Will's Choice

by Gail Griffith

  Yes, indeed, Will had straightened up his room before taking the pills on Saturday night. I remember being unnerved by how tidy his room looked—it was my first impression when I opened his bedroom door Sunday morning. According to Megan and his cousin Stephanie, Will was calm, even cheerful, Saturday night. And he seemed sure-footed and positive about the future ever since his decision weeks earlier to drop out of high school, get his GED (General Equivalency Degree), and go to work full-time.

  How could I have missed what was really going on? If he harbored thoughts of killing himself, he never mentioned it to anyone—not his closest friends or girlfriend—and no one suspected it. Nor did he drop a hint of it to his psychiatrist, Dr. Salerian, or Dr. Vaune Ainsworth, the psychotherapist he saw twice weekly.

  I faced the stark realization: I could have prevented this. At the very least I was naive, and in moments when I feel particularly guilty about what happened, I think I was downright negligent. Here is a lesson every family with a depressed teen should take to heart: Never allow your son or daughter to administer his or her own medications. It is a no-brainer. And yet, neither of his doctors—not his psychiatrist nor his therapist—suggested this simple precaution should be followed. Were we all that dense? Did his doctors assume the drugs were too benign to represent a real threat? Did they assume I would know better than to allow him to dose himself?

  I thought I was a good parent, caring and insightful. My children, my stepchildren, and I have had a strong bond and open communication. If Will had had a history of serious drug or alcohol abuse, I never would have allowed him to manage his own meds. But Will did have a history of depression. He was just as out of control as any drug-or alcohol-abusing kid. How many ways had I failed my son? Or should I fault him for not reaching out to me, to anyone, in the predawn hours Sunday morning, when, as he later claimed, he was “overcome by a black wave.” I owed it to Will to remind myself repeatedly that depression is an illness, that “the suicide attempt isn’t really who he is.”

  Suicide is not a rational act. It is not a reasoned choice. Thoughts of killing oneself—or “suicidal ideation”—are to clinical depression what paralysis is to polio: the worst possible and sometimes unavoidable consequence of a serious illness. As Will’s mother, I was staring at the challenge of untangling his impetus and motivation. There is no sense denying that I was confused and bitter because I felt he had rejected me, rejected all of us, and coveted life without us over death. But it just is not that simple.

  Throughout Will’s young life he had tried to please everyone, family, friends, and strangers alike. He aimed to be consistently even-tempered and “good.” I can understand his reluctance to confess the resignation and despair that led to his suicide attempt; he had crawled too far out on a limb and didn’t want to come back. I had been caught in that trap before myself: “I don’t want to alarm them [friends and family]” “They’ll get along just fine when I’m gone.” Nothing could be further from the truth. As I said, suicide is not a rational act. There would be no good answers and no logical explanations—not for us, the family that loved him powerfully—and the logic of his act would surely elude Will himself once he regained his health further down the road.

  It is completely unjustifiable to lay blame upon the individual who is suffering, as the author William Styron reminds us in his masterful depression exegesis, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness:

  The pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be borne. The prevention of many suicides will continue to be hindered until there is a general awareness of the nature of this pain. Through the healing process of time—and through medical interventions or hospitalization in many cases—most people survive depression, which may be its only blessing; but to the tragic legions who are compelled to destroy themselves there should be no more reproof attached than to the victims of terminal cancer.2

  At the end of the day, what more was there to say? I descended into a black hole of guilt and anxiety and the miserable sense that I had failed Will. Will was not in control—I should have been. He was battling a severe illness; it fell to me to protect him. I should have anticipated all of the possible twists this disease might take. I should have taken every precaution—no matter how foolish it seemed—to make sure that he didn’t have the means to make a run at suicide. The overdose of pills. For the remainder of my life, I will feel unassuageable guilt about the pills. The drugs were within his reach all along. Right there waiting, no less dangerous than a loaded gun.

  Late at night, Jack and I huddled together on the couch. We ate cold pizza and tried to watch a little mind-numbing Sunday-night television. What a dastardly limbo to be in.

