海角在线

I tried to kill myself in the summer of 2006. I was 23.

I spent a month deeply entrenched in an exhaustive cycle of breaking up and getting back together with Emma, the girl I’d loved for three years. She was cheating on me, but neither of us could sever ties completely. We’d break up, we’d sleep together, we’d get back together in rapid succession. It was always over again as quickly as it began. We had some serious codependence issues. I tried to accept this as it came, but I felt helpless. Walking away wasn’t an option. I thought that the very act of loving her was enough to make it work.

I wasn’t eating. I was barely sleeping. I was trying to maintain a job and a social life. I’d been accepted to graduate school in Miami, and I was preparing for a cross-country move. I was trying to do all of this without betraying the fact that I was not okay. I was suicidal.

Emma and I were both pasta slingers at everyone’s favorite Italian chain. We worked the early shift on a Tuesday and settled into my favorite booth afterward to have lunch together. We had an argument鈥攐ne of many which, over the years, had escalated to being emotionally and then physically abusive.

The year before, I bought a car for the sole purpose of escape. When the fights got bad, I鈥檇 drive. It was better than getting punched in the face by the person I loved, or retaliating鈥攖he latter of which was absolutely soul crushing. This brand of escapist panic driving escalated into suicidal fantasies about driving off bridges or into ditches. Rural Tennessee provided plenty of fodder.

I鈥檇 even set a plan in motion on Halloween 2005, but Emma came home and stopped me. She didn鈥檛 support me. She told me I鈥檇 ruined her holiday鈥攐ne of many ticks on a very long list of ways in which I鈥檇 wronged her over time. She knew this list by heart, and could recite it to me at the drop of a hat.

So when I found myself with her on that afternoon as she went down the list yet again鈥攍oudly, and in earshot of our coworkers鈥擨 grabbed my keys and went back to our apartment. We were on that day, and I was terrified that the argument would flip the switch. I was frantic.

She came home, packed some things, said she was going out. I was given no further information. I begged her not to go. I cried. I tore at her shirt. She went anyway.

I paced. I waited. I cried more. I tried to watch TV. I tried to listen to music. Hours passed. I felt like I would combust.

I called. I called again. I felt untethered, like a ball of raw nerves. I felt like I would die if I couldn鈥檛 hear her voice. Eventually, she picked up and I screamed her name, begged her to come home. She said no. I screamed more. I felt like I would die anyway. I felt like there was nothing else I could do, there were no other options. Even if she did come home, I didn’t think I could live with her anymore. It hurt too much.

I was in absolute terror of being alone, but I didn’t know where to turn. My best friends lived across the country, Emma clearly wasn’t coming home, and I felt isolated from my local friends. If Emma ever suspected that I was discussing our relationship with them, she’d tell me, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e turning them against me.鈥� I feared the repercussions, so I was left with myself.

I was not safe with myself.

I鈥檇 spent weeks sitting on our porch scribbling in my journal, writing “DO FOR YOURSELF,” over and over, page by page, like a mantra, trying to convince myself to leave. I listened to the trains pass behind the house and willed myself to lie down on the tracks and wait. I tried to work up the resolve to make deeper cuts with the razor blades I鈥檇 used to cope for nine years.

By then, the skin on my arms looked like a roadmap. Whenever I found myself in extreme emotional pain, an intense pressure would settle in my chest. It made me feel trapped and breathless, and there was only one way I knew to alleviate it.

The way I used to see it, if I could make myself bleed, it meant that my pain was real. If I could see it, then I could believe that it wasn’t just in my head because it was right there in front of me. Seeing it made it tangible. It made the pressure in my chest fade a little bit. It made the panic lessen. In its own way, it was helpful, but I also knew what kind of damage it could do if I lost control.

I wanted to lose control.

When I thought about leaving, I panicked. When I thought about being alone, I panicked. When I thought about a life that didn’t include her, I panicked. When I thought about any kind of future, I panicked. I wanted to die. The longer I was alone, the more hopeless I felt.

I had a bottle each of painkillers and wine. The plan was to get so obliterated that I’d eventually lose that control, and that loss would allow me to cut deeper. I’d be so numb that it wouldn’t hurt.

Movies show suicide as a romantic drift into nothingness. None of that is real. It’s messy. It’s painful. It’s terrifying. Especially when you鈥檙e in it, woozy and bloody and blubbering.

I called again and again. Her phone went straight to voicemail. Eventually, she picked up and, again, I begged her to come home. She hung up on me. She called back two minutes later.

This time, she stayed on the phone, but just long enough to make sure the police had arrived. They pounded on the door, staccato like gunshots, and barged into my house. Our small living room was suddenly full of policemen and paramedics asking who I was and whether I had taken anything.

I was so hysterical that I couldn’t even tell them my name. I dialed my mom’s number. She gave them my information. When they put her back on the phone with me, she told me to go willingly. If I didn’t, they’d handcuff me and take me anyway. I didn’t have an option. She reminded me that having mental health issues on my records could ruin my chances of getting a job鈥攊n that very same field鈥攊n the future.

I wasn鈥檛 allowed to get dressed. I was wearing a pair of thin, oversized, blue cotton pajama pants and a ratty t-shirt. I couldn’t even put on a bra.

I remember the quiet of the ambulance ride and the tungsten halos on all the street lights. My next memory is of lying in a hospital bed in a cold, beige room. I was alone. I don’t know how much time passed; it felt like a long time. I got little cell reception, so I couldn’t call or text anyone. I was left to think about what I’d done and where I was as a consequence of that鈥攁nd the fear. I was feeling such an overwhelming amount of fear.

