Note: I know that Xanax isn't a sleeping pill, but pretend that it is for right now.
1Ever have that sense of utter failure? It's that sinking feeling that climbs into your throat. Some sort of reflexive paradox. Some sort of mental trigger that makes you want to cry and heave. You get it when your mind catches up with the reality that something is horribly wrong. I had that today when I hung up the phone. I had it before I hung up, during that thirty second silence that was the death of my dream. During that moment when she didn't say anything back, a sinking feeling climbed into my throat. It meant rejection. Failure. Disqualification.
She didn't say anything back when I said the word you should never say when you're a codependent idealist with romantic flights of fancy. I was out of luck. I was out of my mind. Head in the clouds, pie in the sky and everything else. She didn't dig it.
The thing is, my luck with the ladies has never been so great. In eighth grade, I had to ask someone to the Sadie Hawkins dance. The first two I asked just laughed at me. The girl is supposed to ask. It's that one shining moment in a young girl's school years where she is officially expected to be the pursuer. The one who asks.
This girl, the one who didn't say anything back, well, she was special. Sometimes a girl just is and you don't know why. Something about them, some quality, makes them different, and you think that must mean something. You hope it means something. You hope that for some reason her smile, or her kindness, or her hair means something. You hope that, to her, you mean something.
Infatuation is not love.
Jenny was special. She had me flipped out. She was totally relaxed and totally a babe, and smart. We talked on the phone a few times, even. Real talk. Emotions and all that stuff. Our pasts, our wants, our dreams.
That silence was like a gunshot to my dream. It was why, when I hung up the phone, I downed a whole bottle of Xanax. I downed a whole bottle of sleeping pills. I had this dream of us together, this ideal notion of how it was destined to be, of how perfectly we complemented each other. Wrong.
It's late. How can you just say It's late? Thirty seconds and all she could say was It's late. How about I love you too, but as a friend? How about I love you like the birds love the wind beneath their wings? How about a response? I took a risk and got it shoved in my face.
"So then we broke up."
"Why?"
"We were bored. We really didn't like the same things, y'know?"
"Yeah."
"She was all into art and drama and books. It's all great stuff, but it wears thin on me."
"Well, I like books."
"There's nothing wrong with books."
"But you said you didn't like the same things."
"She liked books a lot."
"And you don't?"
"Not really. They just don't do much for me."
"I like interesting books. The ones that make you think about yourself and about life. Wilde, Sartre, and Orwell."
"Yeah... well, I read Animal Farm in tenth grade."
"That was ok. I always liked 1984 better."
"Never read it."
"It's about 'Big Brother,' like the TV show."
"Never watched it."
"Good, it was dumb."
"Most of TV is."
"What about Steve Irwin?"
"Crocodile Hunter? He's cool, but he's dumb too. Did you see when the cobra spit in his face? It was crazy."
"Oh my gosh, no..."
"Stacey didn't like Steve Irwin, she said he was an idiot."
"That's harsh."
"She was kinda harsh all the time."
"Maybe it was more than common differences that split you up."
"Yeah, maybe."
"Josh was just like... I dunno..."
"Harsh?"
"Yeah. Harsh. Always had a comeback. Something to say to tear me down."
"Harsh, man."
So we talked about normal stuff. Everyday stuff. And we talked. That was big to me. When you enjoy a girl's company and feel like she enjoys yours, it means a lot. Especially with my history. There were times when being acknowledged would have been enough. So when I actually got to communicate with a girl, and share myself or whatever, my mind jumped all over the romantic stuff. I mean, c'mon, she was a babe.
But when I was on my ninth pill, I was not thinking about her curves or her laugh. I was thinking about the tightness in my chest that made it hard to breathe. I was thinking about the words stupid and wrong. I was thinking about death.
