Suicide Watch

A Short Story

The windows fogged in the car as the air outside cooled and the heat from the blowers met the chilled glass. She was waiting in the darkening parking lot, a few rows of cars away from the entrance to the treatment center. A place focused on teens with substance use problems, not specifically depression. But it was the only spot they could get and that after a 5 week wait.

She’d spent the previous number of years watching her child get worse and worse. As a practiced under-reactor she’d observed the change in behavior and at first chalked it up to uncovering an emerging estuary. The brackish water of her child’s tides intersecting, maybe that was what was responsible for the shifting interests. The reason they no longer wanted to see friends. Why they now turned down trips to the beach. Couldn’t be convinced to leave the house for any of the old joys. Not even wanting to be cuddled anymore.

There were many possible explanations and when she’d brought it up to her ex-husband as the accumulating data stopped being easily dismissed, this prospect of finding a therapist for their pre-teen, he’d blamed her for putting ideas in the kid’s head and suggesting that he was a bad father and that it was all his fault.

If she could go back in time and be less afraid of him, if she could go back in time and insist without the fear that he might retaliate and insist rather that she was a bad influence. If she could just have been less afraid. Afraid of him dragging their child out of her house towards his car, their eyes wild with fear, silently pleading with her to do something while they both stood frozen. Her nearly too big to be dragged and legally no longer someone he could move bodily. But their child still was.

The threat he’d levied years ago, the one that had loomed over her since their child was first born, that her husband could take the baby away. Could report her. Should report her for being so negligent. That threat kept her static. Even in her fantasies where she could technically imagine any outcome, she stayed immovable. Impotent to do anything other than leave, eventually.

If she could go back in time, and then what? She had tried to look for a therapist. Not having the slightest idea where to start. She’d sent out emails to profiles she found on the provider section of Psychology Today’s website. She hadn’t heard anything back. It would be a year yet until she was diagnosed with ADHD, her executive dysfunction as yet unnamed but present and working against her in the background of anything urgent.

And if she had heard back from anyone she wasn’t sure how she’d pay for therapy. Didn’t know how much it cost. These are pretty easy questions to answer but easier when you’re not the only one trying to answer them. Easier still while not actively trying to decide how to keep it secret from the big bad wolf who still comes to pick up their kid twice a week and stays longer than he should.

She couldn’t lie and hadn’t yet learned how to meet a question she didn’t want to answer with another question. His inquiries were invasive and always found their way quickly to the thing she was holding back. It had always been this way.

But now, a few years later, the dam had broken and the estuary had flooded and she was no longer the only person worried about her child’s mental health. Her ex husband would go on a harangue about this the night she was on suicide watch, after she had gone through the house gathering up anything with a blade and stowing them in an empty carton that once held a 24 pack of juice boxes on one of the upper shelves of the garage per the instructions from the social worker. Sending pages of texts threatening to call the police on her for holding their child hostage while she sent him the name and phone number for the case worker again, again explaining that she couldn’t read his messages as she had to pay attention to their child, silencing his phone calls knowing that it would only make things worse. Knowing how quickly his desperation turned to violence. Also knowing that if she had to hear him scream at her that it was all her fault that she might be able to finally feel her spirit rip clean from her body. And she couldn’t spare the distraction.

There was a cost whether she chose reassuring him or chose her own preservation. She tried not to think about what would happen if he made good on the threat and showed up, insisting that fathers are indispensable. Everything has to be your way and now you get to see the consequences of your selfishness. You’ve systematically shut me out and now my child wants to die. You’ve driven them to this, his latest text read. I’m going to report you to the State. You’re on drugs and you’re a danger to them and yourself. White noise crackled in her lungs. The drugs he was referring to were the lowest dosage of medication for ADHD which she’d recently been prescribed. Five milligrams. Five milligrams she was usually too nervous or forgetful to take. Hallmark addict behavior.

She emailed the social worker, one eye on her phone the other on the child next to her who looked calm for the first time since she could remember. The relief of activating the machinery of care, perhaps. The relief of being taken seriously.

She typed out her email with one hand. Keeping what was happening on her phone tucked away in the part of her that was farthest away from her child. They wouldn’t know what was going on. She smiled absently and joked about the show they watched together while hitting send. Would the social worker call him? Would she explain? Rescue me, the message didn’t say. The phone chimed with a response. It would be very unhelpful if he escalated. She felt the water rise and braced for a knock at the door that night which never came. No one was coming to save her.

