This is a post I've been mulling over for some time now. I had thought about waiting until the anniversary of the incident but it came to my attention that this is Suicide Prevention Month and this particular entry seems apropos to that cause. This will hopefully be a coherent entry, as I will definitely go off into tangents and anecdotes that relate to this overall experience.
A few small things before I jump into this. How I intend on telling my story may be construed by some as flippant. Maybe it is in some ways. I don't want to give any impression that I don't take suicide seriously. I very much do. And by no means would I ever treat the experiences of others in a trivial way. Humor is how I often cope and laughter is great medicine, especially when one applies it to their own wounds. My self-deprecation exists for the purpose of being honest about what I was at that time: a kid who was hurting and made a foolish decision. The second thing I want to bring up is more of a request. I'd appreciate if you know my immediate family members that you would not share this entry with them. They've gone through this ordeal and handled it in their own ways. I'd rather that my own method was not on their radar so that they may not be inclined to read this. Now on to the story.
I had been diagnosed with depression years before, but I guess this all really starts with a girl named Anna. She was a tall blonde with hazel eyes. Attractive, but I wouldn't say conventionally so. It took a while for me to warm up to her. We met in theatre during the fall of '04. During that time we became friends and in the following months that escalated into a very public display of flirtation. We got on quite well and I don't think it would be hyperbole to say that everyone among the cast and crew were pulling for us to get together.
About two weeks after our play was finished, I finally worked up the nerve to ask her out. There was some disappointment on my end when she said that while she was up for dating, a relationship wasn't in the cards. She was going to college soon. I took what I could get and hoped for the best. We went on one group date and I hung out at her house once over Christmas break. Then out of the blue I get a phone call from her. She decides she wants to try a relationship. I could not begin to tell you the elation that I experienced in that moment. No words.
So we were now together. We hung out once more over the break. There was frequent exchanges during school. But then I come home from school one day to find an e-mail from her. She asks if it's okay if we're just friends. I read that and I immediately grabbed the phone and called her. I'm going to venture a guess and say that it was one of the longest phone conversations she's ever had to endure. What started as my attempt at salvaging a young relationship turned into me falling apart very quickly. I was a weeping mess.
From that day on, I was miserable. Any time that I'd see her in the hallway or in theatre was agonizing. It was like twisting a knife in me. You have to understand where I was mentally and emotionally at that age. I'm very well aware of what I look like. I wasn't attractive in my adolescence either. Up to that point I had never met anyone that had reciprocated feelings toward me. This was like finding a unicorn. It wasn't likely to happen, but if it did it was even less likely to happen again. Everything hinged on that for me. So when that relationship died, any chance of being loved back had died with it.
The next few months involved me trying to convince her to change her mind. Our interactions got more and more volatile and I grew bitter. I became a pretty vindictive little prick. This all culminated when we happened to be taking the same route home while she was going to see a friend. We were talking during the walk and things started to get turbulent... and then she saw her friend, ended the conversation, and left me. That pissed me off to no end because I wanted to rage at her so bad. I wanted to go at it with her and really tell her what I was feeling. But she wasn't willing to play that game. That brush-off, that disregard was the last straw. As I walked home I was thinking, "I'm done trying. This is misery and I don't want to live."
I got home and went to my room. I started working on a goodbye letter. I spent the remainder of the day being pleasant enough. I waited that night for everyone to finally go to bed. I remember my brother being up quite late. Between a bathroom trip, I told him that I loved him. I never say that unless it's in a goofy kind of way. I sometimes wonder if he remembers that moment and whether or not he reflects on it as a red flag. I've never had the heart to ask him.
Eventually, everyone went to bed. Since I didn't want a painful death, I decided an overdose was the way to go. I took somewhere between 15-20 pills of ibuprofen. These were the length of my thumbnail and had the circumference of my pinky. Then I drank some rubbing alcohol and some peroxide diluted with water. The deed was done and my letter was finished, so I laid down and for the first time in months I slept peacefully.
What came next was a haze and I don't remember much. My mom found me and she thought I might have overslept. I told her what I did. She grabbed me by the wrist, yanked me up, and asked me what I took. The ambulance and police showed up. As I was being led out of the house, I threw up mere inches in front of a cop's feet in our living room (sorry, Officer, wherever you are). I kept going in and out of consciousness. They made me drink charcoal, which was a blast to say the least.
I fully woke at another hospital. It was explained to me that I would be spending time in a psych ward. I was allowed a brief moment to say goodbye to my parents. As I went to hug my dad, I told him that I was sorry. He just rubbed my head and gently said, "It's okay." He said it as if I made any other stupid mistake. The compassion in that little gesture has always stuck with me. I'm crying as I type this out. I saw that my mom was a wreck. She was crying and in that moment I recognized that all the pain I had been through had been nothing compared to what I felt then and there. I had done this to my mom. This was on me and I would never put her through that ever again.