When I was ten, my dad had a heart attack. It was fast, unexpected, like a quick slap in the face. All of my questions and loose ends that were tied to him were left unresolved. I could never remember the last words I said to him. I wasn't there when it happened; he was at the office. So when I was getting that ninth pill down my esophagus, I wasn't thinking about Jenny's legs, I was thinking about my dad clutching his chest and falling out of his chair.
As number ten rolled onto my tongue, I thought about the way these pills would dissolve in my stomach, and then filter into my bloodstream through my small intestine. I thought about how they would release chemicals that would begin to shut down my central nervous system bit by bit. By the time number eleven had rolled on, I could really taste the acrid pharmaceutical flavor from the pills. I could feel my head becoming heavy.
And after my dad died, my mom really slept around. Not at first, but after fighting depression, she began to see a bunch of guys. I was fourteen when she started bringing them home. The strange thing was, there never seemed to be any alcohol. Nobody was ever drunk. When you hear people talk about sex addicts or co-dependents, alcohol always seems to be somewhere in the mix. But they walked in sober, laughing and carrying on, not looking at me, walking right upstairs into the bedroom. Mom had a reputation to keep up.
Facing death, I thought about how you never know what it's going to be like on the other side. About how nobody really knows or can say. I thought about how other people killed themselves with razors and about how I didn't want to die messy. My dad just fell to the ground and found himself in eternity. Or I thought that maybe he didn't find anything because there was no finding to do because you're dead and that's it.
Once pill twelve was down, I was pretty woozy. I shook the bottle a little and looked inside just to be sure. I pulled out all the cotton insides and opened my mouth wide and waited for anything to drop in. I invited death. I begged it. It was the last thing to live for. I thought about the why nots and it was a short list. Things might get better and She might change her mind and My mom needs someone to protect her.
The night I downed a whole bottle of Xanax (what was left in it) my mom was sleeping with this really tall guy. Slipping into darkness, I could hear the muffled sounds through the wall, and I wondered whether or not she was using protection.
"Can I ask a sensitive question?"
"Go ahead."
"I mean, it's personal, but I feel like I know you well enough."
"No, ask away."
"What's up with your mom?"
"Oh."
"I mean- oh shoot. I'm sorry I shouldn't have-"
"No, it's ok."
"It's just that, well, you know, word gets around..."
"Yeah, I know. She lives an exciting lifestyle."
"Does she... I mean, does she at home?
"Uh-huh."
"Oh my gosh... I can't imagine."
"I don't have to."
"That's crazy. Do you ever leave?"
"If it gets loud or if I'm in a bad mood or if I don't want to think about it. I try to leave as often as I can, but it's surprising how you adjust to something like that."
"Does she ever talk to you about it?"
"No. It's an out-of-the-question topic. One time, one morning, she asked me if I ever heard anything, and I said no."
"Why?"
"I didn't feel like listening to any crap about excuses or regrets or apologies. It's just something she does."
"I'm so sorry that you have to go through that. Are your parents divorced?"
"No, my dad died a few years ago."
At this point, she didn't say anything, but this isn't the not saying anything that shattered my dream. She was just at a loss for words, I think. I mean, in her shoes, I wouldn't know what to say.
"It's ok, you don't have to say anything."
The next thing she said quiet and slow.
"How do you manage?"
"It's surprising how you adjust. When you can't do anything about it, all you can do is adjust. There's not much room for crying."The thing is, I was in tears by this point. Even over the telephone, she really had me. So there, so sensitive, so real. She was all over talking and caring about me like nobody else. I felt so close. It wasn't the beginning, though. It had begun a long time ago, and the dream had been growing. That beautiful ideal of the two of us together, forever in loving bliss.
"You're an awesome guy, y'know? Not many people I know have to deal with or could deal with what you have to. I'm not happy that this is what you have to deal with, but I'm glad that you're handling it the way you do. The real you really shows, and I like him."
"Jen..."
"Yeah?"
"I've got something on my mind."
"It sounds like you've got a lot on your mind."
"I mean something in particular."
"What?"
