Quiet Room - Lori Schiller [62]
It was the middle of the night when the bubbling kettle of my suicidal fantasies finally boiled over. I was in my bedroom, and the Voices were chattering away like Fourth of July firecrackers. They were condemning me to die, making me feel like shit. They were suffocating me and there was no way out. My urge to silence them for good was so impulsive and powerful that I didn't have time to act out any elaborate fantasy. I used what I had at hand.
I had a huge mirror on my bedroom wall, and it watched me as I prepared to murder myself. I made my own precise death-calculation. I had a bottle of Mellaril, a major tranquilizer I took every day for my psychotic symptoms. I knew what the highest safe dose was. I decided to take three times that amount, plus a little bit more. If I took more, it might make me sick enough to throw up. If I took less, it might not be lethal. So one by one I swallowed most, but not all, of the bottle of pills. I was going to die deliberately, as an expert.
Then, about thirty-five minutes into the overdose, I decided on some insurance. I went into the kitchen, and selected a knife. The paring knives were too small. The butcher knives were too big. I chose a medium-sized serrated one. As I gently drew the blade across first one wrist and then the other, I marveled that not only did it not hurt, it actually tickled. It felt good! I watched the red stains spreading across my arms.
I went back to my bedroom to watch my blood—and my life— seep out. I felt exhilarated. I did it! I finally did it! I felt like a hero on my way to finish a crusade.
A second later, I panicked. I was going to die. Really going to die. The thought terrified me. I bolted to my parents’ bedroom.
It was a little after 4:00 A.M. when, blood dripping from my wrists, I shook my dad awake. He knew immediately what I had done. He sprang out of bed. He jumped into his clothes and, dragging me spraying drops of blood behind us, pulled me into the car.
All the way to New Rochelle Hospital he screamed at me.
⁘Make yourself throw up, Lori. Make yourself throw up. Stick your finger down your throat.”
I couldn't do it. So it wasn't until we got to the hospital when they helped me throw up, then pumped my stomach and bandaged my wrists, that I was out of danger. For all the rest of the night, my dad waited by my side for the crisis team to arrive.
Because of the amount of tranquilizer that had made it into my system, I slept most of the time. While I was awake I begged my dad to keep me out of the hospital. He put the responsibility in my hands: If I felt I wasn't going to harm myself again, I could come back home.
I promised. I was only looking for relief, I told him. Relief from what? From those chattering, nattering, vicious, unforgiving Voices. And somehow with that suicide attempt they had been satisfied. The wild frenzy that reached its crescendo a few hours earlier had peaked and was now receding. I felt tired. I was distressed at upsetting my dad. But, as the Voices had promised, I did feel peace.
For the next several months, I felt better. It was as if in trying to kill myself, I had made an acceptable offering to the Voices. The volcano of their rage had erupted, and then subsided. I was more tranquil, more in control. So by spring, I decided to try to take another vacation.
I booked a trip with the Tufts alumni association. There would be people my own age there, from my school, my parents reasoned. I would meet people, make friends and have a good time. I picked a trip to Morocco. It was music that governed my choice. The Crosby, Stills & Nash song about riding on the Marrakesh Express had always fascinated me. Morocco seemed like an exciting, adventuresome place. I wanted to go someplace exotic where no one I knew had been.
But the trip was a disaster from the start. There were no Tufts alumni in the group, and no single young people. Everyone was old, or in pairs, or had young children. I felt alone and frightened the moment I stepped on the plane.
I hated Morocco.