Hollow

I wanna share a bit about my plans to kill myself.

Perhaps I should qualify that, by adding the word “former” in front of the word “plans” in the previous sentence. 

Former plans. Not current. 

No alarm bells sounding or red flags with me. This was damn near three decades ago. But the plans were there once, and I’m no longer ashamed to admit that fact. 

But since I have your attention, could I have it for just a bit longer? Because I want to share what actually stopped me from doing it. Maybe it’ll help you stop someone from doing it. 

Or, maybe, just maybe, it’ll help stop you from doing it. 

I was in my late teens and I didn’t transition well from high school to college. That summer, I decided that I would use the .38 pistol my father gave to me and put it to my head on a beach in adjacent Door county (my father was a detective and coroner for Kewaunee county, so killing myself in Kewaunee county was not an option). I managed to pick the spot, but I hadn’t picked the date, yet.  I remember feeling the cloud of depression lifting away when I mentally committed to going through with it. It all sorta just dispersed, and I felt relieved that it all would be over soon.

You see, that’s how it works. That’s why you hear people at funerals say “I don’t get it, he was fine and laughing last week….why would he kill himself?” It’s because the cure for our mental pain and suffering has finally been found in our accepting of the suicide option, and that may be the first time we actually feel some psychological relief.  On the outside, we appear as a strong, brick wall; peek inside, and you would see we feel destroyed, rotten, and broken. 

So, a guy named Blaine Berg bumped into me that summer. He was on leave from active duty with the US Army. He had about 30 days off, and wouldn’t ya know it, we started hanging out. We ended up spending the whole time, at least 10 hours a day, riding around in his brother’s Chevy Cavalier. We listened to MC Hammer tapes and talked about the good things to come. Blaine wasn’t a counselor. He wasn’t a psychologist. 

But in that month of sitting next to him in that car, having him validate my emotions and never judging me, I returned that .38 pistol to its case, as I decided that I wanted to keep breathing.  I found hope. Blaine helped me find hope.  Recently, I thanked Blaine for saving my life that summer. And in typical Blaine fashion, he turned it back on me and said that he was just glad I was alive. Blaine was, and is, a hero to me. 

A year or so passed and I found myself broken again. My childhood dog, Ralph, had recently been euthanized, a college friend had just been killed in a car accident on campus, I wasn’t in a relationship, and nationally, Eric Clapton’s song “Tears in Heaven” was all over the radio, as well as the story of his son’s tragic death. For some reason, that tragedy just hit me.   I just…just….couldn’t…fit the pieces back together. I didn’t like the world around me. And this time around, no Blaine. Once again, I retrieved the .38 pistol and decided that it’s time. I cleaned up my room and organized the dozen or so CDs that I owned (I put “Silent Lucidity” on top of the pile), and left for what would have been the last time. 

I had read that when people die, sometimes they involuntarily vacate their bladder and bowels, so I visited the bathroom to make sure I maintained a little dignity in my death (the things we think of before we plan to put a bullet in our brains, eh?). 

I concealed the gun in my waist so that it wouldn’t be seen and then made my way through my parent’s house. I remember that, this time, I actually was on the verge of tears as I told my parents that I’d be back later, knowing that they’d recall those last words after whichever county official notified them of my death.  

In the 15 steps between the living room and the kitchen door to the garage, I must have relived my life a thousand times. I thought about my first day of kindergarten, my first fist fight in school, first time I held Sarah’s hand in 7th grade, and the trips I took to Montana, among other things. I thought about my impending funeral, and I smiled thinking that those that hurt me would be weeping, regretful. I pictured myself smiling from somewhere in the afterlife, freed from the darkness that always seemed to find me, regardless of how far I tried to get away from it. 

As I passed through the garage and saw my dad’s unmarked police car in the driveway, things began to feel real. I imagined the beach scene and the police tape. I knew the next hours were going to be the worst on earth for my family.  I was hopeful that somehow they’d understand just how bad I was hurting and that they’d forgive me. 

Still on the verge of tears, I passed my father’s cop car, only to be surprised that just a few moments earlier, my friend Corie Zimmerman had pulled into the driveway behind my dad’s cop car. 

