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by Lisa Allen-Agostini

  But those good old days of managing my depression and anxiety with just medication seemed to be over. I was having the ice cream sundae of meltdowns in the bathroom of Tacos and Tequila.

  After holding me for a few minutes, Julie sat me down, told me not to worry, and left to fetch Aunt Jillian.

  Could anything be worse than what I was going to call this—the Tacos and Tequila Incident? As crazy as it seemed, the Cute Boy seemed interested in me. He was looking at me, wasn’t he? Yeah, and he knows you were looking at him, too. His dad announced it to the whole wide world. I sat on the toilet seat replaying the entire awful episode over and over in slow motion. I groaned from deep down in my cramping belly.

  When Aunt Jillian appeared, she didn’t even blink to see me wet-faced and shaking in a toilet cubicle. She went into crisis mode. “Right. Let’s get her out of here and back home. We’ll deal with this better there.”

  The idea of going out into the restaurant looking like that made me freak out even more. I clutched Jillian’s hand. “Please, please, Aunty, please don’t make me have to say goodbye,” I begged. This time, I wasn’t playing or being goofy. I was really scared of having anybody else see me with my snatty nose and my still-dripping face swollen from crying.

  “Of course you don’t have to say goodbye, sweetie. We’ll tell them you’re not feeling well and you send your apologies, that’s all,” said Julie. Though I was kind of glad I didn’t have to talk to anyone, especially the Cute Boy, somewhere under the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth I was a bit sorry. He really was gorgeous. That was the last coherent thought I had for days.

  journal session 3

  The last time I felt like that, I had a nervous breakdown. This is what I remember.

  I opened my eyes to a white fluorescent strip light. The bed below me was hard and narrow. I tried to turn, feeling the thin sheet sliding on the vinyl mattress cover, and reached out to push myself up. That’s when I noticed I was wearing a strange gown and had an IV drip in my arm. I looked around. Five other kids lay in railed beds like mine around the room, mostly sleeping or playing on their phones. One was awake and looking at me. There was a giant yellow banana painted on the wall behind his bed. I guessed it was the children’s ward of a hospital. It was day; I could see light through the windows in one wall, but I couldn’t tell what time it was. My stomach burned like acid.

  I had a sore throat, too. Banana Kid heard me clearing it and took it as an invitation to chat. He asked in a friendly, curious tone, “You’s the one who take tablets to kill yourself? I hear the nurses talking about you.”

  I slumped back down and turned my face away. Luckily, I was in a corner. It was what I deserved, anyway, to lie alone in a corner. I was alive. I didn’t know how to feel about that. Should I be disappointed? Or relieved?

  “Nursie!” Banana Kid yelled. “Look, the girl who take the tablets wake up!”

  Outrageous! You rude little—! I swung around to complain but the words froze in my mouth when I noticed there was a counter by the doorway to the ward where two women in white sat doing paperwork. One of them, a chubby brown-skinned lady, sighed loudly and creaked to her feet. Her lack of amusement showed in her stiff neck. “Shhh! Hush, Clive. You feel because you living here you could bawl out any old way? Have some behavior!” After scolding him in a stage whisper, she said to me in a normal voice, “Missy, how are we this morning?” So it was morning, then. As she waddled toward my bed I shrank back into the hard mattress. She took my arm and checked the IV needle stuck in the bend of it. Clear liquid dripped from the plastic bag hanging on the metal stand, going down a skinny plastic tube into my arm via the needle into my vein. It looked just like on TV, I remember thinking.

  “Doctor is on his way,” she said. She put a blood pressure cuff around my arm and pushed some buttons. I lost interest and looked back toward the wall as she took my temperature and pulse. The machine beeped, squeezed my arm, beeped again, and relaxed. I didn’t watch as she unwrapped the cuff. I kept my face to the wall until she said, “Why would a nice young girl like you, with so much to live for, try to take your own life? That would be such a loss. You are so beautiful.” Her tone was kind and sympathetic. I turned just enough to see her face. She had relaxed and wasn’t looking so stiff anymore. There was a spark in her eye. “You know who can help you with those feelings?”

