Some people call it “the call of the void.” A good many people, if not most people, know what that means. Let’s say you’re standing at the top of the Empire State Building. You look out at that immense ocean of lights and concrete and noise and for a split second you wonder how it’ll feel if you throw yourself off and fall hundreds of feet to your death. You’re driving to work or home from work on a highway or freeway and you see a car next to you going about the same speed and for no explicable reason, you find yourself tempted to suddenly steer your car into it. Sometimes it’s much more simple. I’ve had numerous moments in everyday conversation where I was suddenly and illogically tempted to just haul off and punch the other person in the face.
Hopefully you never actually do any of these things, but it still happens. Scientists have studied it and there’s a theory that it’s an involuntary exercise of the survival instinct. When you’re in a potentially dangerous or stressful situation, your mind suddenly decides to test your survival instinct by making a dangerous or deadly decision seem enticing. Hopefully your survival instinct is intact and you ignore this temptation. But what if you didn’t?
What if you leapt from the top of the Empire State Building? What if you drove into another car? What if you punched an unsuspecting person in the face? What if you ignored your survival instincts and answered the void’s call?
It’s a frightening notion and it only gets more and more frightening when you think of moments when your survival instincts fail. You don’t ignore them, they just don’t work.
I’ve suffered from depression all my life. I was twelve when I wrote my first note admitting to suicidal thoughts. Twelve. I’m in my thirties now and for twenty years I’d been trying to figure out what exactly could drive someone to do something so drastic. In 2014, I got my answer when my older brother shot himself. He was actually my half brother, but that slight degree of separation didn’t matter when my mom called to tell me he was dead.
My brother had everything you’d think someone would want in life: a beautiful wife, a nice home, a steady and well-paying job, and (this is what makes me miserable every time I think of it) a kid on the way. It was a total shock to all of us and it’s taken me years to figure out just why he might have done it. I’ll never know for sure, but I can guess.
It’s popular to say that suicide is a “permanent solution to temporary problems.” Anyone who says this knows nothing about depression. Depression may go in and out, but it is NOT in any way a temporary problem. It can be really disheartening to get these bumper sticker philosophies because it just increases your feeling of isolation. Maybe if my brother had heard differently… It’s arguable that the most dangerous thing about depression is that it is an unparalleled liar. It doesn’t matter how good of a life you have: if you’re depressed, you’ll become convinced that it’s all a lie and worth throwing away.
I think my brother was under the impression that if he got a good job, lived in a nice place, married the right person, and all of that, that his depression would just go away. So what happens when you get everything you thought you wanted, only for the depression to still be there?
A lot of people wonder why animals gnaw off their own paws when they get caught in a trap. They’ll most likely bleed to death, so why not just stay in the trap? Ask that again: why not stay in the trap? Is the answer not completely obvious? It’s not a matter of survival: it’s a matter of being in agony and wanting that agony to stop. This is when the call of the void is at its loudest: when the need to survive takes a backseat to the need to end the pain.
Medication and therapy can work wonders, yes, but they aren’t cure-alls by any stretch. Both industries draw in millions to billions of dollars every year, all for the sake of one thing: coping. It’s the best thing we’ve come up with in response to this debilitating disease. If you find the right medication and the right doctor, you just might be able to learn some techniques that will make life livable. But that takes time, patience, and money.
The first time I went into the hospital was involuntary. I admitted to my psychiatrist that I had been having near-constant suicidal thoughts and within hours I was wearing a pullover hospital gown and slippers. Unexpected changes is one of my biggest triggers, so they had to give me a shot to make me sleep. I remember, the first night was the best night’s sleep I’d had in weeks.
My preliminary diagnosis was bipolar disorder, and more specifically bipolar II, which is popular known as Diet Bipolar. The doctors all said the same thing about me: that I was polite, cooperative, and highly intelligent, but that I was just… sad. They made it clear that they were unsure if it was bipolar disorder or clinical depression and that it would take a while to make the distinction. I had never had any kind of manic episode wherein I saw things or heard voices, but it could’ve been hypomania and it manifests differently for everyone.
The second time I went into the hospital is an experience I will never, ever forget.
This time, I chose to go in because I knew it was the only way to keep myself from killing myself. It was 2020 and I’d been working in an industrial warehouse for about two years, receiving orders and sorting parts to prepare them for the machinists. COVID hit us like a Mack truck. We went from getting around 30-40 boxes in every day to maybe getting 30 a week. China was our main supplier, so that’s why. Eventually it became clear that there would have to be some layoffs and I was the first to go. I spent four days in bed trying to get up the nerve to swallow every pill I had in my possession.
