When I was admitted to the emergency room, they gave me charcoal. After an attempted overdose, charcoal is administered to absorb and neutralize the pill fragments in your stomach until you make a bathroom deposit, which is a sign your system is clean and running. I was supposed to drink it all like a good girl and let the charcoal work its magic, so I did.
Soon, the floor was covered in orange-black vomit. I wasn't supposed to puke after the charcoal was administered, but then again I was never supposed to take all that Excedrin in the first place.
"Why would you try to kill yourself?" my psychologist asked me when I met with him for the first time. "You've got so much going for you. I mean, you're obviously fairly bright, fairly talented. You're young. You come from a good home, good family, good school. You've got so much in your life. Why try to end it all?"
See, I've been raised to divide up my time. I've been raised to section it off in precise bits and increments: second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, decade, century, fucking millennium.
I got a little tired of dividing things up and planning them out, so I decided to be impulsive; to just take a bottle, remove the lid and let milky white tablets flow freely from outside my body to within.
Now here I was, being told I was sick. I sat in that solemn room nervously tugging on my earlobe and scanning the floor for the words to describe it to him. Talking was never my strong suit, and if I were any good at it, I would never have found myself in this situation.
Being the shy girl I am, I groped for something fresh to say, something that hadn't been used by every attempted suicide case and that I hadn't told every doctor before him.
I fell to pieces in that drab little room. I wanted him to understand, because I barely understood it myself. In the end, I just sounded like a selfish 14-year-old gone haywire.
Here was that gun of a question pointed at me again. Baffled for an answer, all I could internally muster was that there are so many things in my world that outrage me.
According to some psychological profile, though, girls my age aren't supposed to view their lives as decent while resenting the world. We're supposed to think everything sucks, life is a bore and that everyone can sod it.
If that weren't true, why else would I try to off myself?
My days in the hospital were structured much like a plate of food at a cookout, with all the events and activities divided up and separate in neat little time frames. My schedule was a cycle of wake, shower, food, group, school, group, school, group, food, school, group, free time, alone time, group, recreation, food, group, visitation, group, movie, sleep; repeat!
I knew what they were trying to do. They were trying to create stability.
I understood their motives and found them respectable and honorable. Still, I kept thinking, "If I wanted my life sectioned off, I would have just stayed home."
Group is a lot like it is in the movies. Everyone sits in a big circle discussing why they're in the hospital, their feelings about being in the hospital and their plans for getting out of the hospital.
I think one of the staff members picked up on how bound and gagged I felt. She inquired if I ever looked for an alternate means of expressing myself. Did I ever just sit and write about my feelings or attempt to draw them, paint them, make a collage?
Inwardly I laughed, because anyone who knows me knows that's how I spend most of my time.
I'm never in serious trouble. I get good grades in school. I don't excel at any one thing, but I'm good at lots of things. I'm friendly and funny and supposedly fun to be around. And here I was, whipping out the marker, printing it on the card: "Hi, I'm depressed."
"I'm putting you on some medication," my shrink said.
Medication didn't seem like it was going to fix my problems, my poor verbal communication skills, my psychologist's glazed-over, apathetic eyes. But just like a good little girl, I did as I was told.
That night, I didn't sleep. I stayed up thinking about medication.
I didn't like that they kept telling me to face my problems head-on, yet they were feeding me pills to make them easier to ignore.
"Happiness doesn't come in a bottle," I told my psychologist the next day after telling him I wasn't going to be taking my medication anymore.
"I think you need the pills," he said, and I laughed.
According to him, I didn't have a reason to be unhappy. His plan was to release me with Zoloft.
Once discharged, I went back to my life's routine. I went back to wandering through crowds of strangers. I went back to my 9-to-5, five-days-a-week scheduling, to working my tailbone off to please everyone plus myself.
I went back to being bombarded with phrases like "self-esteem," "self-awareness" and "self-confidence." I went back to all the roles and all the motions -- going to school, coming home, eating, drinking, sleeping, walking and talking.
I returned to being the good little girl.
I went back to my life, which I have only because Excedrin doesn't kill. ©
