mandatory 72 hours). Again, I felt helpless. I was monitored when I showered. It’s not that I didn’t want to bathe, but the bathrooms were old and disgusting. The colours on the walls in the shower were puke green.
I didn’t get much sleep. (of course, there was a mandatory lights out time) One night in particular, I was wakened from my light sleep from screams down the hallway. It was the middle of the night and someone in the incompetant ward down the hall was being put in a straight jacket. That night I vowed not to ever watch “Girl, Interrupted” ever again. It became too real for me, even though I didn’t have Whoopi Goldberg as a nurse.
At meal time, I took the pills I was supposed to take. I ate the food that was horrible, because I feared if I didn’t they would assume I also had an eating disorder.
One afternoon we had to watch a video with a group, and a counselor, and we had a question and answer period after. We were supposed to participate. One older woman, who was obviously in bad shape, was silent the whole time. I found out after that she had been in there for quite some time, with no hope of leaving.
On the second to last day, I finally got to see the psych. They didn’t tell me ahead of time. They never told us much of anything. The doctor, just like all the others, interrogated me. His office was small and I was so close to his desk that I could see what he was writing down as I spoke. I became angry with him, because he wasn’t listening to me. He wasn’t writing down everything I was saying. He told me I was an alcoholic and wanted me to attend AA meetings after I was released. He made me feel like I was just another number, just another patient he was obligated to see. I suppose it wasn’t meant to be a counseling session, but rather an opportunity for him to see if I was stable enough to be released.
I guess he thought that I was. I was one that had a goal and a plan upon my release. I had places to stay, family members to turn to. The day of my release, I was told I would be going home only that morning, but I didn’t know what time. I didn’t know who would be picking me up. I don’t remember what my first thoughts were when I finally had my freedom back.
My brother-in-law picked me up and took me to my apartment. I was scared of going back to the last place I saw before that horrible hospital. I quickly showered, changed, went online for a minute, hugged my cat.
He took me across town where we would meet my sister and mother at a gas station, so I could go home with my mom for dinner. We all hugged. I went to her house and got back on my journal:
hey i’m home.
i will email you back with my phone number-
and i’ll write about my experiences later.
i have business to attend to.i will say however, i know who called the cops
and although i know your intentions were good
you have put me through hell this week.
i don’t deserve to be in a place like that
with those crazy people who scream and shout and kick and fight.
I was wrong. I didn’t know who called the cops. I was mad at the wrong friend for a number of years before I found out the truth. About two years ago I was walking the historic cobble-stoned streets of Boston when my sister told me over the phone that a close friend here in town had made the call. One of my friends from out of state who read my journal somehow got in touch with him and let him know what was going on, and he called. When my sister told me, I was finally at a point that I was no longer angry, but grateful. I was able to express that gratitude to him two years ago on Myspace.
Later in 2003 I was dating a guy and I took him down to his home in Ft. Lauderdale for Thanksgiving with his family. On a whim I went to a tattoo parlor with him and his brother and I had two black stars inked over the scars on my left wrist, and also on my right wrist, which I never even touched. The scars weren’t deep, and they weren’t visible to anyone else but me. I was ashamed and embarrassed. Only two years later I came to terms with that experience in my life and began the long process of having them removed by laser. I still haven’t finished.
The star on my right wrist was removed enough to where I could have it covered up with another tattoo.
In March of this year I attended the MOVE ‘09 conference with To Write Love On Her Arms. While down in Cocoa Beach, I got a beautiful tattoo over my right black star- something beautiful to cover up something painful:
Before I went to get this tattoo, I had an opportunity to share with my new friends and fellow conference attendees a little about my history, and how depression and suicide had touched my life. I still can’t believe that I had forgotten about it (up until that moment) but I told them, in spontaneous tears, the story of how last summer my mother called me, sobbing, at 2:00 a.m. on a Saturday night saying that she wanted to commit suicide. We had been enduring much pain through some intense family situations, and it became obvious to me at that moment that she was buckling under the pressure, the misunderstanding, the stress and pain of it all. It’s something I hope to never have to endure ever again. My mother, in a sense (that’s another story, and I hate to use this word) my saviour, my hero, my best friend- saying she wanted to take her own life. I felt helpless, incapable of saving her. Her life was on the line, and she called me (I thank God I was actually awake). I told her what little I could: drink some water. Don’t think anymore. Go to sleep. Get some rest. I promise I’ll see you in just a few hours at church, and I’ll be there, and we’ll get prayer. I was a bit panicked. Looking back, I should’ve driven over to her house 30 minutes away to stay with her through the night, even though my step-dad was there. I wasn’t sure if I calmed her down enough, but I got off the phone with her, prayed hard for a time, and went to bed more than just a little uneasy.
After I got this tattoo and my new friends were oohing and ahhing over it we were discussing the meanings behind different tattoos and I said how I just really liked this one, and sort of loosely associated it with the freedom I experienced after being released from the post-suicide attempt stay at MHRC. One friend perked up and basically said, “To me, I think it symbolizes you and your mom. It’s a big bird, and a small bird. A momma and her baby.”
Yesterday while eating shaved ice at a July 4th festival in town, my mom (who doesn’t necessarily approve of my tattoos, but I think realises that I’m not going to stop!) finally really saw it for the first time since March. I didn’t tell her this story, or what my friend said about it.
She said, “It’s a momma and a baby bird!”
