Reaching Out, Reaching In,
and Holding On: Friendship,
Attempted Suicide, and Recovery

Elissa Foster
University of South Florida

Foreword

This story is a reconstruction of my best friend's suicide attempt in December of 1987. Although Barbara and I have talked about this event many times, I was tentative when I called to ask her to collaborate with me in writing the story. I did not know her current state of mind. I did not know what issues might be resurrected for her and for myself once we began the process. Nevertheless, I felt that her story--our story--needed to be told. I called her one night to ask about the project. I was excited, anxious, and I hoped that she would feel comfortable turning me down if it was not right for her. Barbara did not turn me down, and the journey from that point to this has been its own process of discovery and recovery.

I explained to Barbara that the goal of the project would be to record our experience with as much concrete detail as we could recall together: a difficult task in light of the eleven year gap between living the event and writing about it. We began writing at the same time. Barbara also found and forwarded poetry she had written at the time of her suicide attempt and in the years following. Barbara is now a professional singer and actress in Australia and I am a communication scholar in Florida. Although I feel our common history and friendship are evident in the writing, our distinct voices are also present in the text. Barbara's writing is woven through the first part of the story as "Barbara's voice," providing a collage of images, poetry, and memory that punctuates the linear narrative of my voice. I wrote the second part of the story after a conversation with Barbara where we recalled the events of the hospital together then added further details once Barbara had read the first draft.

After writing the final draft, we taped a ninety-minute telephone conversation during which we reflected upon the processes of living through and writing the story. The conversation helped us to evaluate the final version of the story in terms of its concrete details, asking ourselves if it vividly and accurately represented our experience as we remembered it. We also discussed the story in terms of deeper issues we still confront--alcohol abuse, body image, disordered eating, sexual abuse, and the search for emotional connection between mother and daughter--and that we share with many others, particularly women. As Frank (1995) points out, "The obvious social aspect of stories is that they are told to someone, whether that other person is immediately present or not" (p. 3). Barbara and I were able to make sense of these events and experience healing by telling our story to and with each other. Writing our story and sharing it publicly gives us the opportunity to extend this healing to others.

The Flat

"Hark the Herald Angels Sing" echoed in my head and accompanied my walk down the dingy hallway toward the flat. Although it had been two years since I attended church regularly, I loved singing in the Christmas choir and I looked forward to Midnight Mass, now only two weeks away. Practice went a little longer that night, and it was now nearly 10 o'clock. A lovely summer night in Queensland, warm and still. I felt so grown-up as I put the key in the door to the flat.

Barbara, Nicky, and I were living together for the summer. We had finished our rounds of auditions for college--Barbara and me for theatre, Nicky for dance--and now we waited for the results that would arrive in the mail the day before Christmas.

"How cruel," we joked. "'You're rejected. Merry Christmas!'"

We had dreamed of our college life together through two years at our Performing Arts High School. This summer was the bridge to our future. Two weeks after graduation, we moved into my sister's impoverished flat for two months and she lived in my parents' house while they traveled. If all went as planned, Barbara, Nicky, and I would begin our courses at college at the end of January, get part-time jobs to support ourselves, and find a cheap place to live. This summer was a trial run. We were seventeen.

As I swung open the door to the flat, my gut registered that something was wrong even before I met Nicky's worried eyes.

"What's going on?" I asked.

Barbara was sitting on the couch, smoking, her hands heavy as they moved through the air. I peered through the layers of darkness that seemed to shroud her body. My dearest friend, a few feet from me, but worlds away.

"I didn't know how to stop her," Nicky muttered. "She opened the vodka."

"Danny's vodka? From his birthday?"

Nicky nodded.

"Oh, Barb..." I said as I moved to sit beside her on the couch.

Typical seventeen-year-olds, we had not waited for the legal drinking age of eighteen to become acquainted with alcohol. Of the three of us, however, Barbara had the most intimate relationship with liquor. Particularly in the past few months, she tended to drink with a vengeance and, at those times, her drinking was accompanied by dark expressions of self-hatred. All three of us had our body image problems and lived with what I later learned to call "disordered eating." But Barbara's struggles with her body had begun earlier, ran deeper, and seemed to intrude into her life more destructively than Nicky's and my experiences. And there was another reason for Nicky and I to worry about Barbara that night.

