Can we not?

I don’t have my life together.  I realize this may come as a surprise.  For the three or so people who’ve read this blog (two of them by accident), please take a moment to let that settle.

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.