October 2, 2005

I mixed a cocktail.
Lamictal, 200 mg, 60 pills.
Trileptal, 300 mg, 30 pills.
Trazodone, 300 mg, 60 pills.
Remeron, 30 mg, 30 pills.
Seroquel, 300 mg, 60 pills.
All taken together, at once
with 64 ounces of milk
to coat my stomach.
I thought I could make it
to the park bench by the courthouse fountain
but I collapsed 200 yards into my journey.
My legs just buckled,
my body ignoring the commands
to get up out of the middle of the road.
I vomited.
Retching, spewing pill fragments and milk
all over my face, all through my hair,
and I remember thinking
"Oh my God, I've really done it this time!"
It.
Suicide.
Death.
The end of my life.
I was instantly gripped by panic.
It's not supposed to feel like this!
Where is my sense of peace,
that amazing white light to welcome me home?
Then everything went black
and there was nothing.
I was intubated in the street
and wheeled into the ER
as a Jane Doe, suspected drug overdose.
No ID.
Just a cryptic note crumpled up in my
right front pocket of my jeans.
I awoke days later
to the hiss of the ventilator
ringing in my ears,
my eyelids fluttering in time
to the rhythm of the heart monitor.
Five bags of fluid on the IV pole.
Wires everywhere.
I tried to move
but my wrists were in restraints.
I began to cough,
choking on the tube down my throat
and I heard my mother's voice saying
"Get the nurse! She's waking up!"
Who? Me?
But that can't be!
I did it.
I really did it this time.
It.
Suicide.
Death.
Now what the fuck am I supposed to do?
Am I okay
or am I going to be a vegetable?
Why is Days of our Lives
on my hospital room TV?
My days were supposed be over
but now there is a social worker in my room
talking to my parents
about the number of days
I'll need to be under inpatient psychiatric care!
Again.
Dammit, again.
I want to say "I'm sorry", but I can't.
What am I sorry for?
For putting my family through this?
For asking them to love me anyway?
For not dying?
It,
suicide,
death
is such a mess.
I already sent out invitations to my funeral
because I wanted to be sure
someone would be there
to remember me for me
because I sure as hell
don't remember me.
My mind's long term memory
is racked with guilt and shame and pain
and my short term memory
is, well, what were we talking about?
It.
Suicide.
Death.
And the day I almost, almost died.

A Glimpse of Mania

My depression is a whisper.
My mania is a scream,
no, it's a shrill, high pitched shriek.
The kind that hurts a dog's ears
and fractures the stained glass windows
at Pine Village United Methodist Church
early on a Sunday morning
because when I'm manic
I'm up early,
because when I'm manic
I never go to bed.
No, I go to Utah.
Driving on I-70
through Illinois,
Missouri,
Kansas,
Colorado,
stopping briefly in Denver
to call my boss at 5:30 a.m.
and tell her that I quit my job,
effective immediately,
and oh, yes, have a nice day.
The heavy snowfall in Vail
doesn't deter me,
sleet pinging off my windshield
as I belt out Pink's "Family Portrait"
for the 57th time.
It's the only CD I brought
for I packed light.
A wad of cash.
Two cases of bottled water.
Eight bags of marshmallows,
the jumbo ones so I could play chubby bunnies.
And a blanket.
I have no idea where I'm going
but I'll stop when I get there,
have a burger and fries
at a local dive in the middle of the desert,
eating only three bites
and leaving a $50 tip.
I suddenly remember that I have cats.
That's right, my cats, not my family
get me to turn around.
The roads in Kansas
are a solid sheet of ice.
The bunny.
Dammit, the bunny!
SHIT! I ran over him,
so I put my car in park,
grab my blanket,
and crawl across the ice to the bunny.
It never occurred to me that I could be that bunny,
run over by a semi unable to stop on the ice
and when I reach it
I see that it's dead
and I weep.
"Oh God, what have I done?"
I wrap the bunny gently in the blanket
and slide him across the ice
over to my car
and delicately place him on the front seat,
not knowing that when I get back to Indiana
my therapist would reject my offering
and my dad would
throw the rabbit in the dumpster.
For five days and five nights I was gone.
Gone from home.
Gone out of my mind,
spinning wildly, uncontrollably,
jacked up on gas station coffee and menthols.
Wait, why am I buying those?
I don't even smoke.
But, oh, today I do
cuz I am cool!
I am queen of the world!
The weeping over the rabbit
is replaced by maniacal laughter,
raucous laughter
exploding from my lungs and I crank up the bass.
Yes, today I am the obnoxious one,
the one with the bass so loud
that it vibrates the car
and pushes everyone else away.
I am the one.
The savior.
The messiah.
The alpha and the omega.
Nothing can stop me now!
No, it will go on like this
until the crash,
ripped from heaven
and plunged into the depths of hell.
Sleeping for ten hours.
Twelve hours.
Eighteen hours.
Praying the flames will incinerate me
so that my family can go ahead
and have my goddamned funeral,
buy a pretty urn,
place it on the mantle
and stop worrying
about when the next time
I'm going to lose my shit will be.

Do You Sleep?

Do you sleep?
I mean at night when you're supposed to,
not during the middle of the afternoon
when you're not supposed to be
hiding from the world,
curled up in the fetal position,
covers pulled up over your head,
cursing your cats
who are walking around the apartment meowing,
looking for you
because it's the middle of the day
when you're supposed to be up
doing chores,
crocheting,
reading,
petting them,
singing to songs on your Echo,
writing shitty poems no one wants to read.
Do you sleep?
I mean the mirtazapine is supposed to help
but mostly it makes me hungry
so I get up and eat Fruity Pebbles at 1:00 a.m.
No, I devour them
like it's the first food
I've had since Monday and today is Friday, I think.
I'm not sure because my days all run together now,
an awful run-on sentence,
my life sentence without  the possibility of parole.
Do you sleep?
Soundly?
I'm jealous.
The prazosin is supposed to help keep the nightmares away
but I still see elephants
with pink stripes on their trunks
and daisies on their ears,
which is kind of like a nightmare
if they are stampeding right over you
while you're pushing
a little old lady in a wheelchair
through the plains of Africa at dusk.
Why won't my mind rest?
Is it punishment for something I've done
or haven't done that I should have?
Should.
I know, I know,
should is a forbidden word,
a no-no.
My therapist will gently remind me of that
every time it leaps from my lips.
But sometimes I disagree.
I should be able to get a god night's sleep.
Do you sleep?
Be thankful.