On the Suicide of Mindy McCready

I hadn't really planned on posting tonight.  But when it comes to suicide, the only one planning on it is the one that's gone.

As morbid proof of that very fact, one of the first news reports I saw tonight stated:

"There is cause to find that there is clear and convincing evidence that Respondent is in imminent danger of harm to herself or others, suicidal or gravely disabled....

...But just a day later McCready was released to undergo outpatient treatment instead."
-Chicago Tribune 

Every day in this world, there are psychiatrists and nurses and therapists charged with the burden of determining whether someone "means it."  Whether they're just looking for attention, or whether a secret plan lies behind their eyes.

I guarantee you that no one likes having to be that person.  I have BEEN that person, and let me tell you, the weight of the whole world is on your shoulders for that judgment call.

And sometimes people get it wrong.  Really wrong.

Sometimes the best actors are the people who are dead serious.  Who have already decided, and who know what to tell the people in charge of those decisions.

Should I have been released by the crisis counselors in Nashville when I had a 3-fold plan, and had already started carrying out half the damn thing?  I should think not.  But I was.

Would I have said anything it took in order to avoid being locked up?  I would, and I did.

And so I was driven by a police officer back to my hotel, where my luggage containing a dozen pill bottles and a shard of glass remained, the day after sending suicide notes to two people.

I put someone in the godawful position of gambling with my life.  Thankfully they were right, and I was wrong.

So tonight is just a reminder that every suicide I hear about for the rest of my life will take me back to that place, and that week, and the people who made me feel that I was nothing to nobody.

And tonight is also a reminder that EVERYbody is somebody to someone.  Everyone who dies by suicide is someone's best friend, or mother, or colleague, or son.

Sometimes it's somebody "special," like a celebrity.  But to those left behind, it doesn't matter if you had a million fans...or just one.

I remember cleaning the house on Saturday mornings as a teenager, belting out "Have a Nice Day," my all-time favorite song of Mindy's.

Now I read the words to another of her songs, so devastating in light of today's news:

"I'm still hereThere was darkness, all around meThere were times I was sure I was drowningThere were people, who tried to reach meBut no matter how they loved me, I kept sinkingI got tired of my own hell, I reached inside and I saved myself"

Many of us will fight the battle.  Some will lose.

Some will never find the love, the hope, or the strength to keep a self-destructive mind at bay.

And it doesn't matter if you're a famous blond with a beautiful voice....or a random person milling about the streets of any town.

At the end of the day, we are left with our thoughts, and our pasts, and our traumas that are ours alone to deal with.

And the truth is, until you've walked in someone's shoes, you could never possibly know the kind of pain that would push someone to that choice.

The truth is, if we all had a little more compassion - and a little less judgment - for those among us who are fading before our very eyes, we might possibly end up being the one who made all the difference.

So take a look around you at the people in your life that are still here.  Who you're ignoring.  Or neglecting.  Who you see struggling and never know what to say, so you stop speaking to.  Who are putting on a happy face for you because they know you cannot tolerate their real feelings.

You don't need.  To say.  Anything.  

You don't need.  To have.  Any answers.

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.  The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."  

~Henri Nouwen

Self-Esteem, Self-Worth...or C) None of the Above

"I'm going to ask a question that will probably shock everyone in this room that I'm asking....you know, it all sounds great on the surface, but when you look a little closer at your resume, there's a year here, a year there, and it doesn't seem like you've stayed any place for very long...can I ask why?" --Interviewer (2 weeks ago)

I have answered this question, in all its various forms, time and time again.  

I have concocted versions of the truth, and flat-out lies.  

I have summoned confidence I don't really possess to emphasize all the right things, instead of all the things that make me look bad.  


But the truth is, it doesn't matter.



The 7 years that I *was* with the same employer....they don't matter.  

Straight A's and Summa Cum Laude?  Doesn't matter.  

The 3 extra years I spent earning a Master's?  High school dropouts make more than I do right now.

Volunteering and going the extra mile?  Don't make me laugh.



It is my fault.  I am the one who left the job where I was making good money in return for being treated like shit.  It was my decision to stand up for myself, my decision to quit, and my decision to drive to Nashville to kill myself.  

The problem, ironically, is that I didn't kill myself.  

The way this has fucked up my life...well, it just makes me wish I had.  Choosing to live has ruined my life.  Years of unemployment and suicidal depression...the ensuing downward spiral....

Through it all, I haven't given up.  Through all the dismissal and rejection, I plodded through five hundred twenty-five thousand job applications until one day - yes! - one day, it all paid off....

