Before I tell you what happened to me last week, I want to warn everyone who is triggered by stories of depression, and let’s say unaliving oneself. Unfortunately this story, and my life, has been riddled with it, and this story is thus not for everyone.
I can be triggered by that myself, which might actually be why I am writing this, I don’t know. But this is why the question from the young lady hit me like a ton of bricks.
“How are you alive, why are you the only one not dead?”
But let’s start at the beginning. It was a Tuesday afternoon, the sun was partially hidden behind a thin veil of clouds, but the house was filled with a gentle warm and comfortable glow. When the doorbell rang I unsuspectingly opened the door to a young lady, whom I guestimated to be about 18 years old.
“Good afternoon, my name is Marissa. You don’t know me, but I need to talk to you”, she said with an urgency in her tone.
I frowned and with a concerned tone said “I see, how can I help you, what is this about?”
“I think we better discuss this inside ma’am, it’s a rather serious topic”.
Now I live alone, and I watch the news, an unknown young lady at my door, desperate to go into my house, it made me suspicious and a little scared to be honest. So I did my best to look and sound confident and lied:
“I’m sorry Marissa, like you said, I don’t know you, my husband is inside working from home and can’t be disturbed, so just tell me what it is that you want right here”.
She sighed, bit her lip and just blurted it out. “I need to know how you are still alive. Why are you the only one that’s not dead? How come you didn’t commit suicide?”
I blinked at her. What on earth are you supposed to say to that?! I was furious on how someone would dare to ask such a thing. But at the same time I was scared, and my stomach overflowed with dread. Lost for words I finally ended up croaking out an “e-e-e-excuse me?”
She looked down, seemingly shocked by her own bravado. Looking off to one of the flower pots besides the door, she continued.
“My mom died in a chain of suicides. Each and every one watched the previous person die, and then committed suicide not too long thereafter. The chain ends with you, and I need to know why.”
Still completely lost for words I just stood there staring at her while she kept staring to the flower pot and the ground, never meeting my eyes. She let the heavy silence hang there for a moment, before looking down at her own fidgeting hands before finally continuing.
“My mom was a house cleaner for a wealthy woman, she found her one day in the bath tub, barely conscious, with her wrists cut. She died in my moms arms, there was nothing she could do, I think she blamed herself though”. Her voice trailed off, “for not checking on her sooner or whatever”.
A big tear rolled down her cheek, and I felt so sorry for this girl on my doorstep. I knew this feeling way too well. I opened my mouth, but couldn’t say anything before she went on.
“My mom was asked to clean the house until it could be sold by the family, and was asked to be there during her normal hours so she could open the door for the realtor and any people he’d hire to take pictures and redecorate and the like, and for the family gathering her possessions. He found her just over two weeks after she found the lady, swinging in the staircase”.
My eyes widened and my mouth opened. “Micheal” I gasped.
She finally looked up at me with her tear filled eyes. She tried to say something, but nothing but a pitiful squeaky cry came out. I was a whirlwind of emotions at that point, full of empathy, but still very angry and filled with dread, and to be perfectly honest, a little panicked. I wanted to scream at her to leave, slam the door and never open it ever again and hide in my bed. But I also wanted to give her a big hug, drag her inside, and tell her everything would be alright and that I understood. I sighed, stepped back, opened the door and said “come in”.
I am not a good hostess on the best of days, and this was certainly not a good day anymore. I told her to sit down and went into the kitchen to grab her a glass of water. I set it down before her and sat a bit away from her. I started to panic again, I asked this strange girl into my house and I had no idea what to do now. I knew I couldn’t leave her on my doorstep, but now what? She wiped her eyes and took a sip of her water while I frantically searched my brain for something, anything, to say to her.
“So, uhhhh, your mom was the lady that uhhh that my friend…. Micheal … found last year?”
“Did you know she was still alive when he walked in?” she asked.
Almost ashamed I looked down to the ground and nodded. “I… I did, yes”. I was hoping she would continue again, but apparently it was my turn to break the awkward silence this time. “There was nothing he could do though, he tried his best to help her, he really did, but there was just not…. Not enough time”. I added carefully.
She took another sip of her water and played with the glass in her hands. “I know” she said softly. She scraped her throat and took another sip.
