Rachel Kallem WhitmanTHE NIGHT MY CAT TOLD ME TO KILL MYSELF*My husband had gone back to California for business. The last time he was away, things unraveled quickly. Looking back, I've been trying to pinpoint the specific moment in time when my brain decided that life wasn't worth the hassle. I'm still not exactly sure when I broke. It was November in Pittsburgh, which means it was cold and dark. If there had been any snow on the ground, it was grey and used at that point, and no one was excited about it. I had been alone for about a week, and my husband was due back soon. It seems odd when I look back now because I was so close to the finish line. I was so close to seeing him again and having everything make sense. But instead I fell apart. I guess there wasn't a singular "moment" at all. There were a series of weird moments. I started getting weird, which progressed into becoming even weirder. And then I was definitely at my weirdest. My weirdest thoughts are the most dangerous. They are obscure and alarming, and they don't make sense to me, but they are the only semblance of sense that I have left. I'm left with nothing but my disturbing, weird ideas and stifling anxiety I can't explain. Often there is no one there to listen. When I reach this point, rife with unease and short circuits, I operate like a defective robot. I am distant and numb, my movements are jerky, and I don't think on my own. But nobody has programmed me to do anything at all so I just continue getting weirder. I guess a more accurate word than "weird" would actually be "psychotic," but that sounds so apocalyptically condemning and pathological. I feel like when people hear that someone is "psychotic" they think that this individual is a knife-wielding maniac with no conscious or soul or capacity for remorse. This person wants to hurt others for odd, scary reasons. This person is just violent and crazy. This person cannot be saved. I always wonder what this person looks like. It is hard to know what other people think, but that November the psychotic person looked like me. And while I know it wasn't truly "me," because my therapist always reassures me that it is just my illness taking over, it is still my mind and my body and my pain. Which makes it that much harder to run away. I was not a knife-wielding maniac. I had a conscious and a soul. I was remorseful. I didn't want to hurt others for odd, scary reasons. But I was crazy. And I felt violent towards myself because I could not be saved. When you are at that place, when sanity has flaked away, and you are left bare and splintered, you only have the crazy thought that you cannot be saved. And you cling to it. Because honestly, it doesn't sound all that crazy. You are so lost and gone and you look in the mirror and you see blue bewildered eyes but they aren't yours, even though they are anchored deep in your pale face. And you stare in the mirror for hours and you try to find out who you are, but your freckles don't listen and they shift when you blink, so you have to start counting them all over again. If you just knew how many freckles…Maybe it would be you… And your lips do whatever they want and your hair doesn't listen because you aren't really there anymore. You have no control. And you can't be saved. That is the one thing, the only thing, that you know. And while you may have a few fleeting moments when you wonder if that is true, that you are really doomed, suddenly your freckles move again and you are beyond lost. Buried in a labyrinth of neurochemical glitches. The hope goes out. That November I had a microphone in my tooth and everyone was listening to me. And they knew I could not control my freckles and they wanted to take my eyes because they were never mine–they were just stuck in my head. And I didn't want them to listen to me, and while I wasn't sure who "they" were, I knew that we all agreed on something. Just one thing. I could not be saved. So, even though Princess Diana told me I shouldn't, I put all my medication in a cup. Every pill in the cabinet. When I went to open the medicine cabinet I first had to look at its front surface…the mirror. And the mirror looked back at me, and my lips, which did whatever they wanted, smiled and told me it was ok to let go. And my hair was wild and frightening and it just wouldn't listen and Princess Diana had perfect hair so who was she to tell me what to do when she clearly had no idea what I was going through? And my freckles kept disappearing. Little lights flickering out before my stolen eyes. I put all my pills in a cup, pills that were supposed to keep me from feeling crazy, pills that were supposed to help me think and help me sleep and make me feel like I might be saved one day if I just worked hard at it and did what my doctor said. But it was too late because they didn't work, and I didn't work…I broke. I am not sure who exactly, but someone who I had spoken too…maybe it was my therapist, or my husband, or Princess Diana, had called a friend to come check on me. And my friend thought