You may be asking yourself, how could a woman who once had a
date steal her vibrator NOT have her life together? And I have no explanation for you. What I do have however is a toothpaste stain
on my shirt and a stomach clenching feeling that I left my hair straightener on
this morning and it’s about to burn down my condo.
Every day is a struggle to get by, or to at least pass as
somebody who is getting by. I think this
is why the very public deaths of two very famous people last week have hit me
so hard.
First was Kate Spade.
I love everything Kate Spade has ever put her name on. I can’t afford any of it, but I recently
bought a Kate Spade leather tote for $10 at Value Village and felt like my life
was finally coming together. If only I could
afford to dress in head-to-toe Kate Spade, I would look like the woman I wish I
could be. If I could maybe look the
part, maybe I could be the part. I could be like her. And then Kate Spade hung
herself.
Anthony Bourdain was next.
I watched all of his shows. Every
single time Parts Unknown came on my TV screen, I would say either out loud to
myself or whoever was in the room – imagine having a life like that! Getting paid to travel and eat! It was as
automatic and as necessary as announcing, “horses,” or “cows,” when driving by
a field full of either.
I knew Bourdain struggled with mental health issues, and I loved
the unflinching way he wrote and spoke about his experiences. Watching the easy way he connected with every
type of person and the way he showed simple moments like slurping a perfect
oyster, or sipping deliciously cheap wine on an out of the way patio bringing
unadulterated joy made me believe he was a guy who outsmarted the assassin in
his head.
If not the outright cure, he found workarounds* that kept him
safe. If he found those workarounds, maybe I could too. He was proof it could be done. And then he
killed himself.
**For a lack of any better word, workarounds are the often silly
sounding things I do to stay alive when my brain tries to kill me the hardest.
For me, there’s the 24 hour rule. I wait 24 hours. I give myself permission to end my life – but
I have to wait 24 hours. Maybe something
will distract me, maybe my mood will change, maybe George R.R. Martin will
finally announce he’s finished the latest goddamn Game of Thrones book and then
I’ll have to wait even longer to read it.
Anything can happen in 24 hours.
I go somewhere public. Do whatever it takes to not be alone. I once
wandered around a Sephora store for an hour and a half, 20 minutes past closing,
no bra, no make-up, no shower in 72 hours with the Sephora girls and gays
looking at me like I crawled in out of a compost bucket…but I needed to be
somewhere there were people. And glitter
eyeshadow, obviously.
I take stock of my messy house. Maybe I have a small (read: large) pile of
dirty undies on my bathroom floor. Or
maybe there’s liquefied veggies in my crisper that I bought with the best of
intentions at a farmers market eight weeks ago.
(Ok – fine. I bought
them because the guy selling veggies at the famers market looked like a
slightly grizzlier, farmier version of Chris Hemsworth. Like, dude could have his own calendar where
he just stands there holding strategically placed squash month after month. For some reason I wanted him to think I’m the
type of healthy woman who buys, and then eats vegetables. His vegetables in particular. Somehow, I hoped this would impress him. Long story short, flirting is not my
strong-suit and I bought an embarrassing amount of zucchini, which is really
disgusting to have to pour out of a crisper.)
If I die, somebody I love would have to clean up my shit. Literally
and metaphorically. On top of every other terrible thing they’d be thinking
about me, like why didn’t I get help, or how I seemed so normal - they’d also
be thinking I didn’t know how to use a laundry hamper and hoarded perishables
in my fridge. I would have to scrub every inch of my home from top to bottom
ahead of time, and I just never have that kind of energy.
(Additionally, if my family were to ever find out what’s in
my bedside drawer and one non-descript black carry-on bag…my spirit will never
rest. My soul will be doomed to roam the
earth in awkward, cringing embarrassment for all of eternity. )
((I only just now realized that between my housekeeping
skills and sex toy collection – I can never die. I’ve actually rendered myself completely immortal.
Problem solved.))
I’m not surprised Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain did what
they did, because I know how sudden and how powerful that voice in my own head
telling me it’s time to die and every other vicious, horrible thing it says
about my worth and value in this world can be.
However, I am surprised their workarounds weren’t better and
stronger than my own. Or, maybe they
were and they just…stopped working.
Their suicides seem to have surprised a lot of people
though, and a lot of surprised people are trotting out some pretty unsurprising
platitudes.
I wish they wouldn’t.
What they did was
selfish.
Until I start seeing obituaries ripping on the deceased for
being selfish enough to die of cancer, I don’t want to hear this anymore. Nobody
calls people who die of cancer selfish bastards for succumbing to the disease,
largely because that would strike most decent, empathetic people as insane. Calling
people selfish who succumb to the way their brains are wired or damaged is just
as ridiculous. The fact this isn’t considered
poor taste demonstrates there is still a profound lack of understanding about
how our brains work, and how they don’t.
Life is precious.
Of course it’s fucking precious. They knew that. They may have even known that better than
most, and it may even be partly why they did it. It’s scary to think that me most wanting to
die is actually me most wanting to live.
It’s me knowing what I should or could be experiencing and feeling
versus what I’m actually able to experience. It’s me knowing that all the ways
my brain is completely fucked up and malfunctioning is what stops me from doing
or having the things I value most in the world.
It’s being hungry, but never able to eat. Pain comes from not being able to feel the same
joys and connectedness that other people take for granted. Maybe they thought life was too precious to
keep missing out on too.
Suicide is a
permanent solution to a temporary problem.
How does anybody who says this know that the pain other
people experience is temporary? Perhaps they’ve
struggled for decades. Maybe depression
and anxiety has devoured every good thing in their life since puberty or even
earlier. How are they defining
temporary? And why is there always an
assumption that whatever’s got anybody down is a temporary setback and things will
improve?
Life is not a Disney movie.
Sometimes, there isn’t a happy ending.
Not everybody finds love or is loved, there isn’t always a last-minute
rescue, and small woodland creatures are actually terrible at house
cleaning. Sometimes grief is
overwhelming, life is never the same, lives and people can be permanently
broken and there’s no fixing any of it.
To assume and to say otherwise without a full and complete picture of
what someone may be struggling with is condescending and it’s empty.
I hate that they’re gone, and I hate that they ran out of ways
and reasons to stay.
I hate that the
assassins in their heads finally won, because I’m certain they both put up a
much bigger fight than anybody saw.
I
hate that the best we seem to be able to offer one another and anybody who is
suffering are toll-free helplines.
We need better platitudes.
We need better options. We all
need better workarounds.