That experience of trying to die made me realize just how much I wanted to live. I knew that, if I didn’t find some way to change, I would die. I promised myself that I would find a way to stop hurting myself, no matter what that required.

A nurse showed up. She was curt and addressed me only when necessary. I told her I was terrified of needles, which she disregarded as she matter-of-factly gave me a tetanus shot and drew my blood. The only warmth I felt was that of my own blood in the full vials she laid on my stomach one by one, in a neat line. She left and the on-duty psychologist came to do a psych evaluation. I lied my way through it. I told her what she wanted to hear and swore that I wasn’t suicidal.

My mom called my friend Amy and asked if they’d pick me up. Amy was the one friend Emma and I hadn’t shared, the only one I didn’t feel isolated from. She left the party she was throwing that night, and had a sober friend drive her the hospital. I was released into her custody under one condition: that she stay the night with me.

We walked out to the parking lot, where I climbed into the front seat of her friend鈥檚 Audi. Everything looked so normal and unchanged, though it felt very clear to me that I was on the other side of one of the most significant life experiences I would ever have.

We stopped at Taco Bell. Everything resumed as if it was any other evening. When we got back to Amy’s place, the party was still in full swing. She led me upstairs to her bedroom and I crawled into her bed, onto the side I always slept on during our sleepovers. I could hear the music and voices below. Amy put on her sleepytime playlist. She told me to find her if I needed anything. I remember Iron and Wine’s “Fever Dream” and the sweet lilt of Sam Beam’s voice. I’d never heard it before, and I still think of that night whenever I hear it鈥攏ot with a sense of fear or shame, but with a feeling of comfort and love. I felt safe.

The next day, I called my best friend, Liz, and told her what happened. We talked next steps, and agreed that I wouldn’t be able to heal and move on unless I left Emma, and that meant leaving town entirely. We shared a bank account, and there was nothing in it. We lived paycheck to paycheck. Liz wired me $300鈥攅nough to carry me the 16 hours and 1,000 miles to Denton, Texas, where she lived. She had a room waiting for me.

I finished out the week at my job. I packed my stuff. I tried to ignore the stares and the whispers of everyone around me. The night before I left, Emma and I saw what was left of Lynyrd Skynyrd play “Freebird” under the 4th of July fireworks in Bristol, Virginia. I meant to leave at noon the next day, but I was so terrified of saying goodbye to Emma and the town I’d started to call home that I kept stalling.

I put the last of my things in my car at around 5pm. I kissed her one last time before I turned heel and, literally, ran out the door to my car. I didn’t get out of it again until I pulled up in Liz’s driveway the next morning. I started my life over again after a long nap and in the care of my best friend.

If I could go back and talk to the girl who ran off that porch and into the unknown that day and tell her all she’d come to see and feel and accomplish, she would never believe me.

I started small (a new bank account, a new job). I traveled (all over the country, mostly by Greyhound). I went to grad school (nope, not for me). I moved to New York with a thousand bucks and whatever I could fit into my car. My dad died (in prison, alone). I got a job at a record label (not as glamorous as it sounds). I taught myself photography (the camera went everywhere with me and the rule was manual settings only). I met, photographed, and interviewed most of my heroes (Tori Amos, Tegan and Sara, Amanda Palmer). I got married (a week after the Marriage Equality Act went into effect). I quit my job and decided to chase my dreams (definitely as terrifying as it sounds, but equally rewarding). I got divorced (she cheated on me six months later). I fell in love again, and it’s not a love that hurts, but a love that heals. I learned to take care of my mind and how to keep it safe (accept that you will have awful days, be kind to yourself, ask for help when you need it).

My story is not unique. There are so many others out there just like it, but the society we live in tells us that we can’t talk about suicide, that doing so is attention-seeking behavior, that it only happens to “crazy” people. The truth is, this can happen to anyone, and until we stop sterilizing it by talking in figures, stereotyping it, romanticizing it, sensationalizing it, or avoiding it completely, we’re not going to save any lives.

In the late summer of 2010, I decided to address the issue head on using art in a series called Live Through This. I took a voice recorder and my camera, and I went to the source. I started to talk to other attempt survivors about their experiences鈥攚hat led up to their attempt(s), their recovery, how they were treated by medical professionals, their feelings about psychiatric medications, what their support systems look like, other factors, and wherever else the discussion led. After each conversation, I made a portrait. I moved in close and asked each survivor to look into my lens as if they were looking directly into the eyes of the viewer.

I started to publish these portraits and stories online as a kind of experiential catalog鈥攁s proof that, not only are we not alone, but that this issue spans all age ranges, ethnicities, faiths, sexual orientations, gender presentations, and any other box we might want to put a person in. I’ve interviewed 115 suicide attempt survivors in 13 US cities. I have no plans to stop.

I’m not trying to normalize suicidal feelings. I tell this story and I do this work because I want people to know that this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The suicidal mind can’t be stereotyped. When we do it safely, talking about these feelings can be empowering. It can create identification and breed compassion. It can heal. It can open us up to possible solutions, both for ourselves and the system at large. Maybe it can even save lives, but we won’t know until we try.

I wish I could say that I didn’t still battle my mind and the thoughts that I’d be better off dead sometimes, but I do. The difference now is that I’m not afraid to talk about it. I’m not afraid to ask for help when I need it. I know I’m loved even when I can’t feel it. And I know I will be able to power through any difficult moment because I know, without a doubt, that I’m not alone.