21, interrupted

essay on: suicide prevention

tw: suicide, mental illness, substance abuse.

“it was a spring day. the sort that gives you hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. suicide weather.”

-girl, interrupted by susanna kaysen.

---

i could only compare the spring of ‘24 to the end of time.

during this epidemic, i contained grief to my room.

it felt the most courteous thing to do, rather than walk around with such a woeful expression that a passing stranger would suspect a recent bereavement.

i also wasn’t desperate to make a spectacle of myself in public, turning to people’s faces to see if they were enjoying the big production.

---

‘i’m sad and angry and i hate everything,’ i told my friend.

‘i think you’re just 21,’ he said.

‘i think i need a lobotomy,’ i said.

---

i was reluctant to see a doctor.

my doctor was at least sixty, so i doubted she had access to any of the latest drugs or knew of any recent medical breakthroughs— she could barely work the computer.

still, i didn’t need to paint her a fucking word picture when i walked into her office that day. i could tell she’d she’d come up with a diagnosis she could give me before i’d even sat down.

‘how are you?’ she asked without warning, a question i deemed incredibly invasive.

what did she want to take a look at next? my bank statements? the knicker drawer?

‘great, thanks,’ i said (in my experience there was such a thing as being a little too honest with a professional, and it was always worth mentioning you had a plan for the future).

we then sat in silence like two individuals that had no practical experience in holding a conversation.

i knew what she was doing, which was leaving a long enough pause for my undeveloped frontal lobes to get uncomfortable and fill it.

and because i fell for it every bloody time, i admitted to creating a spotify playlist titled ‘my funeral’ (i didn’t want a dry eye in SIGHT).

‘de-pre-ssion’

the doctor drew out the word the way you explained something to a small child.

‘and you might have traits of an unstable personality disorder,’ she said as an afterthought.

well people shouldn’t just be guessing, i thought crossly.

i took the medication and left.

---

the good thing about having a mental disorder was that i could get away with things i was punished for when my nervous system was regulated.

for example, i could emerge from my room at 7pm, still in my pyjamas, and my parents would tell me ‘well done’ like i had done something praiseworthy by showing up late and inappropriately dressed.

they would even say nice things like ‘you’ve lost weight’ (it was nice to know that, despite it all, my vanity was still intact).

---

but after a while i could tell they were getting fed up with me having the face of a wet weekend every day.

even the dog had started to give me a wide berth.

‘you mustn’t take it personally,’ my mum said.

‘please, he’s a dog,’ i said.

---

when i emailed my professor that i was taking time off uni, he said ‘get better soon’ like what i was dealing with was a common cold and not that i was torn between dying young and leaving an attractive corpse and going to therapy.

the first didn’t work, so therapy it was.

---

‘why did you do it?’ the therapist asked me.

how long do you have? i thought (i knew exactly how long because i’d had enough therapists make me cry then kick me out at the 1 hour mark to know they didn’t get paid overtime).

i said ‘one day i thought about killing myself and once i’d had that thought it was all i could think about,’

‘and then?’ she pressed.

and then every time i sat at a train station or walked by a window or along a road or lay in the bath, i was rehearsing tragedy. anything could be drawn into the debate; i said something stupid 6 years ago, i should kill myself. i watched a good movie, maybe i shouldn’t kill myself. the only time i was happy living was when i was thinking about dying. it made me feel euphoric.

‘and then i cocked it up,’ i said instead.

she looked disappointed.

‘death doesn’t scare you?’ she went on.

i told her no. it was like being an idiot- it only affected the people around me, so i didn’t care.

she laughed but concealed it with a cough.

---

at the end of the appointment, she asked what i was going to do until i next saw her.

sleep or die. ‘see my friends,’ i improvised.

she studied me like she was trying to interpret a painting, looking very thought-provoked.

‘i know life can be shit,’ she said suddenly, ‘but for this to work, you can’t be dead,’

i said ‘okay’ so that i didn’t sound unreasonable.

---

as an active listener, therapization had never come naturally to me.

each time i did manage to deflect, i was given very limited information; she was married, 2 children, she was having pasta for dinner, now tell me about your fucked up life.

unfortunately for her, i preferred literally any other topic— i had no idea how to talk about my life without sounding like i was doing a dramatic reading from an autobiographical novel titled ‘the stakes could not be lower’.

---

i took great pleasure in knowing i couldn’t be reprimanded for having no basic decorum or evident peoples’ skills during our sessions;

i turned up late, revealed nothing, glanced at the clock frequently, lied about everything and then went home and did everything she told me not to.

---

‘do you want to get better?’ she asked me one day, ‘because if you don’t, you’re just wasting my time,’

i stared at her in disbelief.

did she not realize that my time was on the line too? that sitting with her each week got in the way of lying in a dark room away from society and 3d responsibilities?