I spent four days at this facility. It consisted mostly of group therapy with the occasional one-on-one with a psychiatrist. The doctor treating me was named Raphael Gonzalez and he had this awesome accent. He was mild-mannered and he seemed both amused and pleasantly perplexed by me. He was particularly tickled with my vocabulary. My parents later relayed to me that he had said, "He's not an ordinary boy." Whether there was sincerity behind that comment or merely him exercising his bedside manner, I don't know. In any case, he was an affable fellow and I enjoyed what little time I had spent with him.
My return home was surprisingly uncomplicated and devoid of any stress. All but one of my teachers turned a blind eye to my absences and, by extension, mandatory final exams. The one teacher never really liked me, but whatever. There still remained, however, the Anna situation. I shared a class with her and we both were in theatre.
During this time, I was fortunate enough to have two friends that made the rest of the school year bearable. The first friend was Jon. We had earth science and mass media together. He was hilarious and we shared a lot of the same interests. He got me into Bruce Lee's films. He even helped me out on my first short film by playing the lead. The second friend was Kayla. Oh, where to begin with her. She was adorable, sweet, contagiously likable, and she had a singing voice that could make me cry. Seriously. Hearing her sing was like falling in love. If I'm excessive in my praise, it's because I thought the world of her. She and I bonded over a mutual dislike for Anna at that time. Those friends could not have come into my life at a better time. They were a godsend.
I still had a rough time of it. I still cried in my room and I had days where I wanted to crawl under a rock. I was participating in a musical at that time, so I had to play happy Woodstock the Bird with Anna a few feet in front of me as student director. As those involved in the show can attest, I'd be one person on the stage and then immediately switch over to being another person when I'd go backstage. I was the best part of that production (not huge praise, the show was garbage) and it's probably the best acting I've ever done because of all the improv I was allowed to do. Yet I couldn't fully appreciate it because of what I was going through.
The remainder of the year was less stressful and went without incident. I continued with my regular therapeutic treatment and things improved considerably. While I was treated in a psych ward one other time, I've never made another suicide attempt since 2005. I have problems with depression on and off. Sometimes I've even had fleeting suicidal thoughts. I've had depression for 20 years now. Maybe more. I doubt that it's something that I'll ever be completely rid of. However, I haven't suffered from my depression for a while now. There's a number of reasons for this. My faith, better treatments, support from my family, etc.
Suicide and the mental illnesses that influence people to commit it aren't always addressed in the most productive manner. I've been blessed to be surrounded by people that are sympathetic to those that are enduring mental illness. Unfortunately, not everyone is so charitable. A lot of this can be chalked up to ignorance. Other times it's just a lack of empathy.
One particular thing that I commonly hear from people is that suicide is a selfish act. Sadly, this even extends to some within the Church, along with certain doctrines (read: unbiblical doctrines) that suicide is a one-way ticket to hell. There could not be a more counter-productive thing to say to someone in that situation. People who are suicidal are in pain and they're looking for a way to stop that pain. That's not selfish and to say so is to trivialize their suffering. You wouldn't tell a person with a broken arm that they're selfish for wanting their pain to stop.
Now I need to make my point clear: suicide is wrong and it's a bad thing. But the people who make that choice or attempt to do so are not doing it with a clear mind. Their judgment is impaired, frequently through no fault of their own. They're making the wrong choice but they're doing it because they can't see that any other answer might work.
Secondly, a person shouldn't live merely to satisfy another person's desire. A person should live because they know that their life in itself, independent from others, is worth living. Now I realize that I sound like a hypocrite in saying this, based on my own experience. I threw the suicide option out after seeing what it put my mother through. But I understood through that ordeal that there was some value to my continued existence that I just wasn't seeing. Therefore it became a necessity to endure in order to find out why I should value my life. I may not have wanted to live at that time, but I also didn't want to die. I wasn't consciously aware of it, but it was something to keep me going. It's entirely possible that what I'm saying is what people mean. If this is the case, then that message is not being effectively conveyed in the statement, "Suicide is a selfish act." My suggestion is that we discard it and find a better way of articulating that sentiment.
My intent with this entry is two-fold. The first is to provide hope, however small, to individuals that may be struggling with suicidal thoughts. The second is that in relating my experience, my goal is to educate those who don't suffer from mental illness and cultivate an empathetic attitude towards those who do. I don't think about April 2005 as much as I used to. Almost 13 years later and I still find myself trying to make sense of it all. But I continue to learn from my mistake. While it was awful to go through and to put others through, it's provided me with some valuable insight and a sense of gratitude and optimism.
-L. Travis Hoffman
9/15/2017
Postscript
Given that I've referred to Anna by name in this entry, I think it's only fair that I give her what's due. I don't want to leave any lasting negative impressions of her. She's a lovely person and while we haven't spoken in some time, the hatchet has long since been buried. Mistakes were made. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.