"Well, to be to the point, you."
"Me? What about me? Did I do something wrong?"
"No, no. It's just that, well, I think you're awesome."
"Thank you; that's so sweet!"
"No- no, I mean yes, but, the thing is..."
"What?"
"I love you."
"Oh."
Enter silence. This was the end of my life before suicide. Thirty full seconds; I looked at my watch, waiting, listening to her breath. Anticipation gripped me and I could barely breathe. I could see her face in my mind, still, calm, hiding a brain that was carefully weighing out all the different sides of the equation, a brain that was weighing out my fate.
I was waiting to hear a joyful laugh or sniffle, a reciprocation. I waited thirty seconds, and the fear was taking over: it was too long to be a good thing.
Then she said it. The most insensitive, unresponsive, and ambiguous thing possible. As it came out, she could have put a bullet through my brain and been less guilty.
"It's late."
Hold that thought. Imagine those two words stretching out over a space of a couple of minutes in super slow motion, agony shooting into your soul. That simple sentence was a powerful seal. It sealed pills numbered one through twelve that slipped into my bloodstream through the small intestine. It sealed total abandonment of hope. It sealed my fate, my failure.
It was late. So she had been truthful but evasive. Blatantly evasive. I couldn't figure out why. I couldn't see what was wrong with me. I have my faults, to be sure, but I just couldn't understand it. There seemed to be a connection, there seemed to be an attraction, but she didn't catch it. I was caught up by it, but she didn't even catch it.
(30 seconds of silence)
I hung up.
I didn't even cry. I didn't say anything to myself or think much of anything. No time for contemplating. No reason to justify or explain.
My mom had taken Xanax for the last five years to treat her insomnia. She never slept well without someone in the bed with her, and that works on two levels. The bottle in the medicine cabinet has just always been there; I don't think that I've ever seen her take one. The men have always walked out of the room, down the stairs, and out the front door. I don't think I've ever seen her come out after the fact. Maybe she feels guilty, but that's sort of an out-of-the-question topic.
I found the bottle and opened the child-proof lid. Each pill had death written on it.
Looking back, the suicide was really an unconscious act. There wasn't too much going on in my head, at least not about what I was doing. I was thinking about words like stupid and wrong. I was thinking about death. I was thinking about my dad.
When I was ten, my dad had a heart attack. It was quick, like an unexpected smack in the face. My mom really flipped out, but would never let anyone know. I would hear her crying in her room at night. Each night, as I tried to slip into darkness, I could hear the muffled sounds coming through the wall. Heaves. Sobs. Sniffles. Moaning. It really tortured me.
One time I had to get up to go to the bathroom. It was like two in the morning. Tip-toeing out of my room, I saw light and noise downstairs. As I came down I realized that the TV was on. My mom was sitting on the couch, all teary-eyed and watching reruns of The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy. After my dad died, my mom couldn't sleep. So she stayed up and watched reruns from the fifties. From the era when Lucille Ball couldn't say the word pregnant on TV.
I died that night. The night that she hung up on me. I died in my room, on the floor. I died hearing my mom cheat on my dad. I died wanting to vomit. I died with a feeling of total loss, absolute failure. Slipping into darkness, I knew that I was going to Hell. I expected that Satan's booming laugh would be the first thing I heard in eternity. Little imps were sharpening and firing their pitchforks just so they could shove them into my wretched soul. The gates of Hell swung open, and I died.
2
When I woke up from death, the first thing I heard was Lucille Ball whining and the rhythmic beep of my heart monitor interjected into the canned laughter. The pieces didn't fit together at first. I thought that maybe Satan liked old sitcoms. I thought that maybe his beeper was going off. Crazy, stupid, archaic ideas assaulted me. Demons with thermomemter scythes. Arcane bossa novas led by Tito Puente and Desi Arnaz. Even so, Hell seemed like such a distant place once you were on the other side. In life after death, it was as though I had left Hell behind.