Eight months earlier, right before her seventeenth birthday, Barbara was violently raped by a man she knew--the fiancé of a childhood friend. Although we were very close at the time, Barbara had not told me about the rape right away. I was going through my own "stuff": flirting with bulimia and anorexia and trying to come to terms with an incident of sexual abuse in my childhood. Barbara was my primary source of support and understanding at that time and she didn't want to add to my pain by telling me about what happened to her. Initially, she explained away her bruises by describing a drunken fall, but she couldn't dismiss the hollowness in her eyes as easily. In the end, almost a week after it happened, Nicky told me that Barbara had been raped. We all talked about it, shared and supported each other as best we could and, in the months that followed, feelings of pain, rage, frustration, and futility wove their way through the loving bond of our friendship.

This night in December, the present and the past caught up with Barbara. The rape, the stress of auditions--a vile and dehumanizing experience at the best of times--the uncertainty of her future and a long history of self-doubt were blended together in a volatile cocktail laced with vodka.

Our conversation was chaotic, and Barbara would not be comforted.

"They won't want me..."

"Of course they will, Barbara."

"I'm not one of those skinny, t.v., model girls, I know that..."

"Barb. You're beautiful, but more than that, you're incredibly talented. You've got so much performance experience already..."

"What's the fucking point? What does any of it matter anyway?"

All these years have been consumed with the whore

The whore with an insatiable desire for--cock.

All these years smirking that ridiculous

red-swollen-lip-slut-smile,

Thinking that you, young man, would never realize the deceit that lay behind the sickly sweet pieces of fruit.

These moments were punctuated by Barbara's reassurances that she was fine and she loved us.

"You know, you two don't have to worry about anything. You're in," Barb said. "Elissa, you're so smart, there's no way you won't get into the B.A., you already know that. And Nicky's getting an offer for dance..."

"And you'll get an offer, too," Nicky said.

I searched for the magic words that would turn Barbara around.

"Don't worry," Barbara put her hand to my face. "It's alright."

The fractured conversation continued for a while.

A few days before, I remember going to the airport with my mother to pick up my uncle and cousin who were visiting from Tasmania. As we were walking towards Arrivals I said, "Mum. I'm really not feeling well in my life at the moment." I was actually feeling quite insane that day, the pressure was building and taking its toll. I thought she might be able to hear what I was trying to say. I was asking her to listen; to be understanding. Instead, she responded in the worst possible way.

Mum said, gruffly, "What are you talking about? You're fine. What's wrong with you?"

Immediately, I felt a steel wall close down--confining me to Extreme Isolation. My own mother couldn't sense that something was destroying me so, to me, that meant I was truly alone and she didn't care.

"You two can go to bed, I'm fine," Barb said.

"No. I meant we should all go to bed," Nicky said.

"I want to have a bath," Barb moved towards the bathroom. "It's so hot tonight."

"Why don't you just have a shower to cool down?" I called to Barb as she walked down the hall. I looked at Nicky and I knew we shared the same thought.

"Because I'm too drunk. I just want to sit down and relax for a while. You can talk to me through the door."

Bath water running. Sounds of Barbara moving around the bathroom, getting undressed. Nicky and I outside in the living room, edgy.

"What's in the bathroom?" Nicky asked.

"I'm thinking," I said, hardly believing I was having this conversation. "There's nothing she could take. Not even aspirin. Jo took it all with her when she left and we haven't bought anything yet."

"What about a razor?" Nicky persisted.

"No," I said, convinced. "There may be a plastic disposable razor in there but she couldn't use it to cut herself. They're made so you can't do that."

"What if she breaks it?"

"We'd hear it. We'll just have to listen carefully to see if we hear anything like that... and keep her talking. Right?"

Nicky nodded.

We paced. Made coffee.

"Barb, do you want a coffee?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'll have one," Barb said.