“I didn’t see it coming, my mom was not depressed or anything. She was really upset with the lady dying like that, in her arms you know. Traumatized even. But she was not depressed. She said the lady hadn’t been either, just lonely after her husband had died from a heart attack several years before”.
Getting a feeling where this was going I closed my eyes in sadness.
‘The questions why, haunted me. For the next 10 days… Then I got my answer when the realtor died. It was the house, the house was haunted, or cursed maybe. My mom had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and something caused her to do this, and then also took your friend”.
She nodded to herself, and looked at me for the first time since we went inside.
“Oh, honey, that’s not….” I started. Her eyes hardened and she cut me off and raised her voice.
“No, let me finish, I know you don’t believe me, but you will, I am not some grief stricken dumb blonde. You need to hear it all and then I need to know how you got away!”
I quickly sat up straight backing away from her a bit, scared of where this was going and trying to figure out what objects where nearby if I needed to defend myself.
With a hint of annoyance and anger in her voice she continued her story. “You of course know what happened next. Micheal cut his own throat in front of his wife. Who even does that?! And then she blew her brains out in front of you.”
She looked at me accusingly, making me very uncomfortable.
“But because the wife did it too, it couldn’t have been the house, now could it? So I started to dig, and the more I dug the scarier this whole thing got. You’re thinking it’s a string of 4 suicides right? Strange, but not impossible to be a coincidence? Well it ain’t. I have tracked this chain back. I don’t know why it has sped up like that all of a sudden, but it spans at least 10 deaths, and at least several decades”.
I softened my expression in hopes of seeming more confused and interested, and hide how scared I was and the pity I felt for her. I thought it best to not let her know I thought she was delusional.
“The lady’s husband that died of a heart attack? Yeah that was a heart attack alright, but the rumor is that he took a bunch of medication that caused that heart attack. The lady held his hand in the hospital when he died. Which makes 5. That guy tried to save a man from drowning from a lake, gave him CPR, but he didn’t make it. The man who drowned couldn’t swim and no one could understand why he’d go for a swim in the lake. That’s 6. That guy’s mom and him were driving when she swerved for something he didn’t see, they hit a tree and she died while in the car with him. That’s 7. The mom’s best friend in college committed suicide, there is no record of her being with her friend when she died, but it’s safe to assume right? The friend makes 8. Both the friend’s grandparents died in a fire two years before, she and her brother were visiting and managed to get out. That makes 9. And then it got tricky, I looked at the grandfather but couldn’t find anything. But I eventually found the grandmother’s maiden name. Guess what? Her brother died from an overdose!”
She almost seemed excited at this point, which almost made me wish she’d go back to being angry.
“And that makes 10” she finished. “Don’t you see it now?”
“I do see something” I started carefully. “But it’s not the same thing you see”.
She looked away, shaking her head angrily.
“I let you finish, will you do the same for me?” I asked, searching for her eyes. “You don’t have to believe me, but, at least let me tell you about Micheal and Charlotte OK?”
She sighed, but nodded.
“Suicide is not a curse, but it is contagious in a way”
Her head tilted in surprise, and she looked at me directly.
“I have been depressed for over 20 years now, I’m not sure I’ll ever beat it fully, but I have been suicidal at several points, including after the deaths of Charlotte and Micheal. Charlotte had been very depressed for a few years, and Micheal was severely traumatized when he was young. We were each others crutches at times.”
“When Micheal found your mother he started to spiral, we even had him admitted for a few days. He had a full blown psychotic break and yes he cut his throat. Right after screaming at his wife of 7 years he wouldn’t let her resurrect his mom to come and kill him”
Marissa’s face wrinkled in confusion and disgust, and she whispered “oh my God”.
“I don’t even want to imagine the trauma that would’ve caused Charlotte” I said shaking my head. “She had lost her brother and father the year before when they got in a car accident, she lost both in one blow, and her mom a few years before that. No other family, nothing, all she had left was me. And I wasn’t enough”.
Tears started rolling down my face, and I sniffed. “I wasn’t supposed to be there, but her texts were off somehow and I dropped by unexpectedly. See didn’t even see me, I entered with my emergency key, and walked in at the exact wrong second.”
I closed my eyes, and a chill ran down my back just remembering it.