I called the Suicide Hotline and the next thing I knew I was in the hospital. It took hours for them to get me into the psych ward, so I had plenty of time to stew in my depression. I couldn’t even eat. I messaged my mom to tell her I was in the hospital and wouldn’t be able to talk for a while. She didn’t want to speak to me. She was too angry that I’d lost my job.
Once I finally got into the psych ward, I gave up all my stuff (wallet, phone, shoe laces) and asked them for something good to help my sleep. They were more than happy to oblige.
Usually when you’re put in the Cuckoo’s Nest, you stay for a minimum of four days. I decided to stay much longer because I was tired of preliminary diagnoses. I wanted to know what was going on in my head and I didn’t care how long it took.
Group therapy was by far my favorite part of the entire experience. It was simple: a circle of chairs, a couple of psychiatrists, and a bunch of mental cases, including yours truly, talking about their problems. That’s where I met Brittany.
Some psych wards prefer to separate people by gender, but this one was more progressive (or regressive, I guess, depending on how you look at it). Our group therapy sessions were always mixed-gender, and the ward itself was the same way. Brittany was a few rooms down from me. I first saw her during our first group therapy session and I was immediately smitten. She had beautiful long brown hair and big, beautiful brown eyes. She was demure but she had a biting sense of humor. Absolutely irresistible to me.
After group therapy was arts and crafts, and I was an avid creator of bracelets. Brittany was over in the corner, painting by herself. She was an artist of note, by the way.
I decided to surprise her. I made a little bracelet that spelled out “Brittany” and walked over to hand it to her. I knew this was going to come off as either really sweet or really creepy, and I was relieved when Brittany looked at it and smiled.
“Thank you! This’ll go great with the one the hospital gave me. Just in case I forget my name, you know.” She said it sweetly, genuinely appreciative. I sighed with relief and laughed. It was the first time I’d laughed in a long while.
“You’re in the room three doors down from me, right?” she asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“Good to know.”
I’ve never known how to talk to women. I just tried to play it cool, winked, and sat back down.
I was lucky enough to have a room to myself in the psych ward. To have my own shower, my own bed, no worries about someone else I had to force conversation with… as far as I was concerned, it was the Hilton. That night, after the hall monitor inevitably fell asleep, I heard a very light knocking on my door. It was so light, in fact, that I wasn’t sure I’d heard it at first. Then there was another knock. I got up and made my way over to the door and was surprised to see Brittany on the other side.
I opened the door and before I could ask what was going on, Brittany had pulled me in and kissed me deeply on the lips. My initial shock was gone in a matter of seconds and was replaced by an overwhelming lust. It had been so long since I’d even touched a woman, let alone been kissed. Brittany ran her hands through my hair and finished the kiss, keeping her face close to mine.
“Wanna know why I’m in here?” Her voice was breathy, whispering and sultry.
“Sure…”
“Nymphomania.”
“You got to be kidding me…”
Brittany playfully pushed me down on my bed. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”
She crawled on top of me backwards and leaned down, her back against my front. She lightly licked my cheek and began to grind her backside into my groin. I had never felt more turned on in my entire life. She kept grinding against me, kissing and breathing heavily against my cheek and moaning. When she noticed how up I was for what she wanted, she leapt up and grabbed me, lowering herself onto me.
It was an encounter like I’d never had before. I wasn’t a virgin at that point, but I’d never had sex that energetic and fulfilling. I was absolutely sure we’d get caught, but we didn’t. When it was over (and it took a long while before it was), Brittany collapsed on top of me, trying to catch her breath and gently kissing my lips. I kissed her back and she seemed to melt into my arms. We laid there for a while, sweaty and spent, enjoying the warmth of each other’s bodies.
When I woke up the next morning, of course Brittany wasn’t there. I thought maybe it had all been a dream but the state of my hospital gown quickly dispelled that theory. It was wrinkled and still half-wet. I got up and had a nice, long shower. I felt a feeling of satisfaction that hadn’t existed for years; that kind of satisfaction that only comes after a night of passionate lovemaking.
As I was drying off, I started to feel something else. At first I thought it was the AC blowing, but then I remembered that there was no vent in the bathroom. It was the feeling of breath I was feeling, right on the back of my neck.
Startled, I turned around to find nothing was standing behind me. I turned back and got a good look in the mirror, seeing a fuzzy black shape towering over my from behind. I blinked and it went away.
And this was just the beginning.