‘i can’t be bothered to get better,’ i said out of spite, ‘it’s easier to get worse,’

i was signed off to group therapy.

---

in group therapy i was sat between a man drawing people being knifed across his worksheet and a woman that had to switch a light on and off ten times before she left her house or a member of her family would die.

in these sessions, we took it in turns to tell the coordinator why our lives sucked and she would offer us words of encouragement with the enthusiasm of a children’s tv presenter.

meanwhile, the rest of our listened in like it was antiques road show and we were evaluating how low each other’s worth was.

---

to be honest, i was unconvinced of the utility of these get-togethers.

in fact, i spent the first few weeks thinking third time lucky? so i wouldn’t have to partake in what i could only describe as a humiliation ritual.

the only thing preventing further regression was the idea of activated charcoal.

---

‘if you don’t kill yourself, i’ll dye my hair pink,’ my friend said.

‘it better be fucking magenta,’ i said.

he wrote fucking magenta on the back of his hand.

---

any time somebody was discharged from the group, the rest of us would be patronized to ‘hang on in there’, i supposed instead of from the ceiling.

either way, being told to ‘bear with’ was a propaganda i was absolutely not falling for. if i had a say, i would recommend not being born.

and, if you were born, i would recommend not landing yourself in a situation with a bunch of radical nonconformists going on about flick-knives and their multiple personalities (judging by the coordinator’s face, she expected nothing less- i could show up with a microwave or no clothes on and she would add it expressionlessly to my file later that evening).

---

‘it’s a nut hut,’ i said to my therapist over the phone.

‘it’s a support group,’ she replied, ‘you should try to get on with them,’

this baffled me- i saw zero benefit in befriending a group of individuals whose only common-ground i shared was a history of substance abuse and suicidal ideation, neither of which were the hallmark to a good relationship.

‘but i’m not like them,’ i protested.

instead of saying ‘crazy people never think they’re crazy’, she said ‘you fantasise about getting stabbed repeatedly in the chest,’

i apologized and told her to have a nice evening.

---

either out of boredom or for proof of existence, i started to speak about what happened—

the side of the road, the bag of empty blister packs, the torch in my eyes, the police, the beep of the monitor, the wires in my arms, my stomach.

i talked about how differently i was treated after it happened, as though i was wearing a fragile sticker at all times—

how people i’d known my whole life suddenly had no idea how to interact with me or start a sentence that didn’t begin with a pitying look and a ‘how are things?’

---

i talked about the what ifs-

what if my life hadn’t been interrupted by an illness? what if i was never the same? what if i was terminally upset and nothing ever changed? what if i wasn’t ill and this was just who i was?

a week later, somebody in the group gave me a book.

it was called the midnight library by matthew haig.

in the midnight library, nora attempts suicide and wakes up at ‘the midnight library’. in the library, each book represents a life she could have and a version of herself that is waiting. nora realises that although she can’t change the past, she is in control of her future. the only thing that stands in her way is a decision- to persevere or give up.

matthew haig put me into the throes of an epiphany.

one decision, i realized, could change everything.

what if i chose to get better?

---

i started to do things i did pre-illness.

i saw my friends and we talked about normal things like boys, the government and our mothers.

i painted, i dated, i wrote (this time on a public platform).

i stopped listening to songs guaranteed to make me cry (a major turning point) !!!

---

i was discharged from group therapy and once again dropped at the feet of my therapist (i put her through the ringer for well over a year).

---

‘you’re one of the people i want to meet in ten years to see what they’ve done with their life,’ she said to me at our last appointment.

‘hopefully at least one thing,’ i replied.

‘that one thing can be living,’ she said, ‘that is enough,’

when i stood up to leave, i said ‘you saved me,’

she cried.

---

life continued.

i turned 22.

i went back to uni and got my degree.

i got a job in the city.

my friend dyed his hair fucking magenta.

---

i imagine that when i slipped into unconsciousness, i didn’t wake up at ‘the midnight library’.

i woke up at a typewriter, looking at a blank page- the standstill of my life.

i had a decision to make- type the end knowing that once the ink was on the page, there was no turning back.

or, i could keep writing the story.

i decided it wasn’t 21, the end.

i was just 21, interrupted.

---

“this time i read the title of the painting: girl interrupted at her music. interrupted at her music: as my life had been, interrupted in the music of being seventeen, as her life had been, snatched and fixed on canvas: one moment made to stand still and to stand for all the other moments, whatever they would be or might have been. what life can recover from that?”

-girl, interrupted by susanna kaysen.

~rr

---

poem written by my brother

helpline numbers

united states: 988 suicide & crisis lifeline- call or text 988.

canada: talk suicide canada- call or text 988.

united kingdom: samaritans- call 116 123.

india- AASRA- call 09820 466 726.

australia- lifeline australia- call 13 11 14 (24/7)