In My Feelings

I don't suppose I've really talked very much about my feelings around J's suicide since it happened 7 months ago. Not here, anyway. I've had some really cerebral discussions around it with new people in my life who, one way or another, find out about it. Sitting at a table full of counselors, as I frequently find myself doing these days, will make you assess your feelings on the matter, as well. But on the whole, even then, I think I've been pretty good (too good probably) at having an abstract conversation about my feelings.

I mean the reality of it is this isn't my first rodeo. I dealt with suicide in high school. Not to suggest that makes it easier, but the last 7 yrs have been lesson after lesson on what it's like to be a survivor of suicide (just learned that I'm a 2-time survivor of suicide... interesting...). So dealing with the after effects of this is... well it's different for me this time and I feel like I almost have to deal with it cerebrally instead of all down in my feelings because... well... I did that once already.

I don't believe I'm making sense on that part, so let me get to why I'm thinking about all this.

The reality of counseling -- being in a counseling program, learning to counsel people, always thinking about best practices -- is preparation for the worst case scenario and for us, I think especially school counselors, suicide is the worst case scenario. Even moreso than child abuse, a student coming into your office and expressing that they are thinking of suicide as a way out is. absolutely. petrifying.

So it was quite the treat (ironic choice of words, probably) to have a professional counselor come talk to us about the nuts and bolts of what you do when someone expresses they have thought about and are seriously considering suicide. I mean what do you do after they say that? And this isn't my first time in this rodeo, either. I've had people come talk to us about suicide, what the warning signs are, who's at most risk, what the after effects can be, etc... this time was different though. I was really all down in my feelings. I tried and I tried and I tried to surface and take notes and be professional and think about this from any angle other than my own "what could I have done differently..." place that I go to sometimes.

Confession Station: Yes. Sometimes, despite my best efforts and the fact that I know better and I know otherwise, I ponder the consequences of not responding to J's random text apologizing, one last time, for all he put me through. Why couldn't I have just gotten over myself and called him, as I had a half a mind to do, and pick his brain on where that was coming from? Might that not have changed things?

Of course not. I know that, y'all know that, we know it together but it's still true, despite this I go there and Thursday afternoon I was there, brought my lunch and camped all the way out. A couple of times during the presentation I thought about stepping out of the room. Wasn't sure if I was about to cry or spaz or what. I've got all kinds of techniques to use around "not feeling" and none of them were working. It was the absolute oddest thing I've ever had happened.

I suppose I need to bring it up in my own counseling session on Tuesday, huh? Yeah. I should. This needs to be handled.

One Sweet Day...

Keith's post today inspired me as to what to say in my first real post in quite some time.

The story he tells reminded me of something that happened about a year and a half ago.

One of my friends, we'll call her Rachel, wanted to go to Atlanta for her birthday. She wanted it to be me, her and a third friend who we'll call Jenna. The three of us were friends in highschool, Rachel and Jenna played on the basketball team together. Rachel informally put me in charge of working out the individual logistics (making sure everyone knew where to be and when) while she found the hotel she wanted to stay in. We all agreed to split the cost of the trip 3 ways. This included a rental car, gas and the hotel. About 3 weeks before the trip, I called Jenna to try to confirm some things with her (primarily that she was still going). She was sorta all over the place. She told me that the week before our trip was her Spring Break and she was going to Panama City. She wasn't sure she'd have money for our trip. I told her that was fine, but to let me know as soon as possible whether or not she went to Panama.

The next weekend, I called her and asked if she'd gone to Panama. She said she hadn't and that she would go with us to Atlanta the following weekend. The morning of the trip, Rachel called to say that the rental car company needed her to produce utility bills in order to use her debit card for a rental. She asked if I'd be ok renting the car, I agreed. That afternoon, when we picked Jenna up at her mom's home (I drove down from my college and Jenna drove down from hers, to our hometown where Rachel still lived) Rachel told her how much money she owed each of us. Jenna told us that she had not gone to Panama City for Spring Break, but had actually gone to Destin, FL. One of her relatives had promised her some money for the Spring Break trip, but hadn't come through. She was sure, however, on this Friday afternoon, that he would put the money in when she called. As we drove the 2 hours to Atlanta, Jenna made repeated calls to this family member asking for the money. When we got to the city, Jenna didn't have much money and so Rachel ended up buying at least one meal for her, all the while, Jenna promised she'd get us some money.