She was on suicide watch for her 12 year old who wanted to die. And had a protocol to go through every fifteen minutes according to the social worker. If they failed the protocol the next move was a trip to the emergency room and admission to the hospital. She suspected that her child didn’t really understand what that meant. That mom would not also be staying at the hospital. That the few things that still worked to keep them tethered would be taken away. That mom could come to visit but that she wouldn’t be allowed to be there.

The one advantage of the furrows of her child’s spiral being dug deeper was that eventually when a kid wants to kill themselves then people really spring into action. Preserving human life being the most important policy act, of course. To say nothing of how much harder it is to soften the edges of that hard packed ground once it has been worked over for years. In a few weeks her sister will talk to her cheerily, reassuring her about neuroplasticity. She’ll deadname while she’s doing it and use the wrong pronouns, but confidence in the resilience of children and her own discomfort with trauma will give her sister the fortitude to power through.

She was at the beach when the school called in the middle of the day. Taking a very cold walk in the shifting sand with a friend, sharing about the PPT meeting she’d had over zoom the day before. The faces of two school administrators, the school psychologist, a teacher, the guidance counselor and her ex-husband filled in the boxes on her screen in a very warped Brady Bunch array.

They’d heard the usual reports about dyslexia and adjustments to the IEP. The guidance counselor introduced the school psychologist to offer her report. It was grave. A mother shouldn’t feel elated at news that her child is circling the drain in so many words but being seen offers a strange kind of hope. At the end her ex-husband asked but this is all very normal for a kid this age, right? The psychologist leaned closer to her laptop’s camera, her face filling the box further. “I’ve done thousands of assessments and this is in the top 5 of the most

concerning.” After the zoom meeting closed she would receive a text from her ex asking if they believed the psychologist’s credentials. They’ll hire anyone these days, he’d say.

She answers the call from the school and the guidance counselor says the words very concerned. Social worker. Emergency. Ideation. How soon can you get here?

A few weeks later, on her birthday, they sat in slick vinyl upholstered chairs in the waiting room of the treatment center. Waiting for the intake meeting. She nodded in response to her ex-husband and his confusing loops, his anxiety a fourth body in the starkly lit room. There were chairs enough for all of them.

When they were married she’d found the only way to survive was to agree with him. The only thing that appeased him was to say yes you’re right. I am awful. You’re right, you’re right. The first time she tried that instead of defending or explaining he’d come up short, narrowed his eyes at her and said I don’t believe you. She realized that the only way it would really work is if she believed what she said. So she did. She locked the truth up deep inside and threw herself into the role. Method. She lived it thoroughly.

At times it was like separating muscle from bone, what he asked of her. She came to believe that everyone somewhere inside holds the truth of who and what they are and that shouldn’t be shared with anyone. Rumpelstilstkin had his name and it was his name that ruined him. Her husband found hers and brought a prybar with him. And once he’d opened that precious box, he rifled through it, holding up the dulling bits of her most essential self, shaking the rags at her.

Telling this to a friend during the early months of the divorce, on one of the nights where her child was with him and she was still naive enough to think that as long as she was no longer there to set him off their child would be fine, her friend listened quietly and after a moment said, “you’ve just described a common survival tactic of prisoners of war. In order to survive the psychological torture, they convince themselves that it’s true while walling off the part of themselves that knows it’s not.”

In the aftermath of her child’s mental health crisis (she never knew what else to call it and calling it anything at all built strange walls around it. As if the beginning and ending were clear when the beginning could well have started before the child was even born, like an epigenetic timestamp. The beginning could have been when she sat, heavily pregnant in the cooling water of a bathtub and wept for hours. Justifying the chilling sorrow to the unpredictability of pregnancy hormones. What a trip, she’d say to friends. It was the first time I realized that feelings can’t always be trusted). In the aftermath of the crisis she’d quickly grow tired of the looks of pity. The attempts at encouragement. This is going to be hard, someone said, face creased earnestly. But you’ll get through it.

