Words for those who won’t hear

Many of my friends are experiencing the loss of a dear friend, someone who found himself with no choice but to leave those who love him behind. I don’t know this person, I saw him once in a show and thought he was lovely. But I know those he left behind and I hear their pain and their sorrow and their desire to understand the un-understandable.

I’ve probably stepped on them too often in the last few days, wanting to reach out to them and help them find comfort because I love them and I know their pain. There’s so much I wanted to say to them and maybe I’ve said too much and should have kept my fingers shut and not snet the comments and thoughts I have, but I couldn’t help myself.

So this is for them, those who don’t read my blog, who probably don’t know it exists. This is what I want to say to them.

You couldn’t have stopped him. Even if you’d been in the room, outside the door, on the phone with him, you couldn’t have stopped him.

In that moment, there is nothing. I’ve been there. I’ve counted out the pills, trying to figure out if there were enough to actually do the job. In that moment, I’ve never been clearer about my intention in my life. To make it stop. All of it. The pain, the loneliness, the anger, all of it. I had no hands to dial a phone because they were busy figuring out if a half bottle of Tylenol, four very old Vicodin and a large bottle of vitamin C were enough. I had no mouth to call because it was getting ready to swallow anything I could find. I even debated about the drain cleaner under the cupboard but I knew I wouldn’t be able to swallow that because of the taste.

All I knew in that moment was the pain and the ache and the hurt and the nothingness I felt that my life had become. No one would miss me. No one would mourn me. Why would they? I mattered not at all.

And it wasn’t their fault. They loved me, they treated me with love, they reached out to me in love. But in that moment, on that razor’s edge, that love didn’t reach. That love couldn’t get through and make me stop. That love, though true and real, felt false and empty. Because I felt false and empty.

And what stopped me wasn’t love. It was anger. Anger at my then-husband. Anger at the fact that he probably would be angry that I’d made a mess and that I’d probably fail and then he’d be angry because I’d end up the hospital and he’d have to take care of me and the money and the bills and on and on and on. And I got angier as I thought about it. And what saved me was that anger. Fuck him was the thought that stopped me. I won’t let him take my life away. I won’t let his anger and his controlling and his own fear and pain heaped on me end my life. Fuck him. I wouldn’t let him take away my life.

I was lucky. I chose to stay here and fight for the life that I wanted. The one time in my life that my anger actually worked to keep me focused on moving forward. The one time I didn’t back down from that anger, I just let it rise.

But unfortunately that anger doesn’t save everybody. Not everybody has a clarifying, life-changing, life-affirming moment in the middle of their suicide attempt. Many just let it go, chose to leave the pain behind and not fight anymore.

My friends will never understand why he did it. Just as many of my friends probably don’t understand why I stood over the sink, a glass of whiskey of some sort in one hand, a handful of Tylenol in the other. I was loved. I was wanted. I was doing so well on so many things. But we can’t know what’s in someone’s mind. We can only do the best we can while they’re here to let them know that they are loved. If they choose not to hear that or not to feel that, there is nothing that can be done. Sometimes, the pit is just too deep and the pain is just too hard. And the choice is no longer a choice, it’s just what is there.

I hope my friends find some solace in their company with each other. I hope they remember their friend and the wonders he did bring to their lives. And I hope they can move past his choice and heal their own hurt and pain and just let their love find him, wherever he is, and give him some peace.