The moment happens so fast, yet time seems to stop. You are still beyond mere calmness. Your heart pounds in your ears. Your head seems to swim, and your scalp feels tight as if it's over stretched against your skull. Your hands move as though they are not your own, as though some invisible force this directing their motion. You are hyper aware, yet so far away.
If you're in the bathroom, you take one last glance into the mirror. You may register the swollenness, the angry redness about your tear-filled, so empty eyes. You don't think. You just act. The bottle cradled limply in your sweat drenched hand, the invisible force, the puppet strings of infinite sadness, in one swift movement wrench the lid from the bottle now held in the locked grip of your possessed hands. You sigh a deep release of all the breath, and in that last act of desperation the once gentle hands commit the act of self-violence that you have been so longing to perform. As your hand snaps back as does your weary head with ears still pounding from the rush of fear and adrenaline. The poison of choice, or simply convenience pours into your welcoming mouth.
You close your eyes. The poison hits your tongue, Your mouth slams shut and you start the laborious task of chewing, forcing down the pills that rest like bitter rocks in your cheeks. Your hand searches frantically for the faucet as you lurch forward try to get a pull of water as you seek to aid the delivery of your only believed relief for such deep pain. You rase back up one more look in the mirror, your lips ringed with a think white crust, a visual confirmation of the sin you have just committed. The thick paste slides like concrete down the back of your throat. You cough, choke, almost gag as the fatal sludge makes its way to your twisting insides. The deed is done.
You sloppily wipe the tell-tale chalkiness from your face with an almost limp arm. One more last glance. You almost feel proud you defeated your strongest instinct by sheer force of will, the desire for self-preservation. Now we wait. You slump onto the toilet, head down, hands clasped between your knees. This is what you wanted, what had enveloped your thought for far too long. Your belly feels warm, the sit gently waiting to succumb. The forever sleep. The faucet drips seem to echo in your small space growing louder and louder. Suddenly you snap out of the trance, your mind seems to fly back into your awareness. Your stomach jerks even more violently and the numbness, the emptiness, the longing that drove you to this point completely disappears as your now clear mind starts to scream back into life, your body is hit with the sharp heat of panic rolls over your entire being in a wave of clarity. Your inner voice roars back to life as your instinct to survive takes hold and only these words echo in your mind over and over what have I done. The urge to save yourself takes complete hold and you barrel out of the bathroom your feet seem to not even be touching the floor. You fumble for the phone on the counter. You are breathing as through you have just run the most important race in your life. You dial you number the operator asks you what is your emergency? You answer in a trembling voice that is almost a whisper, you hate the words that issues from your glistening lips. You pour out in a simple manner as possible that you have done something stupid, the embarrassment, the shame, the cowardness hangs on your breath and fills your very soul as you give your location. The operator seemly unconcerned about the chemicals stewing in your gut, takes her leave and goes back to handling real emergencies. You were told to go sit out front and await who ever they choose to divert to your inconvenient act of selfishness, now we wait not for the sweet icy grip of death, but for the humiliating continuance of life. Sirens start to float in on a gentle breeze, but cut short as they enter the neighborhood, they wanted to get here quickly but your issue is not urgent enough to need to disturb anyone's slumber. You see the lights coming down the street. Hang your head, with your hands clasped between your knees. And you wait to be wrapped in a blanket, ushered into the back of the ambulance and driven to the hospital. As you sit silent in the back you think was this worth it all the eye rolls, stern looks, black gunk in your belly, the 72 hours of glorified babysitting. Do you regret picking up that phone, making that call, asking for help, choosing to live? In that moment you feel lower than you did when you pulled out those pills, you feel like a failure, a coward and waste of time and energy. Yes, in that moment you might regret making that decision. But at least your still here to feel that regret. And you decide, you never want to deal with this feeling of lowness and failure again. You get the help you need, you put in the effort to get to know and love yourself. You live your life; you make a career. Now you're an EMT, the back of the ambulance is now your workshop, where you plie your life saving craft. You ride down a street the sirens cut off as you enter the neighborhood, no need to disturb anyone's slumber. You pull up and see a young girl sitting tearfully on her front porch her head down her hands clasped between her knees. You bring the blanket, but before you drape it over her heaving shoulders you kneel down gently lift her heavy head look into her eyes and give her the one thing you've always wanted when you felt like that, the greatest gift you could give in that moment. You utter softly. "You're going to be okay, you made the right decision."