She didn’t like the role they laid out for her. Longsuffering mother. Pitiable Saint. It didn’t match her reality. She couldn’t comfortably pretend to be a wonderful mother, knowing how much she bristled at the confinement. Knowing how her ex-husband’s accusations of her unfitness landed because she remembered how she sobbed when she saw the second line appear on the pregnancy test. How boring she found the hours and hours of isolation with a newborn. How she had to learn to narrate everything she did as if she was on a cooking show because she didn’t know how to talk to her baby. She felt her stomach drop seeing the beatific faces of the other new mothers shining down on their dewy newborns at the La Leche gatherings while she struggled to make enough milk. A lactation consultant - the fifth and final one she would visit - would later watch her nurse and ask a few sharp eyed questions about what life at home was like. The woman would shrewdly point out that they couldn’t really tell what the problem was, though she’d also casually and carefully mention that extreme stress was sometimes a contributor to reduced milk production. Regardless, look how happy the baby was, nestled up against her ribs after struggling at her breast for thirty minutes. Belly not near full enough to explain the dozing. She’d left the office discouraged, and resigned. But relieved.

She loved her child but she hated being a mother. It was duty, not divine.

And she couldn’t lie.

Something angry and vital clicked into place that night on watch. A small, hidden door stood slightly ajar and on the other side of the prospect of suicide there was freedom. If her-ex husband would rip the dangling face masks from the crashing plane, shaking their inert cords in her face and shrieking that she was responsible as the cabin lost pressure and the walls started to rattle. If in fact he could be counted on to use the most fragile moment to strike then she could stop bracing herself for the what if. She could stop imagining that there was anything she could do that might contain or corral him. That might bring some measure of protection. If the diagnosis was already terminal, well, what the fuck.

If there was nothing she could do and her child’s life (or death) was their own then maybe the only reasonable option was to do the unimaginable. What if she had fun with it. What if they were all wrong in their hushed tones and pooched out bottom lips and clutched together eyebrows. What if it could feel good. It was a fucking crazy option but the thought gave her the first glimpse of something more interesting than survival.

Waiting to be called for the intake she spread her hands wide over the grey vinyl chair and felt the fabric clutch at her fingertips. It was her birthday. She closed her eyes and filled her lungs and felt her chest expand. She opened her eyes and looked around the room for a seat she might like more, moving to the one near a low glass topped side table covered in magazines. The cushion farted as her weight deflated it. She snorted. Her ex husband looked up from his phone, frowning at her. She could smell the ink of the magazines and the paper and caught a whiff of perfume samples. She breathed again.

The glass partition at the reception desk was decorated with paper flowers. She traced the frilled edges of each one with her eyes. And imagined what they would feel like. Her child sat in their chair, head down, eyes glued to the screen of their phone. She reached out her gently pinched fingers and waited until they noticed. They placed an index finger in between her pursed fingers and she gave two quick squeezes. They nodded and squeezed her finger back.

A door opened and they were called in.

---

She sat in the car, windows fogging, waiting in the darkening parking lot. This was the second week of treatment. The seventh day of spending the last hours of the afternoon sitting in her car while her child sat inside. She traced patterns in the condensation on the inside of the window, feeling her fingertip slide in the cold. She pressed it to her lip and licked it, feeling the heat of her tongue chase away the cool. A notification chimed on her phone from one of the dating apps.

So you’re divorced? Was it amicable?

She understood this question was really asking how crazy she was.

She opened the screen and typed. Sure.

Dots bounced on the other end. Lol, hope it wasn’t too amicable. Any chance you’ll reconcile? I’m not trying to hit if you’re just going to go back.

She plucked at her upper lip, staring at the screen. She typed out a few lines, paused, and deleted them. She tapped the unmatch button and clicked the screen closed.

She pressed her forehead against the window and felt the chill against her skin. She skated a hand over the stretched side of her neck, dipping her fingers over her exposed shoulder. Felt the warmth of her skin against her skin. The condensation had filled in her tracings on the window, her warm breath helping. She filled her lungs slowly and felt her ribcage expand. The car’s engine cycled on and sent a hum through her legs. She slid her knees apart, feeling the quiver of fabric against her thighs. Still stroking her shoulder she pressed a warm, soft, full kiss against it.

Her child pulled open their door and folded into the passenger seat.

“Mom, I hate it in there. Please don’t make me go back.”

They connected their seatbelt and sighed.

She let out a stream of air from her lips and reversed out of the parking spot. They would be back after the weekend.