I remember looking and seeing that his window was open and he was smiling. He simply said, “what’s up?”. Within a second, I lost it and started crying, and I’m sure this probably horrified him. He kinda developed this funny grin. I lied to him and told him that I was struggling with a girl situation, because I knew he’d relate to that. A second of silence and then he just calmly said “it’ll be ok”, and then I think he quoted Bill Murry from Caddyshack. I laughed and, in that moment, I felt a sense of hope. Of future hope….that, once again, there were some good things to come. 

To this day, Corie has no idea that he was involved in preventing my suicidal plans. He literally was THE factor standing between my living and dying that day.  I’ve never told him this…..he’s learning of this fact as all of you are. Corie….thank you. It did become “ok”. You were right. 

So here’s where I am going to ask all of you for help, because all of you CAN help, even if you aren’t trained counselors. The two guys who saved my life weren’t trained counselors, either. They were two guys that  listened, validated, and gave me hope that there is a future out there that isn’t full of pain. 

For starters, when someone says they wish they were dead, or says they wanna kill themselves, don’t tell them “no you don’t!” or “stop saying stupid things” or “well that would be dumb” or in any way argue with their feelings.  

Because yes, yes they do feel like they wanna die, very much so, and your telling them that they don’t only elicits feelings of being crazy, isolated, wrong, foolish, and even more disconnected from people.  They can feel even more motivated to end it, then. 

Instead, maybe respond by saying, “I bet you are really hurting, huh?” or “You must have gone through a lot to feel like you wanna die, can tell me what happened?” In my experience, professionally and personally, people that have thoughts of self-harm really need to be heard and validated. They need to tell their story and how they arrived at the decision to wanna die. 

When I worked on the county crisis center phones, so often the callers who were suicidal just needed to hear a kind voice on the other end saying:

-I can tell you’re hurting

-I am so glad you called

-I bet it has been really tough

-You probably don’t feel it but you are strong for reaching out

-This feeling is common

-You probably feel crazy

-You aren’t crazy at all

-I bet you just want the pain to stop, huh?

-What happened? 

-I believe you

What people don’t need to hear is how nuts or stupid they are, or how pissed off you’d be if they killed themselves. That doesn’t help them. Let me repeat that: shaming them doesn’t help them. If they are feeling suicidal, then that’s their feeling so START THERE. Start where they’re at, not where you’re at. 

You are much more likely to help a friend with suicidal thoughts if you understand their feelings and what brought them to a place where dying seems a better option than living. And if they reached out to you, that means that they trust you enough to express to you their incredibly private and guarded thoughts. 

So why not help them cope the best way you can? You don’t have to be an expert counselor, you just have to ask questions and validate their emotions. 

I want to add that, in addition to what I’ve wrote here, keeping a person who is expressing thoughts of self-harm SAFE should ALWAYS be a priority, and that means there may come a time when you need to call 911 and report the situation. As mad as a person may be that you called 911, I’d much rather have them alive and pissed off at you, than dead from suicide.  So if you feel unsure that they are going to be safe alone, dial 911 or have them dial it. It has to start somewhere. 

For me, it was that thing I called “future hope”, earlier, that kept me from pulling the trigger. It was the idea that somewhere in the future, I would meet up with a happier version of my life, and it would all be worth it. I just needed to be heard and needed a little help finding hope. That’s what stopped me. 

Now, it would be reckless to imply that what works for me, will work 100% for everyone…..so having said that, some people may need other interventions to help ease their psychological pain; please try not to hesitate reaching out to those resources. For me, it was finding hope in a better future; others may need more. 

I often think about the things I would have missed had I followed through on my plans. I compiled a short (not exhaustive) list off the top of my head….

I would have missed: 

-The first time you hear your child say “daddy, can we gets ice cweam, prease?” 

-The love of an alaskan malamute

-The feeling of playing drums to “You Shook Me” in a band at any venue in Wisconsin

-The of anticipation, in any form, be it when you’re in line at a game or a concert, or just at home cooking a pizza….the overall exited feeling of the good things to come in life

The list would be endless…..

I took a chance back then, a leap of faith, and I imagined a future “someday”, a world where I would be surrounded with sillyhearts and misfits like me…..

…..and, well, thirty years later, here we are ☺❤

Cw