The next day, one of Rachel's friends called and said she wanted to come down but had no way. I agreed to drive back up to pick up this friend. Jenna asked if we would drop her off at home so she could leave some of her clothes for her mom to wash before she got back and to get some money from her mom to pay us back. An hour after we had been back and just as I was headed from one side of the city to the other to pick up Jenna, she called me to tell me her mom was not letting her go back with us because she (her mom) would not be lending Jenna any money and Jenna couldn't pay us back.

The problem was, however, she had spent at least one night in a nice hotel that Rachel had paid for, and she had ridden down and back in a car I rented and on gas I paid for. There was no getting out of it by staying at home, now. She should have stayed at home before. Rachel quickly got on the phone and demanded her money. "I want my money when I get back, do you understand?" Rachel asked. Jenna said she'd have it for us when we returned; we had to bring her the clothes she left in the hotel.

The morning we left, I text Jenna that we would be back in 2 hours and she should be at home to get her stuff. She said she would. When we pulled up to her house almost 3.5 hours later, there was no one home and there had been no word from Jenna that she wouldn't be there. We left her stuff on the front porch (though Rachel was an advocate for keeping it as collateral) and left.

16 months later, I've forgiven Jenna though we've not ever spoken about the situation. I was horridly disappointed in her response -- not returning phone calls, continuing to promise the money but never sending it, etc... -- but I learned my lesson. Rachel, on the other hand, hasn't spoken to her since the last time she asked for her money, which was 15 months ago. This is a long-time friendship that is, at least for now, dead over money. Life is too short for all that.

2 weeks ago yesterday, my ex-boyfriend, the one I've talked about ad nauseum here, killed himself. I'd long known he was depressed, but actually thought that in the time we'd been a part, he'd found a healthy relationship and was doing better. He never made me think anything different and so I was surprised and saddened to hear of his death. I had a friend commit suicide in high school. The ex was there for that, as well. He and I had many conversations about suicide and we didn't agree on it. He saw it as a gift, I saw it as selfish. Like I said, he battled depression for a long time. It was so hard to watch.

There are countless things I planned to say to him in the next few weeks. Things I wanted him to know but wasn't sure he was ready to hear. I was ready for us to try a friendship again. I was ready for us to put the past behind us and move towards whatever sort of future we had. I had literally just forgiven him, truly forgiven him, for all the stuff he did to me when his mom called me to tell me he was gone.

Life is too short to forget how short it is. I truly thought I was doing him a favor by letting him enjoy his relationship without the added confusion of us trying to be friends again, though he had told me I was wrong about that, before. We all know we shouldn't think we have forever with someone, because the truth is that we don't, but that is a hard lesson to put into practice. We let so much other stuff get in the way.

Like Keith said he learned in his experience, as I learned when my friend committed suicide 5 years ago, as I've been reminded in the death of someone I loved more than even I seemed to realize, life is too short to think you have forever. The breakup of a long-time friendship over a couple hundred dollars sounds reasonable until you put it into perspective. Money can be repaid, life and time can not be recovered. I hope that Rachel and Jenna resolve their differences, but I'm more focused on being sure that I don't let life or time slip through my fingers over things beyond my control and things that, in the big picture, just don't matter...

April 13, 2004

I’ve told this story countless times before. But I’m interested in seeing how a fresh tell of it will look.

Before I get into it, let me say I wanted to post this yesterday, but I was still on my “runaway” (instead of “getaway”) and had very limited internet access. I’m a little disappointed I couldn’t post this yesterday, but hey… we don’t always win.

Five years ago yesterday, a lot of things changed for me. The night of April 12, 2004, a little over a month before I was to graduate from high school, I found myself on the phone with my boyfriend unexpectedly. He called me while I was asleep. My phone never used to wake me up. No matter how loud it was, or how close it was, it never woke me up (wish I could still say that). I took the phone waking me up as a sign. He had told me that he was stressed about an upcoming test and I thought he was calling to relax.

