For a long time – what seems like, in moments of deepest angst, forever – I have felt a compulsion, no, an obligation, to take my own life. Though "I wish I were dead" was practically my mantra during my 9th grade year, it didn't mean much until an ordinary and life-altering day during my 11th grade year. Waiting behind a motorcycle to take a right turn after school, I contemplated right and wrong. I realized that many of my actions that were considered "right" decisions were simply automatic actions for me. I wondered, what if every single decision I made, I made while fully aware of my freedom to make the opposite decision? I looked at the motorcyclist in front of me and tried to fully consider accelerating into him, crushing his bike and his body. I could do that, or I could keep my foot on the brake. I realized that in that moment, I had the complete capability to do either. I made the right decision, the decision to follow the rules of traffic, and more importantly, the rules of love. But it was electrifyingly horrible, a first realization of my own capabilities. Whether it really changed me or not, I've always looked back at that experience as the beginning of my end. That was the day I purposefully opened my mind to the dark side, the realm of complete freedom, and I started to lose my grip on what I grew up calling righteousness.
Making righteous decisions on autopilot made me feel weak and ashamed. Doing the opposite thing became a dare that taunted me. My breath still catches in my throat when anyone affirms that "doing the wrong thing for the right reason is better than doing the right thing for the wrong reason." It's all the permission I need to continue playing games with freedom. Moral Mary always thought she couldn't possibly drink alcohol, lie, doubt God's goodness, or flaunt her body (to name a few). Free Mary dipped her toe into the water of freedom, was surprised to find it deliciously accessible, and promptly cannonballed into the deep.
My decision to take my own life was in part an answer to a dare. For years, depression and I have been cobbled together like bits of melted candle, abruptly broken apart in a single, freeing moment and then melded back together within seconds. I crave it, or it craves me, or it's a chronic condition. I'm not sure what depression is, but I know, and have always known and believed, that removing it from my life is impossible. With me carrying this cheery expectation of my future, is anyone surprised that suicide seemed the only viable option?
Suicide seemed like The Answer. It seemed like The Ultimate. It seemed like something I could never do, but would always feel I should do. It was a dare and a challenge, and as time went on, my anger and self-disgust grew. Moral Mary may have dived into the deep, but she still couldn't sink to the bottom of the pool. It was repulsive. My life force was nothing but a lukewarm passion for freedom if I couldn't take that one last plunge.
Wednesday, May 31st was just a day in the life. Work sucked, and I neglected my tasks, instead doodling death wishes on a sheet of paper. I stayed at work late and drove home slowly, a growing sense of recklessness delighting me even as I craved nonexistence.
After crying tears I considered above and beyond the help of any human being, I took baby steps to success. I took my pill bottles and a can of Diet Coke into the bathroom. I locked the door. I sat cross-legged on the floor and poured all the pills onto the skirt of my dress. I scooped them up with my hands. I ran my fingers through them. "Start with one," I told myself. I popped the tab on the Diet Coke and put one pill in my mouth, swallowing it easily with a swig of soda. I took a few more, and as the pile on my dress dwindled, it became easier to scoop up half-handfuls of pills and swallow them together. Three bottles of pills and a can of Diet Coke later, I had finally reached the last mile marker of success, and I was ready to sink to the bottom of the pool. That was it.
I waited for some indication that the pills were arresting my bodily functions. I called a friend I had missed. I called the crisis hotline and toyed with the idea of taking Pat's help seriously. And then…I don't know. I don't know where I slept, or what I did all night. I remember seeing Lisa in the morning. I have visual memories of an ambulance and fire truck outside the Moore house, and auditory memories of snippets of conversation – "almost comatose," "Mary, can you," "She was."
I tried to kill myself because I thought, with 100 percent of myself, that it was the right thing to do. Twenty five percent of myself also knew that it was not the right thing to do. No, I cannot reconcile those numbers, and I cannot reconcile what I did.
I'm alive now because of friends, family, and doctors. I, like anyone, never chose to be born; I burst into this world not of my own accord, and now, like a newborn, here I am again in a world on whose door I never knocked.
Right now I see no deep end, no curling waves beckoning me. I won't overdose, get drunk on alcohol, or mutilate my body. I work in the yards, sheepishly respect the curfew set for me by my parents, seek job opportunities, and get myself out of bed every day. Loud compliance hides the pool of dark freedom.
I wonder if I really plunged to the bottom of the pool. If I didn't plunge, the dark water has only abated like a drawing back of the tide, readying itself to knock me off my feet yet again, until I beg myself to sink. If I didn't plunge, I could easily be writing another essay like this one in, who knows, a year, two years? But if I did plunge, then the pool, The Answer, The Ultimate, was not and is not anything I thought it was.
I honestly hope for the latter. I hope I plunged, took the dare, and got the best of both worlds – the liberating relief of having tried, and the perplexing grace of having not succeeded.
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