Today is World Suicide Prevention Day, Yesterday My Friend Tried to Commit Suicide

Is it ironic, coincidental, incidental or deliberate?  It doesn’t really matter.  It happened.

Yesterday, before 6am, I awoke to knocking at my door.  In a haze, I woke up to my housemate telling me that one of our friends, CJ (name changed) was committing suicide.  I’m not even sure I comprehended her as I was very groggy.  All I remember is saying, what?! and her flashing her phone at me to a Facebook post our friend posted.  She had posted various things but the main part was that she had decided to take her own life, taken a mixture of pills and had gone on a walk and that maybe someone would find a body.

I’ve been replaying the sequence of events that occurred yesterday morning over and over again in my head.  As a note, this post is a disclaimer about my thoughts and experience and is not speaking for anyone else.  

I must admit that I didn’t know what to do.  What do you do in a situation like this?

This is my friend that I used to work with, someone I was once closer to and haven’t actually talked to or seen in a long while.  Someone one I had talked to or seen maybe once a year in the past 3 years or so.

My housemate had tried to call CJ via the Facebook phone but had no answer.  I tried to call her number with my cell, hoping that she still had the same number.  It went to her voicemail.  I wasn’t prepared with what to say, I didn’t even know what I would say.  I just said, hey, it’s Sylvia, please don’t hurt yourself, call me back.  Actually, I don’t even remember what I said, I think that is what I said.

What do we do now?  We weren’t with her, we weren’t near here, in fact, we didn’t even know where she was.

My housemate tried to contact one of our other friends earlier to see what we should do.  She also called the suicide prevention hotline to ask.  I also googled at the moment what to do.  I think the suicide prevention hotline said to call the police.  What does that mean?  Does that mean call 911?  Does that mean call a police station?

You might be thinking, call 911, duh.  But seriously, at the moment, I wasn’t sure if 911 was who we should be calling.  I’ve never called 911 before.  That’s not why I didn’t initially think to call but I think that I might call 911 if I was there with the person?  I don’t know.  It’s really difficult to explain actions when you’re in the moment figuring out what to do in a situation you have never been in before.  Perhaps it is because I didn’t know if 911 would be able to help because I didn’t know where CJ was, I didn’t really know what they could do, plus I mean, what exactly warrants calling 911 anyway?  That may be something we should all be educated in.

I ended up calling 911 but before we did that we tried to get as much information about our friend as we could from her Facebook.  We had to make an educated guess about her DOB.  I had her birthday in my calendar but didn’t know the year.  We had to gather info about her mom and sister from her Facebook.  Even then, I wasn’t sure how accurate the information was.  I knew of her sister because she mentioned her before.  She always posted to a person she addressed as her mom, so I was guessing the information was correct.

The dispatch kept asking me really basic questions about my friend that I couldn’t answer.  That was really difficult.  I couldn’t answer where she lived.  I didn’t know who she lived with, whether she had a car.  I mean, we had to make an educated guess about her DOB.  Any reason why she would kill herself other than the information she had posted.  Dispatch told me they ran her license with DOB and found an address and would send someone out there but that she wasn’t sure if her address was up-to-date or not.

At the same time, my housemate was on Facebook trying to get an address or any type of information.  Finally someone gave us her home address.  I gave it to dispatch and she routed me over to the sheriffs department for that part of town.  I felt like I was on the phone for a long time and even now am not sure how long it was.  Everything is a blur to me.  The lady she routed me to told me that the sheriff had found CJ and that she was alive.  What a relief!

Shortly after, my housemate and another one of CJs friends announced that she had been found to the thread.  They ended up taking her to the hospital for evaluation and care.

While all of this was happening, I was a bit nervous and anxious but I don’t think it really hit me ’til everything “calmed”.  As I drove my 45 minute commute to work, I couldn’t stop thinking about it – that we could have just lost her.  It’s not even that she thought about suicide, she attempted it.  It was the last resort.  We could have lost her.  And I kept replaying the whole morning in my head over and over again.

