4 posts tagged “suicide”

    Malcolm was seated on the floor just inside my office.  It'd been one week.  For three days, he'd been in the hospital wing, barely able to stand on his own, fed through a tube because he refused to eat, and chained to the bed like a rabid animal.  When I'd seen him like that, my insides wretched a little.
    I watched as his fingertips traced along the scabs on his arm.
    "It's good to see you up and about, Malcolm."
    He didn't speak.  He didn't look up.
    "Well then," I said cheerfully, "how about I just talk for now, hm?  I'd like to tell you about what we hope to accomplish while you're here.  My first priority, of course, is you and your safety.  You and I will be seeing each other every day for one hour to discuss anything you would like, and from these meetings, I'm going to try to figure out what's bothering you and see what we can do to help so that, when you leave here, you'll be able to live a normal, happy life."
    Silence followed for several seconds while he traced the cuts on his arm.
    "Normal, huh?" he said softly.  "And what is normal?  A deadend job, wife, 1.5 kids, a cat and a dog living in a two story home with a white picket fence in a neighborhood where kids ride a bus to school to meet up with their 3.2 good friends?"
    "Normal is what you make of it." I watched him, even though he wouldn't look up.
    "Then I'd say I'm already normal.  Guess I'm cured.  When can I go home?"
    "Why is suicide normal?"
    "I believe I have a right to be in control of my own fate."
    "To die is not a fate."
    "To die is everyone's fate," he looked up at me earnestly.
    I decided to try another angle.  "You know you're committing crimes, Malcolm.  It's illegal to kill yourself."
    A humorless laugh came from him.  "Oh, that's right--hundreds of women everyday are allowed to take other peoples' lives at abortion clinics, but I'm not allowed to take something that is mine."
    For half an instant, I thought I saw real hurt there... and then he went blank.
    "You know what's funny?  People justify abortion and cigarettes and tattoos by saying that the government can't tell us what we can and can't do with our bodies, but for some odd reason, suicide is never brought up in those arguments."
    "Do you think suicide should be legal?"
    "I think I should be able to take what's mine.  I'm wasting oxygen that could be breathed by someone that wants to breathe it."

(This is a while after the first part)

