Suicidal Tendencies

I'm not one to really believe in "signs" or telepathic messages. Coincidence, sure I can buy that. Very odd coincidences, sure - but my heart is too jaded to believe otherwise.

Yesterday - as I was sitting at my desk listening randomly to music set on shuffle (mind you, there are around 2000 songs on my mp3 player) the following songs scrolled through in order:

Suicide's an Alternative/You'll be sorry - Suicidal Tendencies
Everybody Hurts - R.E.M.
Suicidal Failure - Suicidal Tendencies
Adam's Song - Blink 182
One More Suicide - Marcy Playground
Institutionalized - Suicidal Tendencies

At first, my only thought was what the hell is the random obsession with Suicidal Tendencies? As I made a mental note to send Dell a complaint letter about their shuffle function my phone rang. It was a Texas number that I didn't recognize. As I answered the phone, I felt as if the floor was giving away under me. Bile rose in the back of my mouth - and I knew. I knew that something was very very wrong, and I knew that it was about my mother before I even said hello.

When I was about ten, I confronted her about her drinking. She said she did it because she didn't want to feel anymore. She said that that by devoiding herself of all emotion it was the closest thing she had left to happiness. She just didn't want to hurt anymore. It was this rudimentary self-medication - or she would simply be unable to cope.

My mother has attempted suicide before. The last time that I remember it, I was in fifth grade - and after her husband (who beat the living daylights out of her - but who she desperately loved) left her for another woman, she was just unable to go on. In the secrecy of darkness she took a bottle of pills - and then called him to tell him what she had done. And then she panicked and called the police. My bedroom was in the very front of the house, and I remember sitting up in my daybed, sleepily rubbing my eyes - trying to figure out why it was morning already when I was still so tired. Emergency lights were flashing through the window and people were shouting and I knew.

Screaming, I raced into her room - but the police and paramedics were already there. She was telling them what she had taken as they wheeled her out on a gurney. I was afraid she was already gone. My grandmother got there a few minutes later - as I stood limply holding my teddy bear by the foot as the ambulance drove away.

She started taking lithium for awhile and became functional again. Days slipped into months and then years, and she eventually stopped drinking. She also stopped taking her medication. I remember her telling me how she had forgotten to recognize emotion. She still struggles, and in some ways the lingering threat of suicide is always just beneath the surface, an unspoken horror ready to emerge when she has lost her grip on hope.

The threat of suicide has molded the course of my life in ways unfathomable. I have always feared that I would lose her this way, slipping into the afterlife alone and distraught. This desperate fear made me stay with her when I knew I would be better off living with my father. I needed to keep her alive. I needed to remind her that she had a reason to keep going. So I stayed long after I should have.

My freshman year of college, I started dating someone - and we were engaged a little over a year later. I realized that I was in love with the idea of being in love, and in love with the idea of having a big frou frou princess wedding and the thought of being married, but I didn't love him, not the way that you should love a spouse. My parents knew and begged me not to go through with it. So, I broke off the engagement.

He lived in the same apartment complex that I did, and when I came home from class one day he had already drunk nearly an entire bottle of vodka. He was waiting for me at the top of my stairs with three dozen roses - and said he just wanted to talk. I said no - and he became belligerent, screaming at me, and blocking my way to the door. A neighbor poked her head out the window and yelled "Shut the fuck up." Embarassed, I folded and let him in. And we talked, civilly at first. I told him I wasn't coming back. He said "fine. May I use your bathroom?"

As I heard the door lock I could hear bottles under the sink hitting the floor - their contents exploding. I was beating on the door begging him to let me in. I knew. He took a bottle of advil, a bottle of tylenol, and god only knows what else and washed it down with a bottle of nail polish remover. He opened the door and just smiled. Pills were strewn all over the tile - and I couldn't shake the feeling that they looked just like confetti. He stumbled out of the bathroom, foaming at the mouth, grabbed a kitchen knife and went to the shower threatening to cut himself. As we struggled over the knife (I have a lovely scar on my leg from that) he slipped on the pill bottles and fell - dropping it. I grabbed it and quickly called 911. I didn't know what he had taken - but he was starting to lose conciousness.

As he could no longer walk, he crawled to my bedroom - and I immediately knew he was going for the 12 gauge shot gun that I kept under my bed. I sat on his back, desperately trying to restrain him - when I heard the blissful sound of sirens. His stomach was pumped, and his parents never knew what happened. I told them he had food poisoning, as that's what the doctors suggested that I say. I never told anyone what happened.

When he was released from the hospital, he called me to ask me to pick him up. I did. I felt so guilty. It was all my fault. He suffered pretty significant damage to his liver but he was otherwise o.k. He told me that if I wouldn't marry him that he would do it again, only this time he would succeed. He told me that I would always have to live with the guilt, with knowing that it was my fault.

So, just a few months later, I walked down the aisle. Everyone mentioned that they could see the tears streaming from behind the veil. They proclaimed they had never seen a happier bride.

Less than a year later, I gathered all the courage I had and left again. At work I got a phone call, of him rambling - his voice slurring. You'll be sorry. This time is for real. He tried again - another batch of pills, another stomach pump. Thankfully he was too drunk to properly load his gun. I didn't go back. I refused to be guilted into it. I begged his parents to get him help - I told them the truth. I begged his doctors. I tried to have him committed, after all we were still married. They would hold him for 24 hours, but after that, he had to consent. He never went to a single counseling session after those 24 hours ended.

I spent all of last night dry heaving and sobbing. I can't help her. I don't know how. She won't talk to me, and I don't know how to get her the help she needs. And I am simply unable to do anything from here. I'm trying to find a flight back this afternoon - and I am simply lost. I don't want to lose her. She is not a perfect person by any stretch of the imagination, but she is still my mother. I still love her. I just want her to hold on. I need her to not let go.