“Why do people kill themselves?” A plaintive voice asked. The question took me by surprise. I wasn’t quite prepared to answer such a soul searching question right then. We were busy and I had my mind elsewhere.
“People kill themselves for many reasons actually.” I kept my voice calm and soothing. “Are you asking because you are thinking about hurting yourself?” I questioned casually.
“I already have.”
Yep, words like that cut to the chase pretty damn quickly. The call lasted for over 30 minutes. During those minutes we discussed all the reasons she could come up with for ending her life. All the while she refused to give me her address.
She had swallowed bottles of pills – downing them with alcohol. She felt angry, hurt, betrayed…her husband had hit her before stomping out the door, she didn’t know anyone, she called her dad and he told her to deal with it.
She made me promise not to track her down – a promise I readily made and one I was breaking even as I was agreeing.
We were deep in debate about life when the police knocked on her door. I had to talk her into opening the door to let them in – thought they wouldn’t have taken no for an answer anyway. She was upset – told me I betrayed her trust. I told her my job was to save her, by any means necessary, from doing something she might not live to regret.
When I hung up the phone the weight of the world came down on my shoulders. The darkness threatened to consume me and none of the “good job” comments from others could stop it. The rest of the night I was depressed. It carried over into today as well.
You probably wonder why – after all, we saved the woman – the call was a success.
I was down because many times during our conversation I couldn’t come up with answers that sounded real to even me. I had given her all my reassurances that life was beautiful and that tomorrow would be a brighter day but they reeked of inadequacy.
She told me no one in her life let her be herself – that it was too hard to keep trying to live up to other’s expectations. She told me how she had given up college to marry this man who didn’t like her having friends or leaving the house – who moved her all the way across the country to a place she didn’t know anyone.
I told her she could be who she wanted to be – that we each had the right to be ourselves. “But how?” She had asked and my long pause did nothing to lend weight to my suggestions. I didn’t know what to say so I just talked to fill the space – not sure any of it made much sense.
I know it is not my job to “fix” her problems – my job was to find her and keep her talking until help arrived. Yes, we did that very well. I say “we” because it was a group effort by several of my pod buddies and I.
But her questions still haunted me and I wondered how many other hurting souls were out there tonight feeling that stark emptiness that she felt?
Today, a mother found her 34 year old son. He had blown his head off in his back yard. Maybe he thought neighbors would hear it and find him before his mom got home, I don’t know. I just know he was too young to die and I wish he would have picked up the phone.
Also today a woman called in over her daughter “accidentally” overdosing on pills. She absolutely did not want to accept that it was a suicide attempt. Her daughter wasn’t even depressed and had never talked about suicide, the mother protested, therefore she must have accidentally taken the whole bottle of Percoset.
Quiet desperation. Too many people live in quiet desperation – silently crying for someone to notice and help them. We continually come in contact with these people, yet fail to notice the desperation in them. They yearn to be more of the person they thought they would be, but the world pushes conformity and chaos.
It hurts my spirit that so many people live without hope – struggling in a darkness that so envelops them that they only desire the peace that death promises.