    "Tell me about the first time you cut yourself, Malcolm."
    The black-haired boy, seated on the floor in his usual spot, was toying with a tassel on the edge of the rug.  A small smile tugged on the edges of his lips.  "Can't do it, doc.  I was much too young to remember that."
    "Alright, then."  I told him patiently.  "Let's try it this way.  Tell me about the first time you tried to kill yourself."
    He gave a dry laugh and didn't look up, tugging on the tassel a bit.  "You don't want to hear about that.  I hear it's a lot like having sex, though... or going bungee jumping.  It's a thrill.  This straight shot of adrenaline.  We're nervous, excited, terrified and just... god, it feels so completely free, you know?"  He eyed the cuts on his arms with a fondness that sent shivers down my spine. 
    "How old were you?"
    "Eleven."  He smirked a little and looked up at me.  "Doesn't match your records, does it?  I was twelve and a half before my first time that I ended up in the hospital."
    "Why so long between the attempts?"
    He looked away, ripping off one of the threads.  "First time didn't go so well.  You know, there's some statistics out there that say if you've tried once, you're twice as likely to try again... well, it works the other way, too.  Failed once, you'll fail again, ya know?"  Malcolm started unwinding the threads absently.
    "So what happened?  What went so very wrong that you didn't even try again for another year or so?"  I patiently leaned on my desk, crossing my arms over my chest and watching him.
    "Middle school sucked.  And it doesn't mean anything anymore, but I got real depressed."  He was tying each end of the threads together as he talked, not looking anywhere but at his hands.  "Never was real popular, and don't exactly have an ideal family life.  Mom doesn't know I exist... her boyfriend hates me, and my brother's too stoned and drunk to do anything useful."  He smirked a little, seeming like he was going to add more, then changing his mind.
    "After school, I was alone until around 5.  Mom and her boyfriend worked.  Brother never came home till they did.  So I picked a day a few days in advance... and it was perfect, you know?  It was flawless."  He beamed at his own cleverness, recounting the tale in his head before he recited it aloud. 
    "I was going to do it in my mom's room.  She had this ugly white shag carpet.  It was kinda like vengeance.  Payback for being ignored, I guess. 
    "She'd bought this new water bed about a week or so beforehand, which was so perfect.  It was propped up on shelves, like a captain's bed, except that between the two sets of drawers on either side, there was this crawl space beneath it, a good foot and a half wide and tall and running the whole length of the bed.  Little door to close in on yourself, too. 
    "So I grabbed a Ginsu knife from the kitchen and went up to her room, and crawled into the crawlspace.  I didn't leave a note.  I wanted them to wonder about it, you know?  I also didn't want to be found right away.  I figured, if I hid and did it... it'd be a few days before I started to stink, you know?  And by then, the carpet would be stained, the bed would smell, the room would smell... it'd be ruined, the lot of it."
    He smiled again, twisting the string around his finger.
    "But when I got there, I didn't do it right away.  I was just kinda laying there, thinking about things.  Saw my reflection in the knife and I wasn't thinking about dying.  I wasn't thinking about my mother's reaction or lack thereof when she found me.  I was thinking about the things my mom and her boyfriend would do if they decided that they didn't want people to know what I'd done.  Thought about the little stupid yippedy dog our neighbors had bought.  This ugly purebred monstrosity that will just never be quiet.  And I was thinking about how, when they found my body, they wouldn't give it over to the police.  They'd take me out to the shed... and use Marty's table saw... and chop me up into these little pieces... and then take the pieces up to the attic and lay them out to dry.  And then once they were dry, they'd take my pieces out to the dog out back and feed little chunks of me to her."
    I winced inwardly at the description, feeling my stomach do a little turn, but fighting back the illness.
    "And what happened then?" I pressed.
    "I laid there for a long time.  Shaking all over, half with fear, half in anticipation.  And I finally put the shiny sharpness against my arm," a wide smile spread on his face as he recalled it.  "I was crying.  I don't know when I'd started, but I remember I was crying, and I shoved the knife against the skin until I saw the blood beading against the tip... and then there was this electric shock of accomplishment that I'd even got that far.  So I started to pull it across my arm, real slow, so that it would be a straight line.  It was a slow process... and the pain in my arm.." he gave a little laugh and shook his head, "it was like someone had torn this tiny hole and was trying to pull it real slow apart... like tearing fabric.
    "I'd done three almost perfectly straight lines when mom and Marty got home.  They came straight up to the bedroom."
    Malcolm's face visibly paled and he was staring down at the string, but not really seeing it, being dragged into the memory.  "I could hear them kissing."  His face twisted a little in disgust.  "Making those little growling-moans at each other... and I knew their hands were all over one another... I could hear the clothes coming off.
    "And I started to panic under the bed.  I hadn't expected to be alive when they got home... and to not only be alive, but to be hearing them..."  He shook his head and I saw his shoulders tense.
    "I cut my wrist four or five more times, really fast, hoping I'd hit something vital and die on contact.  Blood was running down my arm... I heard the first penetration, and I dropped the knife.  I was shaking all over, worse than I was before I started.  My mom... she was making these gasps and squeaking little yells... and he..."  he swallowed and wet his lips, looking very pale and sick, "he was grunting, and growling... and... saying things..."
    I opened my mouth to interrupt him and stop him from reliving something that was obviously still tormenting him, but he pressed on.
    "I think I had a burst of claustrophobia.  I thought I would pass out under there.  So I did the only thing I could think of... I kicked open the little door and scrambled out, gasping for air, sweating, crying, bleeding, and completely terror-stricken.
    "Marty was off the bed and coming at me before I even stood up... Called me a pervert and a psycho and an incestial something-or-other... I was standing there, completely frozen.  I couldn't move.  He grabbed my arm in one hand and my bleeding wrist in the other and started shaking me.  I can't even remember all the stuff he said to me... And I started to think that even though I'd failed with the knife, he might just kill me right there... He threw me against the wall and pulled open the door and all but threw me down the steps... soon as I hit the bottom one, I was out the door--I just bolted.  I don't know when or where I stopped running... only that when I did, I must have vomited up three days worth of food and wanted to keep going until I had nothing left."
    He got quiet and scratched at the side of his face a little. 
    I watched, and waited.  "What did your mother and Marty do about your wrist when you got back?"
    A strange little smile curled on his lips--bittersweet, maybe.  "Nothing."
    "Nothing?  They didn't ask about the blood or report you or take you to the hospital?"
    The black-haired boy shook his head.  "No. I came home, they sent me to bed.  Next day, there was a lock on the bedroom door."
    The grandfather clock started chiming the hour.  We both looked at it.
    "Guess that's all for today, huh, doc?"
    "It would seem so.  Are you all right, Malcolm?"
    "I'm just chipper.  I'll catch ya tomorrow, doc."
    He pushed himself off the floor and walked the two paces to the door, pulling it open.  I could see the orderly waiting to escort him back several feet away.  Before the door closed behind him, Malcolm gave a small wipe of his eye.