“The lady may have just seemed lonely to your mother, but she may have just not wanted to live without her husband anymore and could have been suicidal for many years without her knowing. And moms always try to be strong for their children. I think if you dove into your mother’s past, like you did into the deaths, you may find many things you didn’t know. She may have had it far harder than you knew, or mental illness in the family you didn’t know about.”
“As for the others, it sounds like you added a whole lot of pieces to fit this story. The friend who committed suicide must have been there, the mother that swerved and the son didn’t see why, must have not been anything there so it can be a suicide. The man who drowned, must’ve taken a swim voluntarily, when he could have been pushed, it could also just be an accident where he went too deep. The man took too many pills for a heart attack, the overdose was on purpose… The list goes on. You even think grandparents would commit suicide with their grandchildren in the house, by setting the house on fire!”
“You asked me who cuts their own throat, the answer is, someone in a full blown psychosis, far away from reality. Now you tell me, who sets their house on fire to commit suicide with grandkids inside?”
She blinked and stared ahead as if I had just smacked her in the face. I just hoped this was a good thing and it meant her brain was just shaken up enough to really start thinking this through.
“And if it doesn’t make sense to you that watching your grandparents burn to death can lead to depression, I don’t know what will”.
She just kept staring ahead, and I decided to give her a moment to process what I had said. “So why is suicide contagious?” she eventually asked.
“Because it spreads trauma and hopelessness”. I answered in my kindest voice that I just prayed was convincing enough. “When people you look up to give up hope, you feel inclined to give up hope. If they felt a burden to the world, you must be an incredible burden according to your inner voice. When people already on the brink need to go on without you, they may choose not to. Because survivor’s guilt can make you believe it’s your fault, that there was something you should have seen, heard, noticed, and there was something you could have done but didn’t. Shame, guilt and hopelessness can suffocate a soul with ease.”
“Depression is like a curse sometimes, it is your own brain betraying you and telling you lies about your worth, about your future, about loving and being loved. And how do you argue with your own brain? What if the demon isn’t possessing your brain, it’s just your brain creating demons nobody asked for?”
“Even so,” she started, “I still need you to answer my question. Why didn’t you? Where you just stronger than everyone else?”
“Oh God no” I chuckled. “Maybe just more experienced in detecting when it’s just my brain messing with me, and not really me that’s thinking those things. Maybe it was because my cat was sick at the time, and I had a purpose. Maybe it’s just dumb luck. Because it’s your own brain messing with you, depression can be different for different people, you know. Which is why it can be so lonely. Not even other depressed people can fully understand you. Charlotte didn’t want to get out of bed, I have always been able to force myself to get up fairly easily. I actually have more issues going to bed sometimes!” I chuckled, trying to lighten the mood a bit.
She lowered her head into her hands in defeat and sighed “I have no idea what to do now”.
“Go find yourself a therapist, and work through this is in a more healthy way. I also meant what I said about your mother, look into her, you might find clues she was having issues she didn’t want you to see. And was just engulfed in the black clouds that surround suicides and death”. I leaned over and put my hand on her knee. “You managed to do all this research, you can do this too, just give yourself enough time” I said to her softly.
I comforted her some more before she left, she felt so stupid. I tried explaining to her over and over again that her brain just tricked her too, it found a way to explain the chaos her life was thrown into, and it ran with it. It was just easier to accept. The fact she came to me showed how strong she was, and if she could point her brain in the right direction, perhaps with professional help, she would be just fine in time. I wrote down my number for her in case she ever wanted to talk and walked her to the doorstep everything had started on, what felt like days ago, but was just under two hours ago.
As I closed the door behind me, I sighed and leaned with my back against the door and closed my eyes. Thankful for being able to do so. I can’t imagine what Charlotte and Micheal went through seeing all this happening right in front of them. I thanked God for giving me eyelids, so I could close my eyes. A string of guilt started to tug at me. Maybe I should have told her? I was afraid she would take that as the reason I was still alive. I didn’t see my friend die. I closed my eyes, right before the bang, and kept them closed. I was so scared to open my eyes. I must have stood there 30 seconds, maybe a minute, maybe even longer? Time had lost its meaning. I hadn’t watched her die, she was alive before I closed them, and dead when I opened them. A flutter of doubt overtook my mind for a second. “No” I said out loud. Curses would be easier to accept, but life is downright terrifying all on its own, scarier than any horror movie ever made.