Joining

Parting

My life closed twice before its close;

        It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
        A third event to me,
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
       As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
       And all we need of hell.

- Emily Dickinson

I first read Dickinson’s poems in 11^th grade, less than a year after I’d been discharged from the Institute of Living. Though probably a hundred and fifty years had passed since she’d written these lines, I understood them as if they’d been my own. At only 15, I’d know I was mentally ill for more than half my life. And I’d known what it was like to be held against my will in treatment - and in misery. For some reason, this poem became a touchstone for me and ever since reading it that fall in 1990, I’ve circled back again and again, wondering: did this event count as one of the “twice?” Was this dramatic enough to say “my life had closed?” It became like a silent pact I’d made – only with myself – that I got two strikes. And then I’d be out.

By 15, I could already identify many decent candidates for the first time my “life closed.” The previous winter my dad slammed my head into the kitchen wall and held me, half-hanging by my neck, as he screamed into my face. That night was a front-runner. I’d dared question his unalienable right to beat our family dogs. At that moment he hurt me, my life as someone who could explain away my father’s occasional violent outbursts as mere authoritarian parenting closed. I was now a person who had been physically abused. He could deny it all he wanted, but I couldn’t any longer.

Another close runner up for my first “close” happened during my 14^th summer on a teen camping trip. My sexual impulsivity had finally been exposed and suddenly my life as a sweet, innocent closed. I was now dirty, lewd and worse yet, needy. I learned that night that I could dissociate – that I could even go catatonic for days at a time if need be. The next day I emerged from my tent with the knowledge that this newfound power might be the best tool I had to keep myself from suicide.

And that discovery – the realization that I had the power to end my own pain – that came at age 8 at the top of the jungle gym when I realized that a quick break of my neck would fix everything. Until that year, the large, Irish-Catholic family next door had largely raised me. I was like their fifth child, they said, until they inherited a windfall, picked up stakes and left to run a resort in the Bahamas. Upon hearing the news, my life as someone who could rely on others closed. Ending my life seemed like the easiest way for an eight-year-old to handle things.

There were more. I could easily round out a top-ten list of life-closing moments by age 15. But who was I kidding? The night I was locked in isolation in the “side room” at the Institute of Living was always going to be the winner. I’d disobeyed the staff and hesitated to tell on my roommate when she became destructive after a particularly difficult day. I tried to talk her down but before she was completely calm, the staff found her and the inevitable battle ensued. They eventually tackled her between our beds and, once the intramuscular Haldol took hold, zipped her into a “body bag” and carried her off as I sat watching. Then they came to lead me off for my 24-hour punishment in isolation. My last request was to be allowed to brush my teeth so I could pretend I was merely going to bed. But the moment they took away my glasses and locked the door to the isolation room that life closed. From that point on, I was now a mental patient – someone who could be treated however society chose fit. I was no longer a person.

- - -

Now, in my 40’s, the second time my life closed is equally easy to spot. Again, there were so many runners-up between the ages of 15 and 27. So many times I thought: oh this. This might be the “twice.” This might be my life closing again. But when your life actually, truly closes and you are on the threshold of never returning to a world remotely like what you’d known before, there is no mistaking it.

I was lying on my back, looking up at the stars wheeling above my head. The Northern California sky seemed clear and black and I placidly kept track of the time by the position of the constellations each time I regained a bit of consciousness. When I heard the men’s voices asking, “Señora, ¿estás bien?” I was annoyed by the intrusion. Clumsily, I got up, ran to my car and locked myself in with my now-empty vodka bottle and still-full bottle of acetaminophen. Finally, I agreed to open my window to the policeman whose persistent knocking was interrupting my sleep and was promptly escorted to my own private cell at the local station. The next day my husband admitted me to our local hospital’s substance abuse unit and I went about the business of pretending to be just your run-of-the mill alcoholic. But that wasn’t the moment my life ended; I was only on life support.

My life closed on my third day in the hospital. As the nurse fiddled with my blood pressure cuff for the twentieth time, she reassured me that all my systems were normal. I stared at the list of twelve steps stapled to the bulletin board in front of me. It had a flowered border that someone had colored with magic markers and suddenly, it occurred to me that my systems were very, very not normal. Three hours later I was still sobbing. I put the blanket over my head and concentrated hard on counting the strands of yarn in the weave. My doctor came in, sat next to me on the bed and asked what was happening.

That flower vase in the day room; I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I admitted. I couldn’t stop thinking about killing myself. The doctor patted my hand and said he'd be back. When he came back he said he thought I’d do better across the hall - on the other ward. Did I know about that unit? I could feel the snap right then. It was hard and quick like breaking the neck of a bird. I was crying so hard I couldn't see or breathe. All the hope – that I could be a real person, a person with a job and an apartment and a car and a husband – fell through my fingers onto the floor. That life closed. Now I was more than a mental patient. I was insane.

- - -

Now that my life has closed twice, I’ve fought hard to get better. For a full year after that day, I devoted all my energy to treatment: first inpatient, then IOP, then group home, then daily group and individual therapies. I had the inevitable setbacks: instances of self-harm, readmissions, even re-arrests. But always in the back of my mind was the idea that immortality might yet “unveil a third event to me.” Somehow, I knew: that third event would be the “huge, hopeless to conceive” parting that Dickinson had promised. I knew that I’d pushed myself, my family, my options, and frankly, my luck to its limits. I knew that on my third strike, I’d be really and truly out. I would die.

--> But unlike all the other times in my life, I didn’t actually want to die. I still wanted to hurt myself, to raise that ultimate red flag and signal to everyone around me that I needed to take a time out. I struggled with suicidal ideation and para-suicidal behaviors for years. But I’d finally managed to start to build a life worth living. I liked having a job, an apartment, a car and a husband. Hell, I just liked living away from my parents. For the first time, I’d begun to realize that parting was not the heaven I’d envisioned. It was the hell I’d been living in.