I checked the bathroom carefully with my eyes when I brought it to her. No pills anywhere. Barb was smoking, reaching over the edge of the bath to use the black, plastic ashtray on the tiled floor. The shower curtain was pulled back and she seemed relaxed, almost in good spirits.

"Thanks darling," she said.

"Are you okay? Do you want anything else?"

"No, I'm fine."

Nicky and I continued to sit, smoking, waiting. We listened to Barb's rich voice as she sang bits of favorite songs. Barb is the only singer I've known who could carry off Bette Midler's The Rose when she was only fifteen.

"She's fine," I said.

Our fathers lay cowardice

Our mothers raged and tore at their souls

And we, sister, stood alone.

Not knowing where to turn

So we turned on ourselves

self abuse.

Drunken nights, violent affairs,

Sharp implements to scar the skin.

Our fathers lay cowardice

Our mothers cried themselves to sleep

And we, sister, grew hateful of

them and ourselves.

Time passed. Too much time. Then Barbara called out again.

"Could one of you bring me a cigarette?"

"Are you going to get out soon?" I asked, retrieving a cigarette for her and walking toward the bathroom.

"Yeah," she said as I opened the door. "I'll be out soon."

I froze as I stepped into the bathroom. The shower curtain was pulled around the bath. I didn't hear her close the curtain. When did she close the curtain? I peered at its plain, plastic surface, thick as a wall.

"Could you light it for me?" Barb said casually.

"Of course," I replied as I put the cigarette to my mouth.

"Thanks," she said as she reached a hand around the curtain to take it.

Everything seemed to be going in slow motion as I handed over the cigarette, searching for some sign that something was wrong. Looking for blood. Nothing.

"Are you going to get out soon?" I repeated myself. My stomach was tense and I tried not to let it sound in my voice.

"Yeah," Barbara replied, "as soon as I finish this cigarette."

"Okay," I said as I walked out and closed the door behind me.

"What's going on?" Nicky asked.

"She's going to smoke her cigarette then get out of the bath." I felt sick in my stomach.

"She closed the shower curtain," I said, blankly.

December 1987

When the world grows small and my room stretches into infinity

I reach for a sharp implement to carve my name,

Leaving some remembrance of myself

For the following generation.

Slowly but surely I sink deeper and deeper

into my pool of infinity.

I close my eyes and see the bluebirds.

My! What a beautiful lullaby.

Nicky and I sat next to each other on the couch like a couple of bookends. Powerless. Nicky paced the room then sat down again, biting her nails.

"You don't think she..." Nicky's voice trailed off.

"There's nothing in there for her to use, remember?"

Sitting.

"You don't think she could have passed out and gone under the water?" Nicky asked.

I thought for a second.

"No. She hasn't had anything to drink since I got home. And she seemed pretty calm and she's been making sense since she got in the bath. I don't think she could have got more drunk..."

Sitting. Fighting sleepiness. Feeling guilty for feeling sleepy.

"It's really quiet in there now," I said.

"How long's it been?" Nicky asked.

"Since she got in the bath?"

"No," Nicky said. "Since you went in there last."

"It's been about half an hour," I replied. "But..." I looked at my watch, panic starting to make itself felt in my chest. "Jesus. She's been in there for almost two hours."

"This is bullshit," said Nicky. She sprang from the couch and started pacing again, fiercely running her fingers through her cropped red hair.

"You're right," I said. "This is stupid. She's got to get out of there and go to bed."

"Are you going to go tell her?" Nicky said as I walked toward the bathroom.

"Barbara," I called through the door.

Silence.

"Barb, this isn't funny," Nicky called and knocked on the door. "We're going to come in."

Pause. Silence. Nicky and I looked at each other for a second and registered the fear in each others faces. I turned and swung through the door in one motion.

My left hand reached for the shower curtain and, as its rings swept across the wire, the sound ripped through my brain. My eyes recorded the scene that would replay in my mind a thousand times in the next twelve months. Nicky let out a primal sound as her hands flew to her face. I froze as I looked at a bath full of blood and the naked body of my friend suspended, eyes closed, her pale beautiful face framed by her dark, floating hair.

