What does it feel like?

TW: self harm, suicide and mental health

“Okay, yes. If you need any other help just call.” I say and hangup. A forty year old man. Who knew someone so depressed could last that long.

I know I couldn’t last as long as forty.

I sit at my desk and wait. Wait for what? I couldn’t tell you. Wait for the world to end, or my life to end. Whichever one comes first. I don’t know which one I wish to come first.

The sense of doom fills the office, which doesn’t seem out of place sense I am working at a crisis center. But it feels stifling today, choking me in misery and doubt. Do we even actually help these people? My answer is most likely no but I’m not ready to face the harsh conditions of admitting that just yet

The room buzzes with phones being operated and the florescent lights that stay on twenty-four hours a day.

A call comes through.

“Hello this is suicide hotline. My name is Hanna, how can I assist you?”

These words pour out of my mouth on auto pilot. I’ve said this saying so many times. It ironic that its me saying these things. It shouldn’t be me, I’m just like the people calling.

“Yeah hi, its me again.” Comes a girls whisper through the phone.

Her.

Addly.

The fourteen year old girl who’s been calling for three years now.

“Is everything okay?” I ask cautiously, her voice is tighter and scratchier than usual. She gives me a sad laugh.

“I mean I’m calling you so not really.” She says dryly then her tone shifts “I wanna leave. I wanna leave and never come back to this horrible world.” Addly starts to sob.

“I know honey,” I say quietly and I have known.

I’ve known sense she was eleven years old calling me from her phone that she just got for her birthday. I’ve known sense the first thing she said to me the first time she called was: “Um hi my name’s Addly, I’m an eleven year old girl and I’ve been suicidal for one year now.”

Her child voice squeaked in my ears and my heart shattered. Usually the kids that call me are older than eleven and certainly most of them started be suicidal at twelve not ten.

“You don’t get it.” Addly whispers into her phone. She’s being so quiet I know her parents must be home. “I’ve felt this way for four years Hanna. I’m tired, I’m so tired living isn’t worth all of this pain.”

One time, when it was really late at night I had asked her a question that had been asked to me by so many of my old friends right before they would leave me. I don’t really know why they leave, maybe they got an answer they didn’t want or didn’t know what answer to want, but I asked her the question. Desperate to see how it felt to someone else.

what does it feel like? Addly’s answer was it felt like everything terrible was draining out of her and she felt anew. That she felt whole.

I didn’t ask her the question again.

I don’t say anything to her now, its apart of protocol not to give a bunch of personal information out to who we’re talking to on the phone about ourselves. I wouldn’t tell her about the things I’m going through anyways. I’ve learned that Addlywants to vent it all out before I say something in return.

“You know, sometimes I don’t know why I call you guys. You don’t get it. You don’t get what its like to want to die and the only fucking thing stopping you is your mother fucking boyfriend and best friend.”

Again I say nothing, because I do get it. I wear long sleeves for a reason, I go to the Rite Aid and then the hardware store monthly, to get supplies. I don’t have sex or go to the beach or wear tank tops in front of anybody. Because of scars. Because of the scars.

“I’m venting this all on you because its just so painful. I wish I could just fall asleep and you would never hear from me again.”

“Addly-” I say, the question plays over and over in my mind.

What does it feel like?

“No!” She shouts. “You don’t get it you don’t FUCKING GET IT! I wanna kill myself. I want to die every single day. I want to cut myself until there’s nothing else to bleed. I can’t though, because I can’t have my family knowing that I’m going through this. I just can’t stand the thought of my little brother knowing that I wanted to die. I can’t bear the thought of my friends and they’re reactions and what they would say to each other. They would say ‘We had no idea.’ damn right you had no idea I didn’t tell anyone I NEVER TOLD ANYONE! I couldn’t, and I still can’t. They don’t understand that every time someone says shit about me or yells at me I think about popping all the pills in my medicine closet and laying with my boyfriend hoodie, falling asleep and never having to wake up again. Do you know the kind of relief I would get if I did that?” She sobs.

“Do you know the kind of pain your family would go through if you did that?” I ask and Addly sobs in my ear. I know that she hates this question, I hate it too.

My question hangs in the air for a second.

What does it feel like?

I look around the office, everyone is in his or hers own little bubble. No one’s paying attention to anyone else but themselves and the person on the other end of the line. The whole room smells like burnt coffee and over priced perfume.

“Yes!” She cries. “Yes I do know how much it would torture and kill them and I wish I didn’t. I wish I could be selfish just for a moment and hang myself from my curtain rod.”

My hands are shaking now as I type her address into my computer, she told me her address on one of the days she called and I’ve memorized it sense. Addly has never spoken this way, not in all this time I’ve known her. Her voice and passion sounds like mine when I play back my old recordings I make when I feel like dying because my trainer for the hotlinesays talking about your feelings helps and that anyone who’s suicidal should do it.

“Addly,” I say cautiously. “remember how much you are loved, and how much you love life.” The words taste wrong in my mouth and the whole situation feels off some how.

