* * *
—
It was the doctor who roused me next. “Hello there. How’s your throat?”
I sat up. “How did you know—”
“You were throwing up a lot. It’s normal when you overdose on medication. Any other pain or discomfort?”
I shook my head, starting to notice my body, which felt really relaxed. I wasn’t nervous or worried. It was as though my feelings were put away in a box for now. When I lifted my hand, though, it was heavy. The doctor noticed.
“Let’s talk about your medication. We treated you for the overdose, to make sure there’s no damage. So far, you are okay. I also put you on two drugs you will have to take for a while, a few months at least. One of them helps you to relax. It might make you sleepy. Don’t worry,” he assured me, “this is going to be all right. The medication will start helping you to feel better. Meanwhile, we need to figure out what’s behind your depression.”
It was the first time I’d heard the word applied to me. Depression. Was that the monster that crushed me every night?
“Can I ask you some questions about how you’ve been feeling?” He went through a questionnaire: Do you sleep too much? Do you have trouble falling asleep? Do you cry a lot for no reason? Do you ever feel worthless?
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Do you ever feel like hurting yourself?
Yes.
Do you feel that you would be better off dead?
Yes.
It was the first time I admitted it aloud to an adult. Yes, I wanted to kill myself. I felt I had nothing to live for. I felt I was a burden to everyone around me. Yes, I felt I would be better off dead.
We chatted for a long time. I was surprised he didn’t judge me. He didn’t tell me I needed Jesus. He didn’t tell me there was something wrong with me, something I needed to fix. He asked questions and he listened. He told me I was probably experiencing a major depressive episode, and that the churning feeling in my guts was anxiety. He told me I had to start sharing my feelings with other people, and that I had to remember depression and anxiety tell lies to my brain. He explained the medication. One was an antidepressant, and one was an antianxietal. One would help me feel happier, and the other would help me stop worrying so much. I might have to take them for months, maybe years, he said. Wonderful. More expense for my mom.
The doctor wasn’t a fan of phones. “All that sharing and friending and liking isn’t healthy,” he said. “It’s designed to make people feel bad about themselves. I can’t make you do it, but if you can, stay off social media for a while.”
No problemo. The last thing I wanted to do was communicate with anyone anyway. I could picture exactly how a conversation would go: WYD? they’d ask. What am I doing? Oh, I’m in hospital because I tried to kill myself. Awkward conversation, much? I deleted everything. Almost everything. For the next week, I kept checking my phone, so sure that it was vibrating under my pillow with scared messages from Ki-ki. I couldn’t talk to her either, but knew she’d understand.
I was there for a week. Banana Kid never stopped trying to make conversation. I never engaged. Honestly, he was annoying AF. The larger reason I ignored him, though, was that I was sorting out how I felt after surviving my suicide attempt. I still had moments when I hated myself as strongly as ever. In those moments I was ashamed I couldn’t even get suicide right. But every day I woke up feeling slightly better. I was cautiously glad I wasn’t dead. I looked forward to talking to the doctor every morning, although when he passed on rounds, he always had his young flock behind him. He gave them pop quizzes on diagnosing and treating depression and anxiety in teens, using me as the case study. I was a guinea pig. I liked the doctor but I did not like having my private business used as a teaching tool.
The day before the doctor discharged me, he came to my room while my mom was there. After some pleasantries, he said, “Mummy, your daughter’s struggling. She doesn’t like school. She said she’s not good at it. She feels like she doesn’t fit in, and like she has no friends. Do you think that’s a true reflection of her experience?”
Cynthia said nothing. She was an expert in the silent treatment. I had learned from a master.
He tried another direction. “How are things at home? How is your relationship?”
My mother’s face was a closed door. “Fine,” she said tersely.
“Any arguing? Disruptive behavior? Does she stop talking for days? Harm herself at home?”
Cynthia shook her head, no. She would never admit to a stranger that she had raised anything less than a perfectly behaved teenager. “I never saw anything out of the ordinary,” she lied, brushing all my problems under a rug and slamming the door to the room shut. Her voice was so cold you could have crushed it to make a snow cone. I could see how much she disapproved of me. I wanted to curl up and disappear. Her disappointment was clear to me behind those frozen eyes. In spite of my new medication I felt a hot, hard mass start to burn in my stomach.
The doctor told her to supervise me at home for a few weeks, if possible. How? I wondered. She has a job. Would she have to take more time off to stay with me? “I am making arrangements,” she told him coldly.
He handed her a letter in an envelope. “This is a referral to a counselor. It’s important for her to start therapy as soon as possible.”
I was on a plane to Canada two weeks later.
I cried all night after the Tacos and Tequila Incident. Then I stopped crying for a while but I wouldn’t eat anything. And then I ate some crackers but I wouldn’t talk. It felt as though I didn’t sleep at all. I wallowed in my self-loathing and my terror of the world outside of my bed. There was nothing I could do but feel pitiful and hate everything about myself—and hate myself even more for feeling the way I did. Every few hours I heard that bubbling, babbling ringtone—it was Akilah, but I just couldn’t face answering it. Just the thought of talking to anybody made me cry again even harder.
Jillian and Julie begged me to go with them to see Dr. Khan at his office but I couldn’t imagine leaving my bed, let alone the house. At the end of the second day, Jillian brought the mountain to Muhammad, walking him to my room and leaving us alone together.
Dr. Khan’s round, friendly face usually made me smile, but not today. I was sad, deep down in a dark hole where nobody could follow.
“Hello,” he said softly when he entered the bedroom. “Jillian tells me you’re not doing well. What’s happening?”
I turned my back to him and stared at the wall. It had worked at the hospital and…Yes! Score! It worked again. Eventually, he left and told my aunt he’d come back another day. I had a feeling I could no longer convince him I’d be fine with just my meds, as I had when I’d seen him last month at his office. I sensed that a therapist was in my future.