  I must have dozed off. When the doorbell rang, I was startled to discover it was already 1:00 AM. Will’s father had finally arrived. Time to head back to the hospital, just Bob and me: two heartsick parents preparing to keep a doleful vigil next to our badly broken son.

  Letter from Will’s stepmother in San Francisco:

  March 12, 2001

  Dear Will,

  I have never written a letter quite like this one before, though I probably should have when my younger sister Marie tried to commit suicide twice in her early twenties. At the time, all I could think to do was be there for her, physically. But I didn’t really know what to SAY to her. I feel more comfortable with mental illness now, and I need to say some things to you.

  Like everyone else in our family—the entire conglomerate of your parents, stepparents and siblings—I was stunned that you were so full of despair and that your medication had so thoroughly failed you. For the past many weeks, every night, when your dad came home, I would ask, “How’s Will?” On those days that he had talked to you, he would say you sounded OK or Good or Really Good, depending on how he thought you sounded and what you had said to him. We wanted to believe you were getting better, but now we know better—and fortunately, we still have the opportunity to try and help you get better. But I know it’s not as simple as that.

  My sister says, remembering her own despair, that no matter how close and supportive your family is, when you are in the throes of mental illness you don’t think anyone on the “outside” can understand what you are going through. For her, what helped over time were good medication, a great psychiatrist and an amazing support group. She still relies on all of that, and she’s more than OK with that.

  Being depressed may not be a life that you can envision for yourself, but please don’t jump to conclusions so early in the battle. And please, if you can’t talk to your family, please talk to your doctors. And if they aren’t the right doctors for you, please tell your mom or your dad, so we can find the right doctors. They can’t help you if you don’t help them.

  I’m sure what I am saying will be said again and again this week. And it probably sounds pretty obvious. But I wanted to add my voice, as much for me as for you.

  I feel fortunate that my sister survived in spite of our lack of communication. My life and my family’s life would have been very different if she had not survived her suicide attempts. But, more importantly, she conquered an illness on her own. That’s pretty amazing.

  I can’t help but believe that if Marie can win that battle then Will can, too.

  I will see you soon, I know.

  Until then, you have all my love.

  Melissa

  7:00 AM, March 12, 2001

  It was going to be a horrendous day. I opened my eyes, steeling myself for another round of doctors’ interventions and analyses—all of which, I knew, would provide no answers, no certainties. There would also be, I knew, a series of interminable and agonizing conversations with family and friends. But there you have it: I opened my eyes reluctantly and faced the day.

  Washington was experiencing an unseasonably mild spring and I felt sucker-punched by brilliant yellow light and birdsong. The previous twenty-four hours had swallowed us up i
n an emotional maelstrom. What an affront to be further tested by an exuberant spring day! I was woozy and numb. No one in the household had slept enough—or well.

  Will made it through the night. When Bob and I left the hospital at 3:30 AM, doctors monitoring him closely for any signs of organ failure promised to call if he took a sudden turn for the worse. Thank God—no phone call. Our last conversation with the hospital staff before leaving was about what to expect the next morning. The doctor who had followed Will’s case throughout the day Sunday warned us Will might be unconscious for as many as three days—a disheartening prospect.

  We were nearly certain that Will had overdosed on Remeron; two of his bottles containing roughly sixty pills were missing. Remeron was one of the newer, less lethal antidepressant medications, only on the market for a few months, and there was no data to predict the outcome of an overdose. Since we were not certain how much he took or if he mixed Remeron with any of the other antidepressants prescribed for him (Concerta and Prozac), we were in uncharted pharmacological territory.

  Moving to the front of our line of fears was the possibility that Will’s drug overdose might render him physically or mentally impaired. Today was only Monday. Waiting another two days to find out whether he was going to be all right was a diabolical joke. I tried to push the notion aside. I was too distraught to entertain the possibility of a brain-damaged Will.