What does it feel like?

“But I don’t.” She growls and I’m speechless, she really has been getting better,or so I thought she told me just last week that she was having a good day but still felt like cutting herself…. or maybe she hasn’t been getting better at all. “I hate my life Hanna. I don’t think anyone wants me in theirs either.”

“That’s not true.” my voice is just a whisper, shes saying everything I’ve been feeling for years. I can’t bear to think she can feel this way also, because she is loved, she is. She’s apart of a family of four and has parents that adore her and a little brother who hangs off of her all the time. “That’s not true Addly you are loved by so many people.”

“Yes it is. But I’m not gonna argue with you about this I-I just wanted to say goodbye Hanna.” Her voice cracks. “You don’t know how much you’ve helped me over the years and I truly appreciate and love you for that. But-but I just can’t keep at this anymore.”

No,

No,

No.

My fingers fumble on the keys on the computer and I stutter through talking to Addly

“No-no no Addly no, please, its okay. I’m sending people to your house now.” My fingers fly over the key board trying to dispatch police immediately but Addly is still talking.

“Look for me in the bright pink sunsets. That’s where I’ll be, it’ll be my good nights to you whenever you feel lonely. I love you Hanna and I hope you get everything you’ve ever dreamed.”

The line goes dead, and that’s when I know Addly is too.

What does it feel like?

I rip out my headphones from my ears and cover my mouth in agony. This isn’t the first time someone has killed themselves on my watch-every time is does happen I torture myself in punishment. But this time its not someone who’s given me a couple calls and I could tell there was nothing to say to them, that they were already gone. But not Addly, not the girl who talked to me for hours on the phone telling me about every detail of her life. I know everything about that girl. I know her birthday, (January 27th 2011) I know her favorite nickname (Ads) I know her favorite color and shoe size and candy and boyfriends name and what her bedroom looks like and how she hates her father but loves her mother I know every single thing about this girl and her poor, tortured mind. My mind screams at me, I can’t stand doing anymore work, wouldn’t be able to concentrate even if I did wanted to. I look at the clock that hangs on the other end of the office unreasonably high and realize my shift was over twenty minutes ago. I leave the office then, not looking at anyone or anything. I leave my jacket and hat and plunge into the snow covered concrete at the bottom of the office. My mind is numb and the envy I feel for Addly is disturbed and wrong.

What does it feel like?

My question plays over in and out of the conscious part of my mind.

WHY DIDN’T YOU SAVE HER? My thoughts screams at me as I hurry to get a taxi back to my apartment, my brain no longer numb but fully alert and tortured. WHY? THAT’S YOUR JOB! YOU DUMB BITCH CAN’T YOU EVEN DO YOUR JOB RIGHT? Sobs rack my body as I slide into the leather seat of a taxi that pulled over. I give the driver my address then try to suppress my tears for the rest of the car ride. when I get to my apartment I stubble out of the cab and fall into the snow. It stings my hands and face, I can see my breathe, a white puff in the air, a smoke cloud drifting into the dark, snowy sky.

What does it feel like?

She’s dead is what I think and I know its true, she’s gone. I failed in saving her.

A calm settles over me, eerie and quiet. I know what I must do even before I put the key into my door. Reality or reasoning has left me and in its wake is only anger and disgust at myself. I walk into my apartment, the cold from outside has bled into my living room and kitchen, making the floors cold and hollow on my feet. I go into my closet to turn on the heat to seventy-five degrees and change into a pair of shorts and a tank top. I go into my bedroom where I have a giant floor to ceiling window looking out into the city and I sit in front of it as I get my supplies out from under my bed frame. Razors, knives, alcohol wipes, disinfectant cream and bandages. These things I’ve carried with me throughout my teenage years and into adulthood.

What does it feel like? An old mentor asked me this once.

I take the blade in my right hand turning my left arm away from me.

What does it feel like? My mother screamed at me, tears streaming down her face when she first found me out, blood had been dripping from the sleeves of my sweatshirt.

I drag the knife deep across my arm and blood starts to poor.

What does it feel like? My boyfriend asked me when we were lying in bed one night right after we had had made love and he had seen the scars.

Deeper and deeper. I drag the knife across both arms.

What does it feel like? My best friend whispered, running her fingers along my scars after I had gotten out of the shower at her house.

I watch the snow fall in flurries past my window, down onto unsuspecting people who pass by. I can see my reflection in the window or more like a girl, someone I’ve never seen before. Someone who I do not recognize but know she belongs to me, to my person. She has blood that drips from her arms to her legs to the floor. Her skin is pale and her freckles that she accumulated throughout all the summers at her parents ranch are even my prominent. Blond wisps of hair float out of her bun. She tilts her head when I do, same direction and everything, but she doesn’t seem like me. Even with all the blood she still looks better than I could have ever imagined I looked just right about now. The she drifts out of focus, my eyes paying attention to the city and snow instead of her.

The flurries, white and pure as I am red and ruined.

In whisper I ask myself:

What does it feel like?

And I answer:

It feels like power.