Because Suicide Seemed The Only Way Out

 

Five pills, water, swallow. Five pills, water, swallow. Five pills, water, swallow……

That night in the spring of 1993 is blurred to me, as is much that followed.

I can recall crying for hours, not because a boy didn’t like me, or because girls were being malicious to me at school, but because I was in so much anguish. Mentally and physically. This wasn’t a feeble cry for help, I was not simply screaming wolf. This was the answer to my problem. The only answer.

Depression had sucked every last fiber of my being out of me. It left me raw, aching, and cornered in a mental cage of my own hell. I could hardly stifle a breath anymore, my depression was smothering me, it was very methodically killing me.

I pleaded that night with my parents, I could not go to school the next day. I evidently pleaded this case a lot.

It hurt too much to pull my legs out of bed, put my feet to the ground, and try to defog my dismal mind every morning. It took too much exertion to dress myself, put on a blithe face, and keep from crumpling to the floor all school day long.

When my parents said I had to go to school the next day, I tried to runaway instead. My dad caught me only a few feet out the door. They brought me back in and sat me down, rationalized with me some more. At one point I apparently said “I think I need some counseling.”

How poignant that at thirteen I knew there was something terribly awry with my mind. I knew I was not your run-of-the-mill thirteen year old. I was not conflicted between make-up and My Little Ponies, and once treasured Barbie’s and boys. I was conflicted with myself, my mind had waged war against me.

I can recall going to the medicine cabinet and seeking out the largest bottle of pills. It was a Sam’s club sized bottle of ibuprofen. I hid it under my shirt and brought it to my room.

Here is where it gets really blurry, lines cross, and my reality becomes undoubtedly obscure. What I write is the naked truth, I just wish I retained more of it.

I am fairly certain I wrote a suicide note, although one was never found, since obviously I am still here.

With my glass of water in one hand and my smooth maroon circle pills in the other, I shook them out into my trembling palm. I swallowed them five at a time.

I swallowed down my hatred for myself. My hatred for my grotesque face and body.

I swallowed down the pain that was tormenting my adolescent mind. The pain that was keeping me from functioning like the little girl I still was. The little girl I yearned to be. The little girl I lost.

I swallowed down the grief over my Grandmother’s death. The first person I loved to ever disappear from my life. Death has a way of undermining everything you ever thought to be authentic in life. Mortality shook me to my core.

I swallowed it all down, all the self hatred, all the emotional turmoil, all the the loud whirling noises in my head, all the anxiety, and all of my suffering.

I remember I watched myself in my antique dresser mirror as I did this, tears strewing down my childlike face. I hated my reflection, so looking in the mirror only fueled my suicidal desire further.

Five pills. Five more. Five more pills. This went on until I had taken seventy pills. I figured surely seventy pills of any medicine was enough to kill a person. Enough to find my ethereal place in the sky.

I laid down in bed and awaited my demise.

Relief washed over me because I knew I wouldn’t have to live my life in such pain anymore.

I knew the world would be a better place with out me.

I knew this was my fate.

I wept with my whole body, as I lay there waiting to die.

At some point my world went black, I  lost consciousness…….

 

to be continued……..

“I don't have the passion anymore, and so remember, it's better to burn out than to fade away.”- Kurt Cobain’s suicide letter

© Copyright 2009 Manic Mother

to read the first part of this story go here