  I arrived at the hospital just before 8:00 AM and crept into Will’s hospital room unobserved by the staff at the nurses’ station. He was still a jungle of tubes and wires and I found the bleep of the heart monitor unnerving. There was an empty urine bag dangling from the side of the bed, the catheter snaked under the sheet. Then I noticed the restraints were off his wrists and ankles. This was a good sign. It had to mean he had stopped his wild gyrations. I got closer and I could see his lips were raw and stained black from the charcoal mixture the emergency room doctors had administered the day before. He reeked of sweat and urine, but he was sleeping peacefully.

  I prepared myself for what we believed would be the long wait for Will to regain consciousness. I tried to picture what it would mean to have Will live but be seriously brain damaged or physically impaired. I could not contemplate it; it was just too hard. My body hurt all over and my mind was static. I could only process the bare necessities. Up to now, our family had been spared the withering trauma of a life-or-death tragedy; nothing I had ever dealt with prepared me for any of these eventualities: suicide, drug overdose, brain damage. What about families whose children are victims of horrific car accidents? They must wait for the outcome with this same mixture of dread and unfounded hope.

  Somehow, this was worse. This was not an accident. This wasn’t fate or happenstance. To the outside world, my son brought this on himself—he did this on purpose. If he were to suffer permanent damage, would the reaction be “Look, he tried to kill himself; he has only himself to blame”? Parents who find themselves struggling to cope in the aftermath of a child’s suicide attempt shouldn’t have that slapped on them. Society’s ignorance and lack of understanding about depression may lead others to that conclusion, but as a parent, you do not have to accept it.

  Still, as much as I knew about depression, and as familiar as I was with the awful depths of the illness, I confess I fell victim to feeling periodic waves of betrayal and rejection. No matter what the circumstances, it is hard to come to terms with the idea that your child has rejected the life that you gave him. It is natural in such a situation to be shaken by conflicting emotions.

  What I wanted now was for someone to tell me what the future held and how we walked back to “normal” from here. But no one did. There were no inspirational missives from doctors or therapists, no hope offered by interested parties, no pamphlets, primers, or textbooks on what to do next.3 I assumed that the professionals observing us, the ones who would write such texts, were already making judgments—and were inclined to presume that I had failed as a parent. Or, perhaps, they figured that my kid, my Will, was damaged goods and had turned to (pick one) drugs, alcohol, or outrageous behavior because he was “deviant.” He was just another angry teen out to “punish” his family and the world.

  Of course, none of this was true. The people tasked with Will’s care, with saving his life, did not know me and they did not know my son. It is possible that they were beyond drawing conclusions. They went about their business courteously and efficiently, all the while walking in and out of Will’s room as though they were tripping over a breathing corpse. Everyone spoke in hushed tones and cast sidelong glances at the family members gathered around Will’s bed. And I knew that in addition to my own conflicting emotions about what Will had done, we were about to go up against society’s preconceived dicta about suicidal behavior.

  Since Will was still under twenty-four-hour observation, a duty nurse sat reading by his bed. The nurse, a soft-spoken Jamaican woman, said he had spoken to her a little earlier. “What? Are you sure?” I was astonished. She must have been mistaken.

  “Hey, Willo, it’s your mom.” No response from Will—not an eyelid fluttered; not a muscle moved. I nuzzled up against his ear and whispered his name again, gently, tenderly. I sat down next to his bed and took his limp hand in mine.

  Until that very moment, I hadn’t really thought about what I would say to him once he regained consciousness. The emotional deluge of the last several hours had left me spent. What I needed was inspiration, but instead what I felt was guilt, anger, hope, and anguish.

  What does a parent say to a child after he or she has committed an act so shocking and so incomprehensible? If your teenager wrecks the car, or gets busted for drugs or flunks out of school, you are devastated, but you pick up the pieces and go on. You look for ways to help him make a new start and you move on. But nothing I’d ever read in books on parenting offered guidance on how you talk to your child after he has tried to kill himself. Where do you begin? What are the first words you say?