The conversation never went to his history test. We chatted about mundane stuff at first and then he told me something odd was going on. He could see the lights of an ambulance at a nearby dorm (he was an on campus student). He put me on hold while he tried to figure out what was going on. He came back to the phone and said “Something’s wrong with Kris. I think he tried to kill himself…”

I stopped breathing for a second, but quickly smiled thinking of how I would go visit him in the hospital the following day and give him a hard time for scaring everybody like this.

Kris was a year under me and had, in the previous 3 years, become like a little brother to me and moreso to my BFF at the time. He spent every weekend at her house and her parents had adopted him as their son. However, Kris suffered from severe depression, but his relationship with the BFFs mom, who was also a faculty member at our school, got him the quick attention and appropriate medical support he needed. So for the rest of his freshman, all of sophomore and most of junior year, Kris seemed fine.

My boyfriend was silent for a moment and then said “I need to go. I’ll call you back…”

I immediately dialed up the BFF sure she had heard the news and would be able to confirm for me that Kris was alive. She answered the phone bawling. I was shocked she was taking it so hard. “So I guess you heard about Kris” I said with a little chuckle. I think my psyche went straight into denial mode because imagining anything other than Kris lying, very much alive, in a hospital bed was too much.

I heard shuffling and then the BFFs mom was on the phone. “How’s Kris?” I said, not wanting to sound too worried. The BFF’s mom quizzed me on how I had heard and then said, “Kris is gone…”

Have you ever seen a movie where a character learns bad news, a lot like someone died, and immediately cries out “No, that can’t be…” and if you’re cynical like me you think “Well why would they say that if it wasn’t true?” But I said “No, that can’t be… I just saw him…” 5 years later, and I remember those words so clearly because as ridiculous as they were, as non sequitur as they were, they were the last bits I had.

Earlier in the day, I’d spoken to Kris for the first time in what felt like forever, but really had been 3 days. Normally Kris spent the weekend at the BFFs house and we, much like older sisters, tried to keep him out of the room and the car when we were trying to have “girls time” or go somewhere. That weekend, though, he didn’t get leave from campus and didn’t come over. Monday morning, it hit me that I hadn’t seen him and when I asked the BFF she simply said that he hadn’t gotten leave. I found out later that morning that he was going to represent our school at a conference at the local college. I saw him briefly as he was preparing to leave. I can still see his bald head bent over as he tied his shoe. “Kris!” I shouted, “Why do you keep shaving your head?” I hated his bald head… I thought it was so awkward. He looked up at me and grinned.

Then the next day, Tuesday, I saw him in our student center. I grabbed him and told him not to move because I wanted to talk to him. I went back to listening to a friend and it seemed that in the same second I turned to Kris but he was gone. I whirled around the other way watching him wave to me as I called his name and he walked out of the door. That was the last time I saw him alive.

I called a few friends to tell them and every time I had to say it, it got more and more difficult to do. By the last person, I was crying uncontrollably. I thought I might cry all night, but the next thing I knew, my alarm was going off.
I could feel the sadness in the air as soon as my front tires hit the long driveway down into my school’s campus. No one knew what to say or how to feel. The only thing we could think was “why?” We all played the “What if…” game. I thought about what if I had called him later that afternoon, or sent him an IM like I thought about doing. I know that none of that probably would’ve changed what he planned to do, but I occasionally play the what if… game now.

Kris’s death still bothers me and 5 yrs later, I’m still not sure I’ve accepted it. I didn’t go to his class’s graduation because I found out they were saving a chair for him and I thought that would be too much. My mom wouldn’t let me go to OH for his funeral and in some ways, I think that’s added to me being able to pretend like it didn’t really happen.

That was a lot for a 17 yr old to experience. It did bring my friends and I closer. I found that we would call just to check on each other, sometimes.
After his wake, my friends and I were sitting in the student center joking to keep from crying and talking about how much we’d miss seeing him slumped over in a chair, covered in his black puffy jacket, asleep, as if he didn’t have a bed less than 100 yards away. One of my friends said, seemingly as an after thought: “I hope I don’t forget what he sounded like…”

I think that’s been my goal for the last 5 years, not to forget what he sounded like. Yet, I have – and so now I just want to remember him. I want to remember Kris so that his story doesn’t have to be anyone else’s story; so that my story doesn’t have to be your story.

To see a previous incarnation of this story, go here.