I could be saved. She didn't say it, but I saw it in her nervous smile and she looked me in the eye and she didn't say a word about my chaotic freckles. Then my parents came the next morning. Then my husband came home. And we put the pieces back together. But then my husband went back to California for business. I was alone again. It was May. I could do it this time. There was no pitiful snow, only uncut wild grass. I really earnestly believed that I could do it. I had a plan now and saw my therapist twice that week, and I cuddled my dogs and I tamed my hair. It was going to be fine. But I was lonely. And food tasted weird. I figured I would just eat light because my stomach always acts up when I'm nervous. So I ate crackers and tried some soup. I drank bubble tea because it was sweet and simple. And that is all I needed in my life, for things to be sweet and simple. It was Wednesday night and my husband was due back late on Friday. And I cried myself to sleep because the bed was deep and empty. Thursday was full of rain and I couldn't swallow the lump stuck in my throat. It stuck there and felt uncomfortable and even the bubble tea wouldn't dissolve it. The dogs were loud and had unbridled energy, and I was just hopeless and tired. It is hard to remember everything. I know that Thursday was terrible and I canceled plans with friends because I didn't understand why they would want to see me. I had left the dogs at doggy daycare because it hurt to see their exuberance when all I could do was cry and collapse. Friday I sat with my cats. I sat with my cats and they listened and purred. And I wept and I ached and I didn't understand why I had to be alone. But my husband was coming home that night and I knew I could do it this time. His plane was due at 10pm, and I wanted him to call. I knew if I heard his voice I would feel better and the blackness would start to pull back from my brain. But he didn't call. I worried and wondered and the minutes ticked by. Now it was 10:30pm. And I knew he was dead. I was frantic and confused. I felt a stab in my chest and the lump in my throat grew five sizes bigger so I could barely breathe. What would I do without him? But my freckles didn't jump so maybe this time I would be ok and maybe I could be saved after all… I sat with my cat and she looked at me with gentle, brown eyes. I asked her why she wouldn't answer my prayers and where was Princess Diana this time? And while I knew the microphone was no longer in my tooth, it didn't matter because they were not my eyes and I knew it. My cat was right. So I put on my sandals and went outside. My husband called, his plane had been delayed, but I knew it wasn't really him. He told me he would be home soon and that he loved me. But cats are smart and they have nine lives so they have a lot of experience with living. My cat was right, because why should I live in a world where my husband could die at any moment? It is such a shame we just have one life so we can't even practice living. That night I realized that within the span of one tiny life you could easily lose the person who means the most to you. You could watch them slip into the gnawing nothingness that claims all of us, save for Earth's collection of cats. Your world comes crashing down into heaps of smoldering rubble, thick tar pits of broken black and glass. Was life even worth it? Maybe my husband was on the phone right now but he was going to die at some point. It felt like a dream. It wasn't a nightmare because I felt calm as I walked to the bridge. It all made sense. I didn't have to hurt, and this is how I could be saved. I was psychotic but I was worth saving, and I could save myself if I just jumped and flew and let the world go. And I knew I was close to the finish line, because he was driving towards me in his blue Subaru and he was saying nice things and how he would come and get me. How we would figure things out, because we were always in a state of figuring things out. But I was tired of finish lines and I couldn't run anymore. I wanted to break apart. I was a block away, but I didn't make it to the bridge. Luckily, he caught me just in time and he told me I was never broken. He whispered to me that life is easier when we have each other to love. Even with a brain prone to glitches. I didn't believe him, but I did start to feel safe again. That was the worst it's ever been. After leaving an overly demanding job, trading a subpar psychiatrist for a superior one, and involving more friends and family in our life, my husband, my bipolar disorder, and I are managing much better. I work as hard as I can to steel myself from the addictive delusion that I own a brain fraught with faulty wiring. A brain that will inevitably break into bits and to obey it means to end everything. Things are so much better only because we refuse to give up.
*This essay was originally published as part of Rachel Kallem Whitman's Personal and Professional Perspectives on Disability – Medium Page.
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