I saw the doctor looking down at me.
"He's awake, ma'am."
I could hear my mom start crying and felt her clutching me but I didn't move. I didn't feel like it. She was fine enough when I was dead and dad was dead and she had her sitcoms and one night stands.
The doctor spoke first.
"You were lucky to make it, son. We didn't think that you would pull through. You even flatlined on the ambulance." He paused. I'm not sure if it was out of respect or just for effect. "I'll leave you with your mom."
I think he picked up the nurse radio or whatever.
"Joan, 206 is awake; let's get a new bedpan in here."
I had attempted to kill myself. That made me suicidal. A nutcase. Depressed. I presented a danger to myself and possibly to others. If someone will kill themself, who knows what they might do to someone else. I was on the edge. Not many people can really say that. Not many people can say that they lived through twelve pills of Xanax.
Because I was a psychiatric case, I had to stay in the room for five days, for observation, for protection. I would be evaluated in four days, and they would decide what to do with me from there. When I asked how long I had to stay, they said it depended on my evaluation, on my specific case. Depending on your case, you could be home in a week or you could be home in an asylum.
I thought that maybe because I didn't make a mess that they'd let me off easier. And then I wondered if there were any laws against suicide. They can do their best to prevent you, but if you manage to try (and fail), can they arrest you? This was one of my pressing concerns for the first couple of days.
My mom was around a lot. It seemed like she never left. She was always there, always talking, always watching TV, always making sure the nurses were doing everything. Overhearing a conversation in the hallway, I learned that mom now had a reputation at the hospital, too. Apparently she got in the way. I wondered if they knew about her other reputation. About how she'd been with more men than a rising diva, than an aspiring fashion model. I figured that I'd probably end up talking about it to the shrink in a couple of days.
I tried to sleep when my mom was around, but never really slept good until they shut the TV off. I asked them to take it out or put some magnets behind it or anything but leave it there for my mom but they said that they couldn't do that. I asked them if I could contact the Make-a-Wish Foundation but they were unsympathetic. You'd think a potential manic depressive could get a little more respect than that.
All my mom ever wanted to talk about was Why did you do it? and Was this my fault? or Honey, is this about your father? I never said anything about Jenny, and wondered if she knew I was dead and where she was and what she thought. I wondered if she realized that I abused prescription medication because she didn't say anything when I told her I love you. I wondered if anybody realized that I had just got off of the phone with Jenny before I tried to slip into darkness, into uncertainty. Mom never asked about Jenny.
I don't know if you've ever contemplated silence before. It's very obvious- loud, in its own way. So when someone asks you an important question, and you don't say anything, it's like screaming in their face.
I killed myself because Jenny screamed at me. I opened myself up, tore my chest wide open and showed her my bleeding heart. I let her watch it beat and pulsate and quiver. Better than the Discovery Channel.
Sometimes I think women have men figured out all wrong. There is a basic assumption that we're animalistic, sex-driven, stupid, insensitive and unexpressive. They don't seem to believe in our ability to be real. Yeah, I'm generalizing (and off topic), but so what? Men are just as much victims of society as women are. We don't need, however, political liberation: we need social liberation. Liberation from a media that feeds us false images and dreams, liberation from a society that teaches us to focus on power, money, and success. Liberation from thinking that each of us is the most important person in the world.
Personally, I never bought into the whole testosterone-driven mindset. Big noises, fast cars, shiny objects- none of it appealed to me. I was the quiet type. To be sure, high adrenaline entertainment had a certain magnetism, but I'd only watched it with a detached, analytical interest.
It's not that I was the touchy-feely type either. Even though I'd always been expressive, I'd never identified myself as an artist; writer, painter, or otherwise. I was never drawn strongly enough. Anyway, what we do is not who we are. To find your identity- your "self," so to speak- in an action, to find it in an interest, occupation or pastime- to do so is to dehumanize yourself. It's because we are spiritual beings with souls and emotions; we are individuals. Our actions are the results of who we really are; achievement, endeavor, progress- these can never shape our identities.