  I shook my head. She leaned in. “Jesus can help you, dear heart. Just call his precious name. Jesus…” She closed her eyes and started to pray for me right there. I wasn’t offended. On the contrary, it was kind of nice to have someone express regret that I might have died. Still, she was a stranger who was also breathing in my face and making presumptions about my spiritual life. How did she know I wasn’t already calling on Jesus and Mary and Joseph and a wide variety of saints? I mean, I wasn’t. But I could have been. And wasn’t it super unprofessional of her to pray with me? I was a patient. I was pretty sure there were rules about that kind of thing. She rambled on for a while, adding a few verses from the Book of Psalms I recognized from church. I was starting to get hungry when the doctor arrived.

  A tall, skinny old man strode in at the head of the flock of younger people. He was the only one not wearing a white coat. Instead, he had on a sharp pinstriped suit. He must have been boiling in the heat. The nurse muttered a hurried amen, handed over my medical chart to him, and stood to one side away from the herd.

  From my best recollection, I think he had on a purple tie. If he wasn’t so old, he’d have been handsome. He had a kind face, and eyes that really saw you, inside. The younger doctors all stared at him in adoration and hung on his every word while he talked about me as though I was still unconscious.

  “Take the medical history, Smith,” the doctor instructed a junior attendant with buckteeth. Smith, I presumed, timorously asked about a thousand questions about my shots, if I’d had measles, if I’d ever been in hospital or had surgery before. I whispered my responses, keeping them short and to the point. Some questions, like what conditions ran in my family, I couldn’t answer. “My mom can tell you,” I said. And it hit me all at once that she wasn’t there. Panic, pure and hot, started to fill my chest. I think the doctor was a mind reader. He saw my eyes widen and asked the nurse immediately, “Nurse, where is the patient’s mother? Wasn’t she here overnight?” I think he asked so I would know she hadn’t left me there alone, not really.

  “Yes, Doctor. She had to go in to work to apply for emergency leave, she said.” The nurse was back to her stern professional attitude. I focused on how dotish it seemed that my mother would have to physically go to the school where she worked to ask for emergency leave. Wasn’t she having an emergency?

  “Call me when she returns. We have a lot to talk about.” His eyes were lasers behind his thick, round tortoiseshell-frame glasses. “So.” He said nothing else, just looked at me. The junior doctors were like ghosts standing behind him. My hunger vanished, replaced by a jittery feeling. I wanted to cry. I was on the verge of ripping out the IV and making a run for it when he finally spoke again. “No smartphone, I see? Good. Keep it that way. Social media is terrible for you. So, young lady. I understand you took some tablets. Thirty paracetamol. You took them last night? Why?”

  I had nothing to say. The tears were quivering behind my lashes now, but they hadn’t yet fallen. My world was a tight bubble of rage, pain, and shame. I felt dirty and pointless.

  “You know that you could have hurt yourself?” I closed my eyes. Of course I knew. That was the whole point. I would hurt myself until the pain stopped, forever. The tears squeezed out and ran down my cheeks but I didn’t answer him. How could I explain the ache I felt inside, the torment that ripped me to pieces when I was alone? I hate myself. I think I deserve to be dead. The world would be a better place without me in it. Yeah, right, I could totally tell him that. He would completely get it.

  He waited still.

&
nbsp; Stubbornly, I remained silent.

  Finally he said kindly, “We will keep you under observation for a few days. The medication you took can cause permanent organ damage, so we’ll watch to make sure that didn’t happen. I want to talk to you about why you took the tablets. Did you mean to harm yourself?”