There is so much more dignity in being underemployed, rather than just unemployed.  Even though my degree is worth twice what I am making, at least I am in the field.  I can always console myself with that when I think of trash collectors making double my income.  

It's not that I wasn't bitter before this job interview two weeks ago; it's that I forgot how bitter I was, being fortunate enough to have a job to go to every day.  I was dumb enough to go out on a limb and apply for the position my degree tells me I am qualified for....and end up rejected once again.  The irony is, I was feeling more confident than ever because I finally have 9 months of steady employment in my field with great references!  So much for that.  

At least I gave it a shot.  Yes, it made me feel like absolute shit afterwards, but what doesn't.  The important thing is that I had the self-worth to believe I deserved it...for a moment, anyway.  

Nashville

It's that time of year again.  

Burnt orange leaves are my drive through Tennessee.  Gray, windy days are the cold blanket around me as I walked the streets of Nashville in my own private bubble of pain.  

The songs I played, the food I ate, the view from my downtown hotel:  all vivid memories that start to replay when the weather turns like this.  

And then there's last night, when I'm watching the new show Nashville on ABC, unprepared for each shot of the city's sights to be a trigger.  

I was thinking drama...and romance...and country music...

Instead, the characters walk the Shelby Street Bridge, and I'm back on it. 

I'm staring into the water wondering how many people have looked over this same ledge, wanting to end it.  

So I go back, but I don't.   At least, not all the way in.  There's a dividing line you have to create, where you can open the door and look in the room, but not shut yourself in there.  I don't want to remember what that feels like.  

A few months have gone by now in which I don't think about killing myself every day.  I wasn't sure life would ever surpass my secrets and my plans.  Yet, here I am.  

Every day I talk to people who are exactly where I was, sometimes to an eerie degree.  

The other day I worked with a man who had gone from independence and a career ... to losing everything and living in chronic pain that hurts with each step he takes.  He didn't see any hope for his situation to change, couldn't remember what it was like to be proud of his life.  

It felt familiar.  

Trapped without a way out, abandoned by your friends, betrayed by those you love...everyone thinks they're above suicide, until suddenly it becomes the most rational option you can think of.  

The question is: how do we survive our own minds with the torture of constant pain?  

How do we hold onto the 1/10th of 1 percent that wants to believe that the pain might someday end, when 99.99999% of our brain is trying to kill us?  

Do we gamble on the unknown that is the future, or wear the certainty of death?  

Thankfully, thankfully, the future is always a mystery.  Thankfully, I found a way to hold on during the 1/10th.  

"Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark."  

-Rabindranath Tagore

Contemplating Suicide? Why You Shouldn’t Kill Yourself. My 2 Cents.

if you no longer walked the earth, the ratio of people-who-give-a-damn to a**holes would skew further in the wrong direction.  and i don't want the a**holes to win.  the people who selfishly take from others but don't give, who treat people like crap or make them feel disposable -- as if it doesn't matter if they are here or gone.  you have likely spent your life ensuring others know how much they are loved and valued for exactly who they are, with all of their flaws and imperfections.  you are worth no more or less than any other person, therefore you are equally deserving of the loving care you have selflessly given to others when they were at THEIR worst.  some people either cannot or WILL not give others what they need.  the a**holes may never change, but does that mean they should get to change YOU?  who gave them the right to make others feel worthless?  you have the guts to be ruthlessly honest with yourself and others about how difficult this life really can be, and that is a gift.  do you know how many people out there would trade a hundred pleasantries, a thousand shallow exchanges of small talk, for one real conversation with a genuine person like you?

i can't tell you that one day you are going to wake up and get what you deserve, that the people in your life are going to have an epiphany and realize how screwed up their priorities are, that the self-centered people of the world will figure out what it means to give to others. 

i CAN tell you that, 4 years ago when i roamed the streets of downtown nashville alone on what was to be my last night, homeless people on the street cared more about me than the 2 people who had most made me want to kill myself.  someone with no home-no family-no possessions could take the time to stop and look me in the eye (how many strangers would even notice sorrow in a passerby) and say “it can’t be THAT bad, can it?” but the 2 jerks who had ripped me apart, lied to me, betrayed me, and (the most recent of whom) abandoned me did not so much as phone my family to tell them i had written them suicide notes, much less pick up the phone when i called them, or do anything whatsoever. 

in the end it came down to a choice, and i decided that even if i never did anything else good in my life, I would NEVER treat another person with the disregard they had shown me.  animals are treated better than I was by them.  i almost destroyed my own life, and that of my family members, for people so disgusting they wouldn’t act to save the life of someone they purported to “love.”  perhaps that merely sounds arrogant and self-righteous, to stick around telling myself that i’m better than them.  but i suddenly became enraged when I went back to the hotel, because here i was about to hand over the power to determine my worth – the value of my very life, to be precise – to people who didn’t give a damn whether i lived or died. 