  I sat and watched him breathe. I desperately wanted to climb onto his hospital bed and wrap myself around his spindly, seventeen-year-old frame, but he was hooked up to so many tubes and monitoring systems, it was impossible. I put my ear to his chest. It was a comfort to hear his heart was no longer racing; his pulse and respiration remained normal. Maybe there really was cause for hope.

  What would Will’s first conscious reaction be? Assuming he had not suffered injury to his brain, would he comprehend instantly he was still alive? Would he be relieved or would he be angry his suicide attempt had failed? Would he understand how terribly hurt we were or how wretched we felt? Should I be gentle or reproachful? I didn’t have a clue. All of my parenting skills had been upended.

  His hospital room was infused with a buttery morning light. As I stared out the window, I was crushed by memories; a kaleidoscope of recollections: Will’s goofy little kid giggle; Willy, the happy baby and impish, easygoing kid; the no-fuss teen. All of us—his family and friends—were captivated by Will’s guileless charm and keen sense of humor. Perhaps it would make sense to try a bit of humor to ease Will back into our world and our family’s embrace.

  We are not a devoutly religious family. Will’s father was raised as a Roman Catholic and we decided to raise our children as Catholics, too. I was not Catholic, but I have a strong, faith-based spiritualism. Will had attended Catholic schools ever since nursery school. But our faith—Will’s and mine—digressed years earlier toward a nontraditional view of the afterlife. I would be surprised if Will had counted on communing with legions of angels when he took the overdose of drugs on Saturday night.

  So, at 10:00 AM that Monday morning, when he opened his eyes for the first time in over thirty hours and glanced around the room, trying to assess his whereabouts—before he had a chance to speak—I whispered to him, “Yes, Will, you are in heaven; I’m an angel, and boy, are you in trouble, you little jerk!” Will looked at me, startled. Then he got the joke. He gave me a feeble smile and a weak thumbs-up and murmured, �
��Hi, Mom,” before he closed his eyes again. I was so overwhelmed, I cracked with relief and wept openly. I was pretty certain he was back on Planet Earth and we had escaped a calamitous tragedy.

  Will startled us all by regaining consciousness on Monday morning. He was groggy and confused, and drifted in and out of sleep, but the medical team examining him uncovered no signs of brain damage. To say we were relieved is an understatement. I did not know how to handle this new emotion: joy and grief intertwined like a bad marriage.

  The rest of the morning went by in a blur. Too many people coming and going, Will in and out of sleep, family arriving on the scene laughing and weeping; well-intentioned friends stopping by to show love and support. And the medical team, always there, evaluating, probing, asking the same questions of us, of Will, again and again and again.

  In some ways, the dynamic paralleled a wake: lots of touching and memorable stories about the loved one commingled with a sense of sorrow and loss. We were exhausted. I didn’t know whether I should offer refreshments, cheer everyone up, and play the good hostess or send the visitors home and post a sign on the door saying, “Will’s family appreciates your kind concern and we’ll get back to you after we’ve cleaned the place up and undergone some serious attitude adjustment.”

  Ultimately, I crept along and rode with the chaos; there were too many people who needed to see Will and touch him and be reassured.

  Max and Bob arrived shortly after 10:00 AM. “He spoke to me,” I whispered to them, with tears in my eyes. “He’s all right.” Bob exhaled a galactic sigh of relief and Max climbed onto Will’s bed and said, “Hey, Will, it’s me. Wake up, man.” Will roused and responded, “Hey, Max.” They shared a powerful embrace before Will drifted off again.

  Will’s cousin Stephanie and her younger sister, Kate, arrived with their mother. Again, a flood of tears of relief and whispers of reproach. Megan, Will’s girlfriend of five months, entered the room with trepidation, not knowing what she would find. Will seemed genuinely glad to see her and I left them alone for a few moments so they could talk privately. Will’s stepbrother (and best friend), John, who had found the suicide notes, was understandably edgy and anxious and didn’t leave Will’s bedside for hours. Family friends brought gifts of food and consolation.