I was rattled, shaken up, and very anxious all day.  That was some crazy shit that happened.  I’ve never called 911 before.  I didn’t think to call 911 first.  I think one of the parts that hit me particularly hard was that I didn’t know anything about her.  I couldn’t answer very basic questions.  I mean, that’s practically useless.  I just have it on repeat in my head that all I could say to 911 was “I don’t know”, “I don’t know”, as the answer to question after question.  I also kept thinking about how ill-equipped I felt in the situation.  I seriously did not know what to do and who to call.

I’m thankful that CJ is alive and recovering.  It’s a good thing my housemate was awake so early in the morning as she usually does.  Good thing she checked Facebook and good thing she took action.  At least we took action.

I couldn’t focus most of yesterday.  I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

CJ also texted me and said thanks for the thoughts but go on with your life.  Don’t make contact as you’ll be wasting time and I have ordered no contact and a no directory listing.  I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant other than it seemed like she was trying to cut people or me away.  That she might block my number so I couldn’t contact her.  That was harsh.  The very thing she probably wants to do is isolate herself because suddenly there is all this attention.  But the very thing we can’t let her do is that.  I told her that we cared about her and wanted to see her.  That might be overwhelming itself – suddenly all these people want to visit her and connect with her.

Today, I thought I was feeling a little better.  But I think subconsciously I wasn’t.  I was still distracted and the same thoughts still pop up in my head – the whole scenario, just thinking about CJ and what she must be going through, and what can we do?

The reason I say that subconsciously I wasn’t all there is because of 3 things that happened throughout the day.  First, I was writing a check and I put the date in the spot where you put the dollar amount.  I had to void the whole check.  Second, I completely burned my lunch so I pretty much ate one slice of bread, one slice of cheese and 6 salamis for lunch.  Third, I was in a working meeting with my boss and coworker.  We have a coworker also named CJ.  Someone said CJ in the meeting while I was working on some stuff.  I didn’t even realize that I subconsciously let out an audible, loud sigh.  I had no idea until my boss was like, are you ok?  I was like, oh..yeah.  I’m ok.  That was weird that I wasn’t even aware of my actions.

I’m still shaken up by it, distracted and can’t stop thinking about it.

I’ve dealt with someone else and suicide only one other time in my life.  In high school, one of my friends kept threatening that she was going to kill herself.  I didn’t know what to do.  She told me that if I told anyone, she would do it.  I called the suicide hotline.  They kept asking me all these questions about where my friend lived, what school she went to, etc.  I was scared to give them the information because I didn’t want her to go through with her threat.  I wrote my friend a few long letters about hope in Jesus and just about how she was cared for and she shouldn’t take her life.  She didn’t end up killing herself.  She thanked me for that.  I don’t feel like I did anything.

Suicide is a scary thing.  It’s a terribly deep, dark place that someone can fall into.  I must admit that I had contemplated suicide once in my life.  It was at some point in high school early on.  I was in a dark place.  I kept thinking about the various ways I could do it.  I believe the reason why I didn’t end up doing it was because I did think it wouldn’t be fair to some people in my life.  I held on to hope through a song I learned in middle school:  Seek ye first.  I haven’t thought of it every since.

Today is world suicide prevention day, yet I feel like suicide is never a mainstream topic.  It’s almost taboo.  It’s not a topic in the church.  It’s not a topic in the public.  After reading about a friend’s post on depression and suicide and how recent this topic was, it really hit home and I had to write this post out because it has really affected me mentally and emotionally.  How do we let people slip away and who is responsible?  Responsible in the sense that we are all responsible in not letting people slip away, whether they are one person’s friend more.  It made me really reflect on how we as a church can minister to those who have crossed our paths, regardless of how they first crossed our path or who the connection was.  How can we not let people slip away even when they are physically far away?  How can we continue to minister and love on them and really be there for them as they need it?

Life can be depressing.  Crazy shit can go on.  People can feel hopeless, alone, distraught and in despair.  People can be in deep pain, in dark places, in places we cannot even comprehend.  We need to remind each other that God cares about us, He loves us, He is hope, and He conquers death.