All I want to say is that someone connected to me died on Saturday and I have reason to believe it was suicide. This is what I wrote to four people:
“The assistant building manager —– died — i am certain it was suicide — Saturday…i feel to blame, to blame, to blame. It is not that i knew or could have helped her, no, i feel like i caused her to kill herself. I’m shaking in –what? — terror, something! Even the music on Pandora is blaming me. What have i done?”
For hours there was no reply. I located two cigars in the bottom of an old purse, knowing what I had to do…I planned to place this photo:
and let fate determine the consequences, both what eventuated in terms of the voices and what happened after that. All I knew is that even Pandora “radio” is blaming me for the death — suicide as I suspect — and I do not know what to do. I have already been responsible for two suicides of friends. How can I take this again>???
Then my shrink brother wrote me back, after I thought he was long ago in bed and asleep. I quote him in part: “you feel guilty for taking care of yourself. I hope that makes sense. I know it applies to me, so I’m not just saying it. Let it go. You had nothing to do
with her death. It’s sad, if it indeed was suicide, but just leave it at
that. I do think it’s more than symbolic that the person you’re guilty about was the manager of the building you hope to leave for good soon.”
Then he suggested that I take an Ativan (for a change?) and go to sleep. I wasn’t going to, I was going to do something that was ordered of me, and which I felt was essential. But I feel a little less alone, and feel as if I can hang on another night. At least he didn’t get angry and tell me I am not his “top priority”…as if I needed that rammed down my throat ever or again.
I may not make it all night, but if I can sleep it would help a lot. I barely slept last night at all and all these songs on the Bruno Mars’ station are getting to me. I am crying because of how bad I feel…
Will I get through the night? Only the future can tell. I will take the Ativan, against my better judgement, and I already took the half that I refused of Geodon, much against my judgement because otherwise I would be blamed for everything that happens from now on. I do not need the Geodon, but I know what the nurse will say if I refuse it. Until I get to Vermont and then I am free to do what I choose, and if that means — well, I won’t go there right now.
Thank you for listening, if anyone out there really is — either there or listening.
P
WAGblog: Dum Spiro Spero 
J… every word you said…I agree 100%.
LikeLike
I usually hold environmental factors (i.e. the people with whom the suicidal person was economically or emotionally invested in) far more responsible for the person’s suicide than most people do. People enjoy destroying each other more than they are willing to admit, and true accountability for they harm they cause seems to always elude them. This time, however, you can’t blame yourself. We have a mental health system that has many other tools besides the “patients” themselves for making suicide the smartest option for people who can’t continue to be treated as less than human and still retain a few shreds of their humanity.
LikeLike
Yay I just got an email from our beloved Pam. She sent it about 4 hours ago but I just found it. Going by what she wrote, she is feeling much better now, although she is very exhausted ~ which is completely normal, emotional upheavals like she has just gone through is very exhausting.
LikeLike
You brother sounds like a smart guy and someone who cares about you.
Your art is sooo amazing. I know that this post is not about that but the face that you take your pain and make it into such good art is really a wonderful thing
I think at Ivan is good when used correctly I situations such as the one you went through
LikeLike
I hope the pain in my poem did not further upset you. I was so worried about you that I was searching your name online last night, trying to find your phone number. Wishing I could be therre in person to help. Thinking and visualizing what your emotional condition must feel and look like.
That was when my poem came to me, a memory of a time when I lived alone, when a terrible situation caused my mind and heart to shatter. I shared my poem with you so that you might feel less alone, and also to remind you that these terrible nights (and days) of mental torment DO PASS. That shattering moment for me happened in 2002. I have had many ups and downs in my life since then, but overall my life has gotten better and better. And I am so thankful that I did not hurt myself physically, that night when I shattered! I am so thankful I lived through it and beyond it! This is my hope for YOU. Live through and beyond.
LikeLike
Thank you Alaina, for your wonderful, painful poem…
And you too Marie, for as me to see angels, though i see nothing but my evil right now…i shouldnt be here, online, worrying people…i will get off and try to sleep. It is the only way. Otherwise those cigars are calling me, and i cannot listen, cannot “purge” myslef of evil as they want me to and i want to…mostly becaus the consequences from the wider world would be so terrible, onl.y if i did it in secret,completely without telling a soul, between the god i dont believe in,and me.
LikeLike
When my mind broke
I heard the sound
of shattering glass
my essence rose
in a vaporous mist
evaporating into nothingness
like steam from a kettle
and then I was no more.
but how can I still
hurt so unbearably
if there is no me?
Curled in the fetal position
lying on the woven grass floor mat
in the dark of my study
feeling the pattern of the weave
pressing into my skin
seeing the soft glow
of ambient street lights filtered
through the gauzy curtains
I thought so pretty when I bought them last week
a lifetime ago
Now I close my eyes and hide from the light
I roll under the table
trying to be small
though my pain is large
disjointed thoughts
pinging like Pachinko balls
inside my skull
An old familiar madness
has come to take me away
and I am alone.
(Pam, I wrote this poem just now for you, as your current crisis reminds me of one of the times when I lost my mind for the night.)
LikeLike
Oh Pam, you see your secret angels, please reach out more I bet you you didn’t do nothing – rock yourself and hope some calm sets in and some sleep too. Change the music on the stero too or maybe just turn it off?
LikeLike
Thank you Alaina, i just feel so guilty and shocked…i have already lost two good friends to suicide that i could have changed. I didnt know E— that well, but well enough to suspect suicide…and i gave her my first painting in years, the one of the parrots because she had three. But her boss here apparently treated her like shit and …i dunno what to do or say. I took the Ativan, but i hadnt eaten much all day so I stayed up to eat something and now i cant sleep for the life of me…by the way, im not going to kill myself. No, i just would do what They say to, because it would silence them and make me feel like i had atoned for the evil in me…all evil, not just in me but of me, all of me. But better for me to try to sleep.
Thank you so much for being there for me…i will come back here tomorrw ans let you know what happened.
Pam
LikeLike
If you want to talk to me, post a comment and let me know. Then I will post my phone number and then you can unpost it after you call me. Ok? I am worried about you. You are bigger than the voice. The voice that tells you to do harmful things to yourself, that voice has no power, it is just a voice. You are so much more than a voice. The voice is nothing, it is all fake, like the wizard of oz hiding his small nothingness behind a curtain.
LikeLike
I hear you. I’m sorry for your loss and sorry you’re struggling so much.
LikeLike
What stopped me from dying when my cousin drowned… I thought about how my death would HURT certain people, the way that my cousin’s death was hurting me. I did not want to hurt anyone else the way I was hurting. Would your brother hurt like that if you died? Would your brother go through the rest of his life thinking he did not say or do enough to help you? I know you would not want to do that to your brother.
LikeLike
I agree with your brother. I know how bad it hurts to feel like you are somehow responsible for someone’s suicide. My cousin… when she died in 2011, shortly after we had talked on the phone for about an hour, I felt responsible. I wanted to die instead. I wanted to bring her back, by killing me, instead. But it doesn’t work like that,
LikeLike
I am here. I am listening. I care.
LikeLike