I’ve thought about sharing or not sharing this account, but it’s had such an impact on my whole life that I really want to get this one out. This is why I’m anonymous, and thus keeping everyone else in the entry anonymous.
When I was in high school a million years ago, I used the BBS systems extensively. They were servers you would call with a phone line and your computer. You could discuss things, or on some systems you could chat live with multiple people. The community was small, and we all ended up getting to know each other well. As a result, many of my friends were mostly met online. Back then, it wasn’t a familiar concept, so people didn’t always understand how you can be close to someone you’ve never met, or how we can all communicate in general.
One of those friends was the only kid I knew with a proper punk mohawk. He was a little obnoxious, super creative, and pretty sensitive. He made music and even handed out cassettes of his work, which was usually a little bit out there for my tastes, but it was cool nonetheless.
I was on one of the chat systems one night, and eventually it was just the two of us chatting. He was going through some stuff, I was going through some stuff, and we were both just mostly commiserating. Ironically, my “stuff” wasn’t that bad, as it usually was. I was talking philosophically about the pointlessness of life, using the example “I mean, what’s to stop us from just driving into the monument by the river and ending it all?”
I thought I was pretty clear.
The next day on the way to school, he hears something over the speaker on the school bus about a suicide. He went to the public school, I went to the private. But all he heard was “suicide” and remembered our conversation. So he was pretty upset. He told his school counselor who called my school and I got called into the counselors office.
I don’t remember most of the conversation but I think he just made sure I was safe, and then gave me a speech about seeing ahead to the future and not living with “blinders on.” I went back to class and didn’t give it much thought. Again, I didn’t feel very depressed.
After school I walk home with a different friend, and at one of the intersections I see my mom’s car. Odd. But I’ll take a ride home any day.
“Don’t you ever do anything like that again” she snapped, when I got in the car. I was taken aback but she explained the school had called her and told her all about it. She was mad. Not just irritated, but the kind of mad that’s a little scary. And that was the moment my respect for my mom was permanently marred.
She thought it was a prank or something, I guess. Regardless, that’s not how you’re supposed to respond in a situation like that. Make sure I’m okay first, maybe? Ask me more about what happened to understand it better? As a parent I know how hard it is, especially when they’re in high school, but what she said comes back to me often, and did even more when we were raising our kids. It hurt to my very core. And it still does.
In the end it actually helped me later in life. I did my thing, and didn’t worry much about what my mother would think or say of it. Joining the military, dropping out of college, moving in with this girl I really liked, etc. I just did them and let her know about it, but I didn’t ask her advice or opinion. That one statement so many years ago made me feel emotionally cut off, and it allowed me to just be with my own emotions. And those decisions all turned out to put me on a really good path in life, surprisingly.
I’ve since had much worse times, including my own actual attempt and threats. So many therapies and meds and doctors have passed, but I still think of that day. Mom died a decade ago or so, and as a result she wasn’t around when I was going for ECT, or in the hospital. I sometimes wonder how things would be different if she was still alive.
The friend who caused all of this committed suicide a few years ago, and I think about him often. What he was going through, how long he persisted, and what the darkness felt like falling from that bridge.
a Scarlet D 