you would probably drop whatever you’re doing to help any random person if you thought they needed you…is that the kind of person who deserves to die?  the only person you have to show up for right now is YOU.  sometimes we have to give ourselves what we wish we could get from others.

why should you NOT kill yourself?  because “ the world (not you) is effing insane,” to quote the unlost.  “The problem isn’t you. The problem is that we live in a world of insanity, and it’s killing us all. Yeah, you heard me right: We’re LIVING IN A FREAKING INSANE ASYLUM, an insane asylum where we all feel as if we’re the only ones struggling, as if we’re the only ones living a silent lie and plastering on a fake smile for the world to see.  But we’re not.”

one minute, one hour, one day at a time = all you have to do. 

“Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world.  Whoever saves a life, it is as if he saved an entire world.  –Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5; Babylonian Talmud Tractate Sanhedrin 37a

On the eve of my 3rd anniversary.

But not a happy one.





3 years ago today a plan was unfolding.

I stopped answering the phone.

I stopped going to work.

I penned a letter of resignation.

And a will.

And a suicide note to my family.

I picked a place to die.

I printed my mapquest directions.

Then I packed some pills and some bags and started driving.

I’d always wanted to go to Nashville, so I went there.

I checked into the downtown Hilton.

In between hysterics and crying, I walked.

I peered into the Cumberland River over the E Street Bridge.

I circled honkytonks and landmarks.

The city was empty and dead.

Everyone had left to be with their families for Thanksgiving.

Homeless men talked to me.

They were the only other ones walking the streets alone.

I know they could see it in my face.

I ate my “last meal” in a dark corner of the Wild Horse Saloon.

I tipped the waitress extra well.

Then I walked back out into the cold, misty night.

So many other things happened before, during, and after all of this.  Telling this story takes more concentration than I possess at the moment.  I don’t know where to start or end, what to include or omit.  My brain ping pongs off a thousand details and emotions.  There is the story of how I got THERE, and how I got HERE.  Obviously only 99% of my plan got carried out that evening in Nashville, but the 1% that didn’t is really all that counts.

I am in a far different place than I was even last year at this time.  In November of 2009 I was starting to carry out a third suicide plan.  I wish I could look back at how far I’ve come since Thanksgiving of 2007, but instead I continue my fight to avoid getting down to that last 1% again.  I don’t have my life back, or my career, or even a job.  I can’t sustain friendships or follow through on commitments.  Where I could be or should be or need to be threatens to overwhelm my panic buttons at any given moment.

But I’m trying to focus on just one thing that matters, so I can feel like something I do is of benefit to another human being.  Halfway through my QPR training to certifty as an online suicide intervention specialist, I clicked on their link for the video Moments by Emerson Drive.  It’s one of those songs I’ve heard a hundred times, but never *listened* to.  Déjà vu prickled the little hairs on my arms as I watched a familiar story unfold on the rain-soaked E Street Bridge in Nashville.  The lyrics hit me straight in the gut:

“I stood there tryin' to find my nerve

Wondered if a single soul on Earth

Would care at all

Miss me when I'm gone

That old man just kept hanging around

Lookin' at me, lookin' down

I think he recognized

That look in my eyes

Standing with him there I felt ashamed

I said, You know, I haven't always been this way…”



Three years ago I roamed the streets of Nashville preparing to die, and the only people who looked me in the eye or spoke to me were homeless men.   I recall that flash of recognition in each others’ eyes:  That night, we were all somebody’s throwaway.  I wondered what made them choose to go on living day to day in their circumstances, while my reasons for not wanting to suddenly seemed absurd in comparison.  I couldn’t comprehend why they would care about me in the slightest, when people who “loved” me wouldn’t pick up the phone.  I marveled at the irony of the situation, and how the wrong people almost won.  The people who didn’t give a damn.

All of these moments, and the utter lonliness that gripped me on the Shelby Street Bridge, welled up as I cried my way through the video.

Part of me wants to get in the car and drive to Nashville next Thursday to give back to the people who saved my life.  But I can’t exactly take off like I used to without sending off the “cuckoo for cocoa puffs” alarm bells.  I haven’t been hospitalized and I don’t care to be.  Maybe I will get up the courage to ask a friend to go with me so that I can have a full circle moment and finally begin to move on with my life.  We’ll see.  I don’t tend to stick to my plans these days, and sometimes that’s a very good thing.