  There it was. The big question. Crazy girl, were you trying to commit suicide when you swallowed a full bottle of your mother’s painkillers? I opened my teary eyes and darted looks at the doctors and the ward behind them. Banana Kid leaned forward in his bed. The nurse raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips. I lay back, closed my eyes, and pretended to go to sleep. When I wouldn’t answer any more questions, the doctor talked quietly to the nurse before touching my shoulder. “She’s going to give you some medicine,” he said, and left. From behind my closed eyelids, I heard him being followed by the cloud of younger doctors. The nurse remained and fiddled with my drip. Then she, too, left me alone and I drifted off.

  * * *

  —

  I woke up again when Cynthia roughly shook me awake. My mouth was gross and my teeth were fuzzy when I yawned. My hunger was gone. I didn’t feel panic. I didn’t feel much of anything. It was as though I was seeing the world from behind a thick layer of glass. Saying nothing, my mother handed me a toothbrush, tube of toothpaste, and bottle of water. Brushing my teeth was the last thing I wanted to do. But I did it, rinsed my mouth with some of the water, and spit into the pink plastic bedpan she placed in my lap. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. All that time, I felt dead inside. What was the point? Didn’t I deserve to have filthy teeth and terrible breath? I was a waste of space anyway. Who cared whether all my teeth fell out? Who cared if I was dead? Other than the Christian nurse, that is. I was causing my mother terrible inconvenience. Yet, somewhere deep down, I was relieved she was there, even though her face showed exactly how much patience she had with this new development. Suicide attempt. Great.

  Someone had left a bland, flabby cheese sandwich and a lukewarm box of juice on a platter on my bedside table. Mom thrust it at me. I struggled to eat the tasteless bread. Without warning, my mother stood and walked away. The nurse waddled over. “Everything okay, dearie? The sandwich all right?”

  “Yes, thank you,” I choked out, swallowing painfully. I hoped the nurse wasn’t going to pray again. I just wanted her to go away. I grabbed for the juice box and stuck the straw in, immediately sucking up a mouthful of tepid orange juice to avoid saying anything further.

  “Mummy went to see Doctor,” she said. “He gave you some medication, so he has to explain it to her, what the different tablets are for and how you have to take them. You might have to take some for a long time. Some people take them for their whole lives. You can’t drink alcohol with these tablets, missy, don’t forget. You could have a bad reaction.”

  Alcohol? I was fourteen! Who did she think I was? Of course, I knew kids my age drank. I just wasn’t one of them. Not that I told her that. Not that I told her anything. I just wanted all of this to stop, to go back to sleep for a long, long time. I put down the half-eaten sandwich and half-drunk juice and reclined on the hard mattress. If I never woke up again that would be awesome. I don’t know when I fell asleep, but I did.

  * * *

  —

  It was the doctor who roused me next. “Hello there. How’s your throat?”

  I sat up. “How did you know—”

  “You were throwing up a lot. It’s normal when you overdose on medication. Any other pain or discomfort?”

  I shook my head, starting to notice my body, which felt really relaxed. I wasn’t nervous or worried. It was as though my feelings were put away in a box for now. When I lifted my hand, though, it was heavy. The doctor noticed.

  “Let’s talk about your medication. We treated you for the overdose, to make sure there’s no damage. So far, you are okay. I also put you on two drugs you will have to take for a while, a few months at least. One of them helps you to relax. It might make you sleepy. Don’t worry,” he assured me, “this is going to be all right. The medication will start helping you to feel better. Meanwhile, we need to figure out what’s behind your depression.”

  It was the first time I’d heard the word applied to me. Depression. Was that the monster that crushed me every night?

  “Can I ask you some questions about how you’ve been feeling?” He went through a questionnaire: Do you sleep too much? Do you have trouble falling asleep? Do you cry a lot for no reason? Do you ever feel worthless?

  Yes, yes, yes, yes.

  Do you ever feel like hurting yourself?

  Yes.

  Do you feel that you would be better off dead?

  Yes.

  It was the first time I admitted it aloud to an adult. Yes, I wanted to kill myself. I felt I had nothing to live for. I felt I was a burden to everyone around me. Yes, I felt I would be better off dead.