So why did I kill myself? If I wasn't having an identity crisis, what kind of crisis would make me take 12 sleeping pills?
Think about the dream. Think about Jenny. Think about the way she made me feel warm and numb all over. Think about how perfect we were together. Think about thirty seconds of silence screaming a history of failures, rejections, and tears into your psyche. Think about it.
I killed myself because of rampant idealism. Because of the need to aim high and the passions that are so easily kindled. Because of the need to be accepted, enjoyed.
When I heard her voice, it was like a pseudo-Psalm 23 experience. When she listened to me, it was like the world was fulfilling its destiny. When she confided in me, I felt that I was fulfilling mine.
I'm a big dreamer, always looking for the larger picture, the broader scope. When she didn't say anything, I could hear Chicken Little chirping, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" There are two ways to react to the falling sky of an unrealized dream: you can rationalize and make excuses, or you can have a total breakdown.
I expressed my breakdown by downing a whole bottle of Xanax. Well, what was left in it, anyway.
My mom got around to telling me all about the "Jenny ordeal."
I had been wondering if she even knew about it. I was wondering what she was doing, thinking, hating and loving. My ears perked up at her name. It was like a distant memory from a past life. A beautiful, terrifying memory.
When the really tall guy had finished with my mom, he decided that he had to go to the bathroom before he left. In the superiority of my suicidal wisdom, I had left my door open, and, walking by, he saw me lying on the floor. He called my mom in and when she saw me she started saying my name, but then he held up the empty bottle of Xanax. That's when she burst into tears and started screaming and cursing. That's when they called 911.
Just before the paramedics arrived, Jenny called me back. She was surprised to hear my mom's voice, and asked for me. And then my mom told her the news. My mom told her about how I had killed myself. How I was dead.
Jenny started crying and asking Why? Why did he do it? Why? She told my mom that she had just got off the phone with me. Jenny was the last person to talk to me before I died. My last words? I love you. She went on and on about how sorry she was and about how she loved me so much and about how great I was but it was just that she didn't want to have a relationship but that didn't mean that I had to die not death anything but that. She went on about how she just didn't want anyone right now about how she didn't think about me that way but she didn't want me to die.
At least she said something.
"Jenny, did you drive my son to suicide?"
"What?"
"Did you make John kill himself?"
"No, I didn't, I just-"
"You did. You killed him you little tramp. You killed John. Why didn't you just put a gun in his hand? Don't you realize that he's all I have!?"
"I'm sorry Ms.-"
"Don't I'm sorry me, missie. I don't care about what you have to say. My son is lying dead on his bedroom floor because of you. He's dead. DEAD. Half a bottle of Xanax. 6000 milligrams. Dead."
"I just didn't want to hurt him..."
"Didn't want to hurt him? You sure picked a fine way of showing it, missie. What did you say to him? Hm? What did you say to my John, to my boy? Why is he dead on his bedroom floor?"
"I didn't say anything; he hung up on me."
"What?"
"He said I love you and I didn't know what to say. He hung up. I'm sorry Ms. Grant, but he hung up. That's why I called back. I didn't know what to say at first. But, but- I mean, can you hear me? I can barely talk. I can barely breathe. He's not dead. He can't die. I'm crying, Ms. Grant. I can't breathe."
"My friend found John on the floor. He called me in and showed me my bottle of Xanax- completely empty. The cotton was even stripped out. It's still lying in small tufts around my son's dead body. The ambulance, Miss Young, is on the way, and I am not in the mood to deal with emotional hussies at the moment. Good-bye!"
My mom has always had a way with words.
To be fair, she did talk to Jenny the next day and told her that in fact I wasn't dead but nearly had been. That was three days ago. Mom went home. I told her that I'd be fine. And, thankfully, she refilled her Xanax prescription.