    Almost an hour had passed.  I listened to the steady ticking of the clock behind me, seconds marching by like ants preparing for winter.  The observation room was silent.  Two orderlies, my supervisor-Dr. Gleck, and myself stood and stared through the two way mirror at my first real case study.
    Malcolm Saviors was fifteen years old.  In and out of hospitals for the past four years for various--and sometimes very creative--suicide attempts, he looked every day of his age and in the pale fluorescent lights of the observation room, every day of mine tacked itself into the green eyes that stared sadly at the mirror.
    The doctors at Silver Gates Children's Hospital psychiatric ward had called us almost three days ago, asking that we take over the boy's case as nothing they had done seemed to help.  They'd transported him over wearing his own clothing--slightly altered for the boy's safety, and he'd walked into the observation room without so much as a nervous shuffle.  In fact, he seemed downright bored with the entire proceedings. 
    He had not said a word since he'd taken a seat at the world's safest table, sitting on the uncomfortable wooden chair that faced the mirror.  He fiddled absently with the buttons on the sleeves of his shirt and glanced at the air beside him.  His lips moved.
    "What did he say?" I asked Dr. Gleck.
    The older man shook his head, turning up the volume on the speaker beside the window.
    Malcolm's records had been given to me almost three hours ago.  His most recent suicide attempt: old fashioned drug overdose, was one of the tamest in the folder.  A friend of his had found him with an empty bottle of an anti-psychotic medication beside him that was prescribed to a man who'd been identified as Malcolm's mother's live-in boyfriend.  Said friend had called the ambulance and had started trying the Heimlich Maneuver until the medics had arrived.
    Examination reports from previous doctors had hinted and danced around bruises and cuts unrelated to the actual attempts, side notes in the margin about suspected abuse.  Children's services had gone to the home and found "nothing unusual."  They'd interviewed the older brother and Malcolm without their mother and her boyfriend, and neither had mentioned anything.  There was a note that Malcolm had said absolutely nothing during the entire interview.  Rather, he'd sat there, much as he was now, just smiling in a bemused sort of way until they'd decided to give up on questioning him.
    Exactly one hour had passed since the boy had been abandoned in the room and suddenly there was a loud burst of laughter from the speaker.  I blinked away from my ponderings and looked to see the boy staring straight through the mirror as though he could see each one of us clearly.
    "They must think I'm stupid."  His head cocked to the side a little and he smiled in a slightly demented fashion.  "Do you really think that I don't know you're there?" 
    In one fluid motion, he'd stood, sweeping the plastic chair out from beneath him, and flung it at the mirror.  I jumped back as the two collided.  "DO YOU?!"
    "Get in there before he hurts himself!" Doctor Gleck ordered the other two men, who hurried to the door. 
    As if he'd heard the order, Malcolm had scooped the chair up and wedged it beneath the door handle.  He walked back to the mirror, pacing in front of it angrily.  "Do you really think I haven't been through this," he stopped pacing and his clenched fist started colliding with the mirror to accent each of his words, "A MILLION FUCKING TIMES?!"
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the door shaking as the orderlies tried to pound their way inside.  Malcolm's eyes flickered to the door, then back to the mirror.  "What do you want from me?" he asked, his eyes looking completely miserable.
    He dropped back a step from the mirror, his pointer finger pointing up in the air.  "I know," he announced.  "You want to see me do something crazy.  I have just the thing."  He grinned and unbuttoned the cuff of his shirt sleeve, rolling it back a little and pushing against a poorly sewn frayed area until a shiny razor shoved itself through.  He picked it up, then gave a twisted little giggle.  "Oops, where did that come from?" He shrugged as Dr. Gleck ran from the room.
    His sleeve was shoved up, revealing previous scars dotting the pale skin of his forearm.  I could not look away from Malcolm.
    He stepped very close to the window, squinting through.  "Are you still there?" he whispered.  "You're going to miss the show."  And with a big smile, he brought the blade savagely down over his wrist while yelling, "I HOPE THIS LOOKS GREAT IN YOUR GODDAMN RECORDS!"  A fount of blood erupted onto his partially-exposed arm as he cringed in pain.  His hands were shaking, and he'd started to cry.
    "IS THAT CRAZY ENOUGH?" his voice was a choked scream.  "IS THAT ENOUGH TO LOCK ME AWAY AGAIN, YOU SONS OF BITCHES!"
    The blade viciously slashed at his wrist again and he cried out in pain.  Through puffy red eyes, he stared straight at me, choking down sobs and hisses of pain as the sharp edge violently bit into his wrist three more times.
    Trembling, he fell to his knees, looking dizzy and disoriented.  Once he'd steadied himself, he slashed at his wrist again.
    Both our eyes jerked to the door as the plastic of the chair cracked.  The orderlies and security had almost gained entry.
    I looked back to him when I heard him whispering to me.  "What do you say?  One more time for good measure, eh?"  He smiled.  "Lucky number seven."  He dug the razor into his skin and dragged it through the other cuts.
    My eyes would not leave his arm.  That once whole, though scarred, arm was now completely red and looked as though it'd been put in a meat grinder.  Crimson liquid dripped off his fingertips as the arm sagged limply against him.  The hand holding the blade was also red with blood, his shirt sleeve spattered with it. 
    The door opened.  Malcolm swayed and fell to his side.  The whole scene took on a dream-like quality as the room was filled with orderlies, doctors, and security guards.  Lost in the midst of the action, I watched as the small weapon of self-destruction slipped from those fingertips and landed silently on the stained carpet.
    I could hear my heart beating, my breath was shallow as I watched the doctor's trying to stop the flow of the boy's vitality from the thin limb.
    "Jesus H. Christ.  What have I gotten myself into?"  I asked myself.

