02: Detector
The second installment of the "semi-colon" series.
“semi-colon” contains a discussion of mental health struggles. It may not be appropriate for younger readers or those sensitive to candid descriptions of suicidal ideation or other depressive symptoms.
For those who have ever tried to convince themselves they were okay.
My dad gently reminded me to buckle my seat belt. It had become a habit not to wear it. In some ways, seat belts were like shoelaces. More than that though, I think I was subconsciously taking a risk with my life.
Depression seemed to encourage me to take risks or seek pain. Over the summer I had gotten really into sports gambling. My close friends approached me about it as they saw me bet more and more frantically. They had grown increasingly concerned about my mental state over the several months, but I was remarkably good at convincing people I was fine. I reset my account balance and let them think I had quit gambling with relative ease. But really, I just replaced my late-night bets on the Yankees/Twins Tuesday night game of the week with something else.
Instead of gambling on sports, I started gambling more and more with my life. I rarely wore my seatbelt. I often drank too much. I began to take risks that made no sense. On a family trip to Chapel Hill, I hopped off the sidewalk directly in front of a town bus, then hopped back before it could hit me. When total strangers on the walk to Kenan Stadium expressed their concern at what they had just seen, I laughed it off and said it was no big deal.
My body had walked away from the open window in my room, but in the car, my thoughts still were begging for me to end my life. By now I was used to that. “I think about killing myself all the time,” I told my dad.
With gambling, I was chasing some sort of thrill. Something that might temporarily distract me from my pain – even if it was just the different pain of losing money. I found other behaviors which gave me the same twisted and short-lasting feeling of emotion I longed for in my most trying times. My parents knew I was having a hard time and were trying to help. A few close friends had an inkling something was wrong. But none of them had any idea of the true depths. By December 11th, I had become an extraordinary actor who used risk-taking, alcohol, and self-harm to put on temporary psychological bandages whenever I got the chance.
The car ride to the emergency room was like ten minutes of being at the very top of a roller coaster. We were awaiting the drop and did not know what would come next. The seat warmer was too hot, but it was the only thing that would help distract me from my seemingly eternal emptiness. “What's the point of all this?” I shakingly mumbled to my dad as we drove up the street. I did not listen to his answer.
I was glad the road was empty on our late-night drive. A few times during the fall I needed to pull over on the side of the road during my drive to school. As my mind played tricks on me, I sometimes convinced myself I was being followed by them. I am still trying to figure out who this imagined they were. I now know my depression and anxiety were provoking a dark fantasy. I was paranoid about the Dodge Challenger in my rearview mirror the way a small child might be afraid of the boogeyman in the closet. It was irrational and my delusions embarrassed me – but they felt so undeniably real. It is not fun when your own brain turns against you.
I felt like the only way to convince myself I was “okay” was to reassure myself that these thoughts were reality. This was a paradox riddled with embarrassment and faulty acceptance. I would notice the dark feelings coming, but it did not matter and I could not evade them. Just because I could detect the onslaught of despair, self-doubt, and paranoia did not mean I could stop them. My depression had become its own beast – attacking my rational mind whenever it got the chance.
My body had walked away from the open window in my room, but in the car, my thoughts still were begging for me to end my life. By now I was used to that. “I think about killing myself all the time,” I told my dad. “It’s why I didn’t bother writing some of my English papers this semester. I knew I should, but then I thought I would just kill myself tomorrow and it would not matter.” He said something reassuring in reply, but I was more focused on the overbearing heat of the seat warmer and the night sky. My eyes were still wet with tears as I stared out the side window. My mind and body felt almost entirely disconnected from one another.
Just because I could detect the onslaught of despair, self-doubt, and paranoia did not mean I could stop them. My depression had become its own beast – attacking my rational mind whenever it got the chance.
When I finally managed to look straight ahead I saw the hospital. The building was just an outline framed against the cloudy, dark sky, as it had been my whole life up to this point. I never took much note of it when our family went to pick up our Christmas tree at the Kings Drive Farmers Market. Now it was all I could see. Later, I found my parents had not been sure which hospital to take me to. “He was born at Atrium,” my mom said, “take him there.” It was as good a reason as any and the debate was settled.
As we pulled into the hospital and my dad searched for the ER entrance, I looked up and found the gibbous moon looking far too bright. I would remember its distant beauty a few days later as I stared at the light constellation on my ceiling. I still find comfort in the night sky. In my darkest times, it was always much harder to die when the stars were staring back at me.
I studied a parked ambulance outside of the hospital as we pulled in. The ambulance and I were both on the brink of an emergency. As we continued to move closer to the building, I wondered how many sirens would have arrived at the highway pillar. I heard the sirens in my head. My troubled mind had never considered the idea of anyone arriving at the scene of my death. I never really thought about any of the events that would follow my suicide. I vaguely assumed everyone would be better off without me, but my mind was too consumed with ending the present pain I was experiencing – it often lacked the time or space for anything else.
I vaguely assumed everyone would be better off without me, but my mind was too consumed with ending the present pain I was experiencing – it often lacked the time or space for anything else.
My dad parked creatively near the hospital entrance. I know he must have been scared, but it had become difficult to read other people. My emotions couldn’t even connect, so it had become impossible to relate to anyone else. I slowly unbuckled my seatbelt. My dad ran around to my side of the car and opened the door. I took a few slow and shallow breaths as I got out. The night air stung my eyes. My back, freshly removed from the hot seat, began to cool down at once.
