Feline Warrior

In a much earlier post -in fact, when I first started blogging, several years ago- I talked about suicide. That was theoretical, there was no actual suicide in mind at the time. Today that is not the case.

Today I write about Doug, who took his own life. When I first got the call about it, we were out of town and it was late. It seemed so out of context, hearing this news while sitting in a hotel in a different state, no cats to grab for soft, purry comfort. Mark was asleep, and it seemed wrong to wake him to tell him such sad news, so I sat and thought, said my own version of a prayer, and then I wrote about it. Not for this, but an email to a friend.

I have not only a rich imagination and a strange, intense emotional capacity but also my own history and experience with suicide. Obviously I never did complete the act, but at times in my life, I’ve experienced clinical depression. Not situational stuff, but honest-to-god clinical depression. The last time it hit was late 1999/early 2000, and it lasted for what felt like eternity. It started small and then grew to fill up my entire being, physical, mental, and spiritual. It was, or became, a terrifying experience - I was on a suicide watch for a time and had to agree to call two particular people every day or be put into a hospital. I didn’t like the hospital I knew I’d get sent to, so I made the damn calls. At least that’s what I thought at the time; in retrospect, I think that I really did want to live. There was at least enough of that desire to follow directions.

During the worst of that time, I was nearly incapacitated. I had to stop riding the subway because I was drawn in a horrific way towards the train tracks when I’d hear the train approaching. City buses called to me in a voice only I could hear, so walking (a regular daily event in a big city like WashDC) grew more and more scary. Being around people was painful -even among friends, I felt terribly alone- yet being alone in my apartment was unnerving because I wanted so desparately to take a final warm bath with a razor blade. My doctor was frantically trying different meds, attempting to pull me out of this thing, and that was simply a nightmare. Let’s just say that I really do not like Lithium.

And then it lifted. It had to be a combination of meds, therapy, and my recovery stuff. Probably lots of prayers from people - I did let a lot of people (in person friends and online friends) know what was going on. And today, I’m still on an anti-d, and it works, mostly. I can’t expect a pill to make me super happy all the time, and frankly, I don’t think I’d want one to. Perhaps it’s that strange, intense emotional capacity, or perhaps it’s clinical depression that lingers on, but I still do have, from time to time, moments that mirror the depression of 1999/2000. Today I know how to handle it - and I know that giving in to urges to die is not the answer. Even when my feelings tell me that I’m wrong about that, I KNOW that I am not - I know that how I feel in any given moment will not be the way I feel in the next moment, or the moment after that.

I tell you all of this because… well, because I’ve been reflecting on my own experiences with depression and suicidal ideations, and because Doug killed himself late last week. I don’t know for certain that his last hours were anything like my worst hours in my depression, but if they were, I can understand it a bit. And since the Daily Mail “outed” him as a recovering alcoholic, I don’t feel bad about addressing that here: It’s not the fault of Alcoholics Anonymous that he did this; it’s not the fault of anyone, really. Doug gave in to an urging so strong that he felt he could no longer resist it. I understand that, I really do. And yet because I’ve been on the other side of it -the recovery, the day that the depression breaks- I wish that he’d have waited. Just another hour, another day.

Doug was a celebrated artist in Charleston; go to any office in the city and you will likely see his work on display there. It is tragic that Charleston lost a historian who told the city’s story in images; it is tragic that so many people lost a friend, a mother lost her son, siblings lost a brother, kids lost their dad, and grandkids lost their grandpa. It is still deeply painful to think of his cat, who was in the house when he did it. She’s in good and loving hands now, but how terrified she must have been.

(For a long time, only my cats kept me alive. The day that I came closest to actually killing myself, I returned to my apartment to apologize to them for what I was about to do and to say goodbye - and that’s when the famed “moment of clarity” occurred and I changed my course.)

So farewell, Doug. May you find the peace you hoped would come with death. Those of us who are still here will seek it among the living; we will remember, tell stories, laugh and cry; we will wish that you had made another choice. As I said several years ago, “There are no balcony seats for observation… there is no encore or second act. Once you draw that curtain shut, it does not open again.” I’ll miss you.