To whom it may concern,

     There comes a point in everyone's life where we realize that we are nothing but a product of our upbringing.  And that's where things get messy.

     I don't know you, mom.  I don't know about your childhood or the way your family did things.  All I know is how you did things with us.  And in that regard lies the issues at hand.

     In the past year, I have made a conscious effort to distance myself from you.  Repeatedly over the years, I requested simple things of you: look me in the eye, don't belittle me or my dreams--at least to my face, and treat me as though I was not a mistake.  I will only allow someone to tear me down for so long.  Mistake or not, I am your child.  I deserved love, patience, and understanding.  Having found you incapable of such things, I have severed our relationship indefinitely.

     As you may have realized by now, then, this letter is not for you and you will most likely never lay eyes upon it.  This letter is for me.  You hurt me and have left scars that may never heal.  This letter is to help me move past those hurts and become the person that I want to be--because of and despite you.

     I lived with you for eighteen long years.  During that time, I was made out to be an outcast among my siblings, a burden to my mother, a caretaker/maid to the household, and a shame upon my family.  I watched you fight with and drive away the only decent man you've known and the only family member who treated me as blood and not a street urchin.  You sent my father--a man I love and respect--away and replaced him with a string of losers and one-night-stands that fluttered into a home that he bought and destroyed what little family we had left.  You drove me again and again to the brink of suicide--leaving me a sobbing, bleeding mess on my bedroom floor, and not once did you pull me away from that ledge.  Not once did I look at you and discern even the slightest care of whether I lived or died.

     Mom, you spent years of both of our lives setting me up and readying me for failure.  Two decades you spent, filling my head with self-doubt, self-loathing, and a neverending need to prove to you that my life is worth something.

     I've realized some things during my hiatus from you.  Things that should have been obvious to me from the beginning, but I was a stupid kid--so desperate for love and affection that I blinded myself to the truth.

     1.  For reasons unknown to me, I am not the child you wanted or expected.

     2.  No matter how hard I work or what I work at, I will never please you.

     3.  My life is worth living because I make it that way--you have no say.

     4.  I will live my life in a way that makes me happy, not you.  You had your childhood and life--this one is mine.

     5.  I am who I am, and I will be this way tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.  I am neither ashamed of this        

          or unhappy with this.  I am proud of who I am and the choices I have made.

     While you stood laughing, mother, I was beaten, abused, molested, and ridiculed.  And you knew.  You should have helped me.  Whether you believe it or not, you were supposed to protect me.  I should have felt safe coming to you; not afraid.

     I guess the worst part about this is that I don't hate you.  The worst part is that sometimes, when I drive by the house I grew up in--the place you live--I feel the urge to stop.  To give you one more chance.

     But I don't.  And I won't.

     I've gotten better without you.  Everyday I find more things to smile about, and everyday my past seems more and more like someone else's.  I've come a long way since our paths parted, and even though I've got a long way to go, with every step I feel better, more confident, and happier.

     I hope that one day you'll be able to be happy for me--that I found happiness and success.

                                                                                           Sincerely,

                                                                                                      Le petit souris.