Poetic License

September 16 was a very dark day. It is the only time in my life in which I made a serious attempt on my life by swallowing a handful of pills.

That morning, my son was still very upset with me and tried to leave the house by saying nothing more than, “I’m going to be out for a while.” I stopped him at the door and made him hug me. I apologized profusely for how I had conducted myself the previous day. He characterized it as me having kicked him in the stomach while he was lying in the dirt. The thought that my words the day before had made him feel that way gutted me. The fact that he did not accept my apology, that he looked so hurt and angry, the fact that he left the house anyway left me feeling that my life had no value, that he truly would be better off without me.

I am out of work (as is he, which is what the fight on Monday was about, because I implied I didn’t think he was trying hard enough). Complicating things, I’m panicking because I can’t retire if he doesn’t find work, which means I would most likely have to take a job in Charlotte, a brutal commute of 1 to 1.5 hours away. I have poor eyesight, diabetes, chronic pain, and a host of other issues that would make the commute plus full workdays with no breaks very painful. Driving in darkness is very risky for me, with me able to see on the road only about half the time; it’s much worse in bad weather. All of this came to bear on me Monday, which contributed greatly to how I behaved. It was panic, fear, frustration, and anxiety all at once. It was a time in which I should have shut my mouth instead of opening it. My mouth. It gets me into all kinds of trouble.

After he left the house Tuesday morning, I sat on the couch for at least an hour, feeling intensely hurt and hollowed out. Sean is the only child I have left, and clearly I had just blown it with him. I could not see a way to fix things. It’s hard to explain exactly how I felt. But I’m a writer. I should be able to do that, right? I can say my insides felt completely empty, except for my heart. My heart ached – I mean, it actually ached, not just metaphorically – and it was all I could feel. My mind knew the decision already, no options. I didn’t actively think anything. I simply knew what had to happen. I was dead inside already from the morning’s interaction, so I just needed to make it official.

I wrote the post. I left a note on my desk for my son and told him I hoped he could forgive me. I loved on my dog and on my cats. I told them how much I loved them and apologized for what I was about to do. I have never seen such a sad face on my poor dog. She lay down beside me and pressed her body against me after I took the pills, as though she could make me better by loving me enough. My youngest cat, Willow, came up and got right in my face, summoning as much concern as she could on her pretty little face. She put her paw on my cheek. I fell asleep praying.

Why didn’t I reach out for help? Oh, I had been communicating with my ex-husband, Sean’s father, for two days. He had finally said he wasn’t here so he couldn’t weigh in on anything but that I was welcome to vent if I wanted to. In other words, don’t bother me with things I’m not interested in being involved with. It was the final nail. I simply couldn’t imagine reaching out to anyone else. He has always been the one I feel like I can turn to, but instead of offering any options for me, it felt like he left me stranded. I know I’m not married to him anymore, but I didn’t feel able to reach out to anyone else.

If I owned a firearm, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. That’s how strongly I was drawn to death in that moment. A firearm would have ended my life in a blink. Pills were all I had available, so I drew the blinds closed, kissed all my animals, and went to sleep.

Thankfully, I failed in my mission.

I was angry at myself when I woke up for not having taken enough, but then I rolled over and loved on my sweet dog. She brought me back. Maybe she kept me from sleeping deeply enough to finish the deed.

The thing about depression is that you can still be depressed, even if you are going along “just fine” in your life. That’s the point I was at. It had been six years and eight months since I’d had a serious dance with extreme darkness. Whenever I look back on that level of blackness and bleakness, I am reminded of what Chester Bennington (the late Linkin Park singer) said about his mind being like a bad neighborhood, a place he shouldn’t be walking around alone. I was definitely in a bad neighborhood Tuesday morning, and I should not have been there all alone.

It took me several days to shake off the shock of the entire 2-day episode, and to shake off the drained feeling it left me with, but I now feel that I’m on the mend. But I’m left with the knowledge that my ex-husband will never be there for me again. We divorced in 2009. He knows me better than anyone else, or he did, but now I know I am completely alone. I might not survive another episode like this, because my mind has calculated exactly what I did wrong, so I hope there never is another such episode.

I can’t tell you why my mind thought that death was preferable to talking things out rationally with my son until he understood how sorry I was. Maybe it’s genetics. Mom was a depressed person – maybe bipolar, though she had no actual diagnosis – who attempted suicide many times during my childhood. I know how much it hurt me to think she wanted to leave me, but that doesn’t convince my mind that killing myself isn’t a viable solution when I’m in the darkness. I guess darkness is truly the best descriptor for where I was Tuesday morning, because that is how my entire body felt, buried in an impenetrable darkness. Nothing hurt, except my heart, and no single sense seemed more acute than another. Google says this about a “dark night of the soul,” which is probably where I was Tuesday morning:

• Deep Emptiness: A persistent feeling that life lacks purpose, and old goals or achievements no longer matter.
• Loss of Joy: Anhedonia, or an inability to find pleasure or satisfaction in hobbies, work, or relationships you once loved.
• Intense Sadness and Despair: Unexplained crying, overwhelming melancholy, or feeling buried under a heavy emotional blanket.
• Spiritual Disconnection: A sudden distance from your faith, God, or spiritual practices that used to bring comfort.

I don’t know that this adequately captures the crisis in which I found myself, but it certainly describes the feelings I experience when a general depressive episode hits. The crisis I was in was discrete. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end, like the essays we all wrote in school. And to my mind, I was at the end.

But for some reason, it was not the end. Maybe it is the beginning of another chapter. I have things to do. I have to help us navigate this horrible time in our lives. I have a book to finish. I have some remaining years to try to live.

Some of you might thing this was just a ploy or a half-hearted attempt or attention-seeking behavior. I assure you it was not. But I know I’m lucky to still be here to fight another day.

Namaste,
Jude