Monday afternoon had another precedent, above laying on the floor with a dog, raising and lowering a paint-splattered arm, and complaining about deliveries that haven't been delivered. Monday afternoon saw me troup into London for my weekly visit on the couch, a routine that is as regular to me as brushing my teeth, taking my vitamins, or drinking water, and just as necessary for daily living. I have my routines when I go to see him, certain patterns I always take, certain train times that I coordinate.

There was a lot on my mind this time. Not only have we had the move and the dog, but recently something came and popped its head into my life, something that I never really thought I was over but also never really thought about. Life may move on but time holds still in that loft office, as we zig and zag between the past and present in preparation for the future.

Last Thursday my neighbor Billie came over for a drink. Billie, my book club mate. Billie, fellow dog owner (she owns a Bernese Mountain Dog and a dachsund, which I call the Walking Couch and the Little Sausage. She doesn't mind.) Billie is the one who tried IVF for more years than she wants to remember. Billie, someone who has become a friend, even if I sometimes keep her at arms' length.

Billie had brought a bottle of wine and we talked. As we continued to talk, there was a real quality of sadness to her voice that I had never heard before. I listened, as the only thing I can do is listen, and finally she looked up at me with tears.

"I've never been so down in my life, Helen," she said, crying.

"Oh God, Billie. Is there anything I can do?" I replied, and hugged her. She told me some of what's on her mind. She told me all that she did know, and I think that like me, there is some that she doesn't know. She talked about drinking, of sorrow, and finally, of hurting herself.

"Billie," I say calmly. "You're not thinking of killing yourself, are you?"

She shook her head and said more to herself than me, "I don't know. Sometimes I do."

And that's where the worlds meet. It's true I have many ingenious walls myself, hidden traps in which I can expedite people that get too close. I will find ways to have people leave my life if I think they're starting to like me, as it's easier that way. I never share about my mental health with anyone in my real life, and I sure as hell never talk about suicide with them.

Until now.

Sitting across from her on the couch, I open my mouth and tell her of the snowy Swedish evening. I tell her of the evening in the mental hospital that nearly broke me into a thousand tiny pieces, ones that none of the king's horses or men could put back together again. I tell her of it just because the one thing in the world I want is for no one to ever feel like that, ever.

I don't tell her it wasn't my first suicide attempt. I've got a Frequent Triers card, that suicide attempt was actually my third. Three times in my life the only thing that stopped me from going into the light was choosing the wrong pills. The first two times no one even knew about it, I simply slept it off. The last attempt was when the warning lights came on, and they stayed on. I don't tell her I know what it's like to look around and only see the darkness. I don't tell her that there's a hole in my heart that feels like a mine shaft, and the pit ponies drag one horrible god-forsaken memory or feeling from one shaft to another. I don't tell her that I too had a drinking problem, that I too hurt myself, or that I too sometimes needed to find an excuse-any fucking excuse, even something as mundane as Must See TV-to try to get out of bed in the morning.

What I do tell her is that I'll go to a doctor with her. I was once so alone as well and terrified of talking, I needed someone to help me only I didn't even know myself how truly lost I was. I want to open my brain and show her the images inside-of the restraints on the bed, of the taste of activated charcoal, of the millions of tears that could feed a nation. I want to show her this so that she will never have to go there herself.

So I sit across from my therapist and tell him about this. I tell him how incredibly and woefully unqualified I am to help. I tell him that there is nothing I can do and how I think platitudes are the worst form of insincerity. I tell him I don't want her to be where I was, I'll listen but am not much good at helping.

He talks about my past, of running from friends. He talks of where I am. He leans forward and asks me how I'm feeling.

"It all tastes like pills," I say quietly. I can feel them, bitter and hard, on the tip of my tongue. "I think it's because the second attempt, it was so many pills. I had downers and uppers and anti-depressants and sleeping tablets, and...it was so much. It all tastes like pills." I look up, and he is nodding, listening. "And the other times, it just feels so black, so full of despair. I can't see anyone else going through that despair, this shaft in the heart. I just can't."

He tells me that people who have been through something like that find each other. That suicide and deep depression has a specific darkness that other people seek for empathy, as the rest of nature fears that kind of darkness. He tells me listening is the best thing I can do. He tells me many things, and together, we both try to find a way out.

And at the end I tell him I have a lot of time for people that are there or have been there. I was so lost for so long and even now what I've been through doesn't make any sense, someone else on the same journey would maybe have had an impact. I don't know what I've become or who I am. I don't know what everything means. All I know is that staying alive is something I have to do for myself-all of this time, the suicides were to try to rid myself of every bit of me. And now me is the one thing in the world that I have to fight for, that I get to fight for.

Depression is like a fingerprint or a puff of breath-they are all different. I am terrified of saying the wrong thing and not sure what the right thing is, so I will say nothing and hope that my fingerprint helps hers.

I am not worth much but if I can listen, I will. I pulled out the greeting card I had bought in a Target in Raleigh nearly 8 years ago. It is in rough shape now, even though it stays in a plastic sleeve and goes with me everywhere. Someday I will scan it and post it here but for now it remains something that I hold in my heart to get me through each and every day, no matter how joyous or fucking miserable they might be.

On the cover is the famous painting "The Lady of Shalotte" by J.W. Waterhouse, of the red-headed woman in a boat, heading off to her death. The cover says:

"Every passage has its beacon. Every shadow has its light. We must therefore keep watch, my friend, keep watch."
-Captain Brenner Tate.

And on the inside, in simple letters, it says: "Everything is going to be all right."

My therapist read it and held it in his hands for a long time. He says I may be her greeting card, and all I know is this: something will be her greeting card and when it saves her, I hope to be in her life to talk it over with her.

So I listen to a song by Gemma Hayes that I found a week ago, from an album titled The Roads Don't Love You, and perhaps because the roads don't love me I love the name so much. The song is called Helen, and the first lines are:

I will welcome any stranger
For strangeness is a welcome guest
And I will make a bed for it to rest.

And I will make a bed for it to rest. It's the song version of "Everything is going to be all right." None of this means that I am cured, that I regret trying to top myself and that I am on the Care Bear Path to good mental health. It doesn't mean that I am full of happy bullshit like "I am worth so much" or "Life is a precious gift", what it does mean that every day is a new day, every day may or may not be a struggle. But it's my struggle, they're my days, and I owe it to myself to let me-whoever that Helen will be-have a real chance. I'm sure I'll never cure cancer or do anything useful in the world, but that's not the issue.

At least I'll get my chance to just be.

Here's to greeting cards.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 06:29 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
Post contains 1622 words, total size 8 kb.