  We chatted for a long time. I was surprised he didn’t judge me. He didn’t tell me I needed Jesus. He didn’t tell me there was something wrong with me, something I needed to fix. He asked questions and he listened. He told me I was probably experiencing a major depressive episode, and that the churning feeling in my guts was anxiety. He told me I had to start sharing my feelings with other people, and that I had to remember depression and anxiety tell lies to my brain. He explained the medication. One was an antidepressant, and one was an antianxietal. One would help me feel happier, and the other would help me stop worrying so much. I might have to take them for months, maybe years, he said. Wonderful. More expense for my mom.

  The doctor wasn’t a fan of phones. “All that sharing and friending and liking isn’t healthy,” he said. “It’s designed to make people feel bad about themselves. I can’t make you do it, but if you can, stay off social media for a while.”

  No problemo. The last thing I wanted to do was communicate with anyone anyway. I could picture exactly how a conversation would go: WYD? they’d ask. What am I doing? Oh, I’m in hospital because I tried to kill myself. Awkward conversation, much? I deleted everything. Almost everything. For the next week, I kept checking my phone, so sure that it was vibrating under my pillow with scared messages from Ki-ki. I couldn’t talk to her either, but knew she’d understand.

  I was there for a week. Banana Kid never stopped trying to make conversation. I never engaged. Honestly, he was annoying AF. The larger reason I ignored him, though, was that I was sorting out how I felt after surviving my suicide attempt. I still had moments when I hated myself as strongly as ever. In those moments I was ashamed I couldn’t even get suicide right. But every day I woke up feeling slightly better. I was cautiously glad I wasn’t dead. I looked forward to talking to the doctor every morning, although when he passed on rounds, he always had his young flock behind him. He gave them pop quizzes on diagnosing and treating depression and anxiety in teens, using me as the case study. I was a guinea pig. I liked the doctor but I did not like having my private business used as a teaching tool.

  The day before the doctor discharged me, he came to my room while my mom was there. After some pleasantries, he said, “Mummy, your daughter’s struggling. She doesn’t like school. She said she’s not good at it. She feels like she doesn’t fit in, and like she has no friends. Do you think that’s a true reflection of her experience?”

  Cynthia said nothing. She was an expert in the silent treatment. I had learned from a master.

  He tried another direction. “How are things at home? How is your relationship?”

  My mother’s face was a closed door. “Fine,” she said tersely.

  “Any arguing? Disruptive behavior? Does she stop talking for days? Harm herself at home?”

  Cynthia shook her head, no. She would never admit to a stranger that she had raised anything less than a perfectly behaved teenager. “I never saw anything out of the ordinary,” she lied, brushing all my
problems under a rug and slamming the door to the room shut. Her voice was so cold you could have crushed it to make a snow cone. I could see how much she disapproved of me. I wanted to curl up and disappear. Her disappointment was clear to me behind those frozen eyes. In spite of my new medication I felt a hot, hard mass start to burn in my stomach.

  The doctor told her to supervise me at home for a few weeks, if possible. How? I wondered. She has a job. Would she have to take more time off to stay with me? “I am making arrangements,” she told him coldly.

  He handed her a letter in an envelope. “This is a referral to a counselor. It’s important for her to start therapy as soon as possible.”

  I was on a plane to Canada two weeks later.

  I cried all night after the Tacos and Tequila Incident. Then I stopped crying for a while but I wouldn’t eat anything. And then I ate some crackers but I wouldn’t talk. It felt as though I didn’t sleep at all. I wallowed in my self-loathing and my terror of the world outside of my bed. There was nothing I could do but feel pitiful and hate everything about myself—and hate myself even more for feeling the way I did. Every few hours I heard that bubbling, babbling ringtone—it was Akilah, but I just couldn’t face answering it. Just the thought of talking to anybody made me cry again even harder.

  Jillian and Julie begged me to go with them to see Dr. Khan at his office but I couldn’t imagine leaving my bed, let alone the house. At the end of the second day, Jillian brought the mountain to Muhammad, walking him to my room and leaving us alone together.