Over the last few months, some mornings my parents had to almost pull me out of bed for school. I had few dreams over those months but my waking mental condition felt like a nightmare. At my lowest point, I would beg to stay in my bed – my sense of nothingness felt eerily comfortable there. The steps to the sliding doors of the emergency room felt like the journey to the shower on those dreadful mornings of forced awakening. My depression had not only affected my mental state but also made simple elements of being a human seemingly impossible. Some days moving felt like a pointless, exhausting, and tedious chore.
As we walked through the sliding glass doors of the emergency room, I immediately recognized the smell of sweat and blood, barely masked by the scent of antiseptics and cleaning solutions. My mind was hyper-focused on how strange the place smelled. My brain felt like an iPhone on low power mode, only able to focus on one task at a time – a feeling I had become all too comfortable with.
This was my first clue as to why I chose the slippers.
I asked my dad about the odor, forgetting he had lost his sense of smell when he was a kid. Questioning my dad about a scent was a common slip of mine, especially when I was a little boy. He always just smiled at me until I remembered he could not smell. Now there was a quick moment when we smiled in unison. There was this special sliver of joy – a small piece of a familiar childhood grin right before we went through security.
This glimpse of happiness through devastation and hardship is a testament to the strength of human character. This was my first clue as to why I chose the slippers. I had not realized it yet, but if we could smile at that point then there was a chance we could smile again in the future. In the early morning of December 12th, a chance was all I needed.
I had been through metal detectors before at Panthers games, flights, and concerts. Somehow this one felt different. I instinctively reached to unload my pockets but there was nothing in them. I felt the eyes of the security guards carefully analyzing me. There are a surprising number of very large security guards at the entrance to the emergency room. As I walked through the metal detector, a green light appeared on the wall. This frustrated me. The machine is telling me I am safe? My mind could not even comprehend the process of basic security. Instead, it was occupied by a machine saying I was a “green light,” when I was glaring red in my head.
The waiting room was nearly empty. No visitors due to COVID. A nurse was calmly sitting behind the intake desk. She watched me go through the security, glancing back and forth between me and her computer. As my slippers slowly trudged to the reception desk I noticed her eyes and body language subtly change. She was sitting at the very edge of her seat as if she was ready to leap up and catch me at any moment. I avoided looking into her eyes. I felt guilty for spreading any piece of my pain onto others – just another reason I hadn't spoken up in the past.
My dad did all the talking. He never used the word suicide. I think he was not quite ready to make it real by saying the word to the nurse. Over my journey, I have learned acknowledging it as reality is the most difficult part of any sort of healing.
The nurse was a woman about my parents' age with kind eyes above her N-95 mask and a name tag that read “Nicole.” My dad gave her my intake information. “Oh, it looks like he is already in the hospital system,” Nicole told him. My dad said he did not think I had ever been there before. When she swung the computer screen around to show him, he saw the address on file and realized it was from my birth 18 ½ years before.
Nicole stood up from behind the desk and led me a few feet away to check my vital signs. Everything felt so far away and my footsteps still hurt my soul. Another nurse offered to help out, but my new friend shooed her away to do it herself. I thought about how my mom would appreciate her special attention to her only boy. I shook into the chair.
If we could smile at that point then there was a chance we could smile again in the future. In the early morning of December 12th, a chance was all I needed.
I caught a glimpse of Nicole’s eyes when she clipped the heart rate monitor to my left pointer finger. Her stare reminded me of my mom’s just half an hour before. The illumination of the fluorescent lights felt like an unknown doctor was looking into my soul, so I looked down at the linoleum floor. I thought about how the nurse looked scared. I imagine she saw my tired eyes, rung by deep dark circles.
My vital signs – just “vitals” in hospital parlance – were oddly great, despite self-medicating with alcohol nearly every weekend for months. The health of both my mind and body were in steady decline from the past two years of fighting, but the numbers on the machines said I was in great shape. This frustrated me again – just like the metal detector had a few minutes before. As the blood pressure monitor squeezed my arm, I wished there was a way for them to detect my mind’s numbness and despair. I imagined the mental vitals machine breaking if faced with the burden of screening me that night.
I imagined the mental vitals machine breaking if faced with the burden of screening me that night.
Nicole gently asked me a series of questions as my blood pressure results appeared on the screen. My eyes were fixed on the newly cleaned floor until she routinely asked me if I was a danger to myself. I slowly looked up into her eyes. I am not sure why – I probably wanted her to know how much pain I was feeling.
“Yes,” I whispered.
I think she already knew the answer.
“Detector” is the second in a planned series about my journey of pain, diagnosis and healing. To automatically receive the next installment please subscribe to my substack by clicking here.
Help me, and so many others, de-stigmatize mental health and consider sharing with others.
For those struggling with their own mental health, please talk to a friend, a parent, a teacher, or anyone you know cares about you. If you are in immediate crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
William,
As I sit hear and let the words and the story sink in, I think of my son who was experiencing some of the same painful thoughts and feeling during the same week. He too, was admitted into the ER, but at Novant and subsequently transferred to another facility in Winston Salem. I can’t begin to understand the feelings you or my son felt but I can assure you, your family and mine will do anything to support you both and help you along this journey. You are both so loved, have so much to contribute to this world and are brave for sharing your story. Thank you for using your story to educate, comfort, inform and offer hope to all those struggling with mental health issues. It is not a stigma and thank you for telling all people to seek the counsel of friends, family or a stranger to offer a helping hand. May God bless you, your family and all of those struggling with mental health. Thank you!
This is so important to me and so many others. Love you Burleson!