It is all over the media in the next town from me. My friend committed suicide in a public manner. So far, my county has yet to pick up the story. I only found the story by digging through the internet. I don't think anybody else knows. I don't think any of my classmates know how our friend died. His name and mode of suicide is plastered on the internet. Animals, barbarians, hiding behind aliases, debate about his mangled corpse in the comments of their town's online newspaper. One slandered him by saying he traumatized the bystanders (with no mention about how he is DEAD now while they get to LIVE and that his grieving friend is reading every gory, ugly, callous comment they are making...). Ugh. Normal People are so incomprehensible to me. They think us mentally ill are the sick ones?! We are genetically different. THEY are jerks and dogs. They have all the normal mental health and what do they do? They joke about my classmate's suicide like so much Jimmy Fallon fodder. I sent a complaint about the comments to the online newspaper. They never responded.
I cannot believe I missed the signs of suicide. I had more than 4 classes with him this past year...if not past 2 years. We saw each other every day. We greeted each other every day. He would approach me and ask me how I was, what did we do in class, how was my work going. I would make chit chat with him. I was very fond of him. He was tall, handsome, quiet. Withdrawn--I should have known. He has always been a little aloof, I thought maybe it was a cultural thing. No, it was his psychological wound not a personality trait.
This is hell. I drove around in shell-shock, trying to get an emergency session with a therapist. Next week, said the campus health clinic. I went to the county out-patient center where I am a consumer (I am bipolar but currently I have/had no symptoms). Next week, they said. Next week, next week, where will I be next week? I might take my student loan and flee this country. Forget finishing the Masters program. Forget everything. I just want a new start in a country that does not despise the mentally ill or laugh when we end our lives.
I previously wrote that I did not want any anger inside me, but when I read those callous and cruel comments on the article about my friend's suicide, I felt rage. Rage, wrath, hatred, deep-seated anger. I wanted to tell them exactly what I thought of them and their pathetic little personalities. I wanted to cross the line with the people who wrote those comments. I wanted to hurt them psychologically. Hence, the sudden drive to find a crisis therapist. I do not want to be that barbarian that these people are. I want to be able to snub my nose at them. I did not want to cut my wrist like I used to. I did not want to go screaming my anger over the internet like they do. Instead, I sat under the fluorescent lights of the out-patient treatment center and waited. "Next week," the counselor said. "Fine," I said. I left.
Outside in the parking lot I started to cry. I wept tears but I kept walking. I was a robot, a walking dead doll. Crying, floating outside of myself, feeling everything, feeling nothing. Limbo, then hell, then limbo, then emptiness, then over and over and over again, that endless cycle of grief and pain. I drove aimlessly for ten minutes.
I could see my life as endless opportunities. Death was not one. Neither was admitting myself to a psychiatric ward. There are many ways to self-destruct, to erupt like a volcano. I decided to binge eat. Off I went to the pizza joint for a large pizza and a bottle of diet Pepsi. I wanted nothing wicked to come out of my mouth so instead I stuffed it full of carbs and grease, swallow, repeat, until the heaven of sleep comes again, where I can pretend like all this is a nightmare. It is too bad, I ate 1200 calories yesterday and I even exercised. Then I found out exactly how my friend died and I went into a frenzied binge eating, remorse-ridden, tear-stained rollercoaster ride. I still feel like a dead doll. I put make-up on. I stare at myself in the mirror. I see large, oversized, kohl outlined eyes with a look in them like somebody vacuumed out the life out of them. I am dead doll. Hopefully, this will pass. Until then, I am going to eat my pain away.
I cannot believe I missed the signs of suicide. I had more than 4 classes with him this past year...if not past 2 years. We saw each other every day. We greeted each other every day. He would approach me and ask me how I was, what did we do in class, how was my work going. I would make chit chat with him. I was very fond of him. He was tall, handsome, quiet. Withdrawn--I should have known. He has always been a little aloof, I thought maybe it was a cultural thing. No, it was his psychological wound not a personality trait.
This is hell. I drove around in shell-shock, trying to get an emergency session with a therapist. Next week, said the campus health clinic. I went to the county out-patient center where I am a consumer (I am bipolar but currently I have/had no symptoms). Next week, they said. Next week, next week, where will I be next week? I might take my student loan and flee this country. Forget finishing the Masters program. Forget everything. I just want a new start in a country that does not despise the mentally ill or laugh when we end our lives.
I previously wrote that I did not want any anger inside me, but when I read those callous and cruel comments on the article about my friend's suicide, I felt rage. Rage, wrath, hatred, deep-seated anger. I wanted to tell them exactly what I thought of them and their pathetic little personalities. I wanted to cross the line with the people who wrote those comments. I wanted to hurt them psychologically. Hence, the sudden drive to find a crisis therapist. I do not want to be that barbarian that these people are. I want to be able to snub my nose at them. I did not want to cut my wrist like I used to. I did not want to go screaming my anger over the internet like they do. Instead, I sat under the fluorescent lights of the out-patient treatment center and waited. "Next week," the counselor said. "Fine," I said. I left.
Outside in the parking lot I started to cry. I wept tears but I kept walking. I was a robot, a walking dead doll. Crying, floating outside of myself, feeling everything, feeling nothing. Limbo, then hell, then limbo, then emptiness, then over and over and over again, that endless cycle of grief and pain. I drove aimlessly for ten minutes.
I could see my life as endless opportunities. Death was not one. Neither was admitting myself to a psychiatric ward. There are many ways to self-destruct, to erupt like a volcano. I decided to binge eat. Off I went to the pizza joint for a large pizza and a bottle of diet Pepsi. I wanted nothing wicked to come out of my mouth so instead I stuffed it full of carbs and grease, swallow, repeat, until the heaven of sleep comes again, where I can pretend like all this is a nightmare. It is too bad, I ate 1200 calories yesterday and I even exercised. Then I found out exactly how my friend died and I went into a frenzied binge eating, remorse-ridden, tear-stained rollercoaster ride. I still feel like a dead doll. I put make-up on. I stare at myself in the mirror. I see large, oversized, kohl outlined eyes with a look in them like somebody vacuumed out the life out of them. I am dead doll. Hopefully, this will pass. Until then, I am going to eat my pain away.
