Plath, Angst and Irony

A nervous breakdown is not a subject which is easily broached.

Adding into this is the fact that nervous breakdowns, according to modern psychiatry, do not exist. People may suffer from mental illness, sometimes acutely, and psychiatric problems can certainly lead to a culminating event, but ‘mental illness’ should not be confused with ‘nerves,’ and human beings are not cars. We don’t break down.

Nonetheless, the concept persists in society, and since that’s where we all live, we might do better to address it directly.

This is best done when curled up in the fetal position, sobbing, while a worried friend or neighbor stands on the opposite side of a locked door, trying to coax you into putting down the bottle of pills, or knife, or whatever instrument of self destruction you happen to have on hand.

In my case, I wasn’t wielding any instruments of death, but had spent the better part of my evening preparing to hang myself from the belt of my coat, if only I could find the perfect secluded tree. I had finally called a friend (who had made me promise to do so in such an event) and that friend promptly arrived at my home. The above standoff ensued.

I remember distinctly, bowing my head into my tear-sopped knees, that there was a warm, dissociative quiet that existed, calm and safe, which encapsulated me from my rapidly eroding world. Since that time, life has somewhat improved, and feelings of dystopia have ebbed and flowed, but I have never felt the safety and peace of that mild oblivion, and I wish I could return there. I hope that’s what death will feel like.

Now that I’m writing more regularly, I proudly brand myself with the Sylvia Plath effect, which states that writers have been found to be especially prone to mental illness.

I have attempted to hang myself, from the closet of a dorm room, with a green, decorative scarf. The only point in the room I felt certain could support my full weight without breaking was the handle of my closet door, so to cut off circulation I had to stoop down, sit, and let myself strangle there. I felt the weight of my body being translated into cutting fabric, and my cheeks swelling with trapped blood, and I knew my eyes would bulge and my tongue might swell, but I’d been crying anyways, so it wasn’t likely to make a huge difference.

I wanted to die, desperately, but the decision was laced with anxiety. This method appealed to me because it was instantly retractable; I simply had to stand and the scarf would loosen and I would be fine. What worried me, hanging there, was that I would want to stand and find myself unable, to desperately want to live in the final seconds of my life, to have wasted it all and to realize the folly of suicide in the grandeur and magnificence of the world. This epiphany never happened, and the grandeur of the world continues to elude me. However, I did stand, this imagined fear enough to allay my attempt for another day.

Five seconds later, a phone rang, and I went out to dinner with a friend, where we talked about movies and laughed.

The following day I admitted myself to hospital, mostly because I felt that, as a peer support counselor who trained others in suicide prevention, it was my duty to lead by example. A psychiatrist there asked if my failed ‘attempt’ the previous day had provided me a sense of relief.

“No,” I responded, confusedly. “I still have to live.”

I have overdosed on pills that a doctor warned could stop my breathing. They did not. I have considered jumping off a bridge into water, and then decided against it when the night was cold and I imagined the water would be freezing. (Jumpers often are still alive when they hit the water, but break enough bones that they cannot swim and consequently drown. This in itself is a compelling reason to find another way to die.) I have tried to cut my throat, my hand shaking hard and surprisingly weak, the skin and muscles of my neck surprisingly strong, and after two minutes the tension simply too much to bear. I dropped the razor and shakily cried.

During another stint in the hospital, I met a young woman who had lost both her daughters to an ex-husband after a botched suicide attempt. Her leg and hip were broken in the fall, and she told me the location of her jump with the sad words, “nothing works.” I never took this in until I passed the site, a year later, and noted that the drop was more than five stories and should have been enough to kill.

This saddened me more than I know how to explain.

***

It seems that, in an irony that is not especially cruel, every time I write about suicide I end up in an intense conversation on the subject the very next day. In this latter conversation, I do my best to talk a friend out of killing him or herself, all the time aware of the role reversal and how much a difference a year can make.

The rationale for most suicide interventions in wrapped up in the concept that people who attempt do not really want to die. This is often true, but when it is not it creates a chasm which is not easily crossed or understood. (Oh. You really do want to die. Well…crap.)

My best rationale is that those I have seen want to die, including myself, are in such a state of extreme distress that the ability to make such a weighty decision is surely impaired. Suicide is a big decision, and one which should never been made in a state of panic, pain, and tears. This logic probably falls apart somewhere, but it’s the best I have.

And for those I've talked to, I really do believe that, if you can manage it, to please keep trying. The world is a better place with you in it.