The Sickest Fantasy of All
This is something I’ve wanted to talk about for a long time, but shame and fear of judgement kept me from proceeding. After reading several other peoples’ stories on this subject and finding out that sharing helped them feel better, I finally changed my mind. I want to share a deep, dark secret with you. I want to tell you about my sick fantasy.
For the better part of two years, I obsessed about this one fantasy. When I was in a more rational state of mind, I didn’t want it to come true, but I still couldn’t stop thinking about it regularly. When I wasn’t feeling so well, I pined for the day I would gather up the courage to make my fantasy come true. There was some twisted sense of satisfaction in planning all the little details and letting the whole thing play out in my head.
I fantasized about suicide.
If I had to pinpoint a time when the trouble started, it was probably in the early months of 2014. According to Dr. Peter D. Kramer, a well-known psychiatrist and New York Times bestselling author of Listening to Prozac, episodes of depression are often precipitated by either extremely stressful or humiliating life events. In my case, I experienced the latter.
Around this time, 3 of my sisters got engaged — and the 4th had gotten married two years prior. In my heart, I knew I should have felt happy for them and wanted to celebrate such important milestones, but the truth is that’s not how I felt at all. I felt humiliated. Why?
Here’s how I thought about it: We’re all from the same family, so we must have similar genetics, and we were all raised by the same parents, so we had a similar upbringing. Yet here I was, still single. I had nature and nurture on my side, but I had nothing to show for it, unlike my sisters. I couldn’t stop telling myself I was such a failure for letting that happen.
Getting through the weddings was brutal. Seeing all these happy, loving couples around didn’t help. I was constantly reminded of what I didn’t have and so sorely wanted. But most humiliating of all was being paraded in front of crowds of family and friends without a partner at my side. I didn’t want people to see what a failure I was. Indeed, for that reason, I regularly strayed away from the crowds at the wedding celebrations.
Things took a turn for the worse right after my 25th birthday. I had recently met a girl who seemed really nice and I wanted to be friends with her — maybe eventually more than friends. I sent her a text message one day, asking if she wanted to hang out sometime over the weekend. Several days later, I still hadn’t heard anything back. I felt devastated. In my mind, it was yet another life failure in an ever-growing list of failures. I hated the person I had become, and felt powerless to change anything about my situation.
On the night of May 17, I started feeling horribly depressed. I remember watching The People vs. Larry Flynt on Netflix to try taking my mind off things, but once the movie was over, I couldn’t sleep even though it was past my usual bedtime. I was tormented by thoughts of suicide.
My memory is fuzzy on the details here. Chalk it up to A. being tired, and B. depression’s association with memory loss. I’ll do my best to recount what happened. I remember slamming my head against the freezer door twice. I was so desperate to get these horrible thoughts out of my head that I was willing to risk brain trauma. You won’t be surprised to find out that plan didn’t work.
I also called and texted two of my sisters. They were asleep at the time and didn’t see my messages immediately. At that point, I realized if I don’t get help right now, I am going to take my own life. Fighting back extreme distress and constant tears, I somehow managed to drive myself to the emergency room across town.
At the emergency room, I was quickly brought into the back for some testing and to answer some questions about what was going on. The staff later brought in a social worker who talked to me some more. At some point, one of my sisters saw my panicked messages and relayed them to my parents, who immediately drove all the way to the emergency room, which was about an hour away from their home. I think they got there around 4 AM.
When my parents arrived, the social worker gave me a choice: I can be released to my family, but I may not be left unsupervised for the next 72 hours. Alternatively, I can be admitted to the hospital until the staff determines I am no longer a threat to myself. After some waffling, I eventually decided to leave with my parents.
We stopped by my apartment and picked up the essentials: Food, clothing, toiletries, and my cat. Then we drove back to my parents’ house. It was almost daytime when we got there, but I immediately took a nap through the afternoon. I felt exhausted and emotionally drained. I later transferred to my sister’s place in San Francisco, where I stayed until my 72 hours of enforced monitoring were up. After that, I resumed my usual routine.
But even after the trip to the emergency room and several mandatory classes to help me cope with depression, I didn’t make a full recovery. I still had an extreme sensitivity to rejection. The slightest perceived insult would send me spiraling into repetitive thoughts of suicide. It was during these times I developed my sick fantasy. It went something like this:
I would go home and pack up my cat Thomas into his carrier. Then we’d go out for a little drive. First stop was the bank, where I would empty out every last cent from my savings account. Then, we would go to the animal shelter where I volunteer. With a tearful goodbye, I would surrender Thomas to the shelter so he could be placed into a new home. I would then anonymously drop off the cash — also at the shelter — with a note that said something to the effect of:
I hope this brings more joy to the animals here than it ever did for me.
Then I would go back home. I would grab a sharp kitchen knife and sit down in the bathtub. With Anesthesia by Bad Religion playing in the background, I would sever my axillary artery (because it’s big and bleeds fast). Soon enough, everything would be over.
I ran through this plan in my head more times than I care to remember. I wondered what people would think once they found out. Would they even care? Maybe a little bit at first, but soon enough, they’d have to get on with their lives. The world wouldn’t — couldn’t — stop just because I was gone. Soon enough, I would be little more than a memory of another crazy kid who couldn’t handle life.
Prior to today, I never told anyone about this plan in such detail — not even my psychiatrist. So you might be wondering: Why am I telling the general public? For starters, I think this depressive episode is finally over, and I want to talk about it. I haven’t felt depressed or suicidal in over 6 months now. And while I may be young and therefore don’t have a lot of wisdom to offer, I think there’s a very important lesson here. I hope others can learn from it.
If you are feeling depressed or having suicidal thoughts, you don’t have to be ashamed. Your friends and family love you and want to help, but they can’t help you if they don’t even know what’s going on. I know how hard it is to ask for help. I felt so pathetic reaching out to my own siblings when I was feeling depressed. But you should know that asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness. I think being able to recognize when you’re up against a challenge you can’t face alone is a sign of strength. So please, reach out to someone you trust.
Even if you’re not feeling depressed and never have, I think there’s something you can learn too. Someone you know and love — a close friend, a family member, a coworker — might be feeling depressed and you don’t even know it. If you see any of the warning signs, please talk to the person. Depressed people often want to talk about how they’re feeling, but they’re afraid to approach the subject. You just might save someone’s life.
Thanks for reading.
Special thanks to my family for offering unconditional support in my time of need. I love you all more than words can ever express. I would also like to thank Tom Pollock for inspiring me to write about this experience.