December 1987

I am invincible,

when my room turns

into a pool of blood

Bathing me in its warmth.

Flowing like a spring

Into my drunken life.

And just before I slip

Into eternal sleep

I hear a scream

Bringing me back to reality

Cold.

The scene shattered into action.

On my knees. Get her out of the water. Pull the plug. Plunge my hands into the bloody, tepid water. My brain registered the fact that I was still wearing my watch and I cursed myself. A sweet, foreign smell hung in the air. Blood. Is she breathing?

"Breathe, Barbara. Breathe!" A sobbed command.

Shallow breaths from her parted lips, pale and beautiful.

Nicky was the runner. Call an ambulance. Get a blanket. Get some clothes for her. We don't want the ambulance men to see her naked, not after everything she's been through. Keep checking for them.

Barbara whispered, semi-conscious. "It's okay. I just have my period..."

Why did she say that?! My mind reeled in confusion. I looked down at her wrists, more torn than cut, jagged tears through her soft skin, white and red. Does she want us not to worry? Does she want us to leave her like this?

"How's this?" Nicky offered track pants and a pullover top for Barbara.

"Let's get them on her," I said.

Barbara was limp as we maneuvered her clothes onto her wet body, still in the bath.

"We've called the ambulance, Barb. They're going to be here soon. It's going to be okay."

Where are they? Time twisted and wrung itself out.

We got Barbara out of the bathroom, onto the couch, and wrapped in a blanket by the time we heard the ambulance pulling up outside. Nicky ran to lead them back down the hallway to our flat.

"What's been going on?" Paramedic One said as he began taking Barb's blood pressure.

"She was drinking vodka," Nicky said.

"How much?"

"About half that bottle," Nicky replied, "but I poured the rest of it out." She looked at me. Did we do the right thing?

"About half a liter, you reckon?" Paramedic Two asked.

"Yes. Probably that much," Nicky said.

"Then she got in the bath about two hours ago..." I said.

"You've got some nasty cuts there, young lady," Paramedic One said as he turned over Barbara's wrists and began to wrap them in white gauze bandages. She winced, but remained only semi-conscious.

"Is that when she did this?" Paramedic Two asked.

"No," I tried to put the pieces together. "I think it was about an hour ago, maybe less."

"How much blood did she lose?" Paramedic Two asked.

"How much?" I faltered. How was I supposed to know something like that? "The bath water seemed pretty dark."

"Where's the bath?" Paramedic One asked. Nicky gestured to the hallway.

"We let the water out," I said quickly as Paramedic Two walked to the bathroom. "We wanted to get her out of the bath and into some clothes. Did we do the wrong thing?"

Paramedic Two stepped back into the room and said, "The bath's drained."

"That's okay," said Paramedic One. "Her blood pressure's low, but stable. The alcohol's probably the most danger right now. She's not bleeding too bad."

"Does she have to go to the hospital, then?" Nicky asked.

"Oh yeah," Paramedic One said. "She'll need stitches in these, particularly the left one, and they'll want to keep her overnight for observation."

"Can we go with her?" I asked. There was no way I was going to let her out of my sight now.

"One of you can," said Paramedic Two.

I looked at Nicky and she said, "You go. I'll stay here."

I was grateful Nicky agreed so quickly. "I promise I'll call you as soon as I can to let you know what's going on," I said.

"Let's get her on the stretcher," Paramedic One said, and we were on the move.

"Where are you taking her?" Nicky asked.

"Royal Brisbane," said Paramedic Two as he raised the stretcher.

"I'll call you," I said to Nicky as the back of the ambulance swung shut. Paramedic Two went up front to drive and Paramedic One got in the back with Barbara and me.

The Hospital

I didn't know how much Barbara could hear or what she was aware of. I had a strong feeling that she was peripheral to the scene with the paramedics, but only because she could not communicate. Nicky and I spoke for her, and I continued to be her voice as the ambulance sped towards Royal Brisbane Hospital.

"She's been having a rough time of it, then?" Paramedic One asked.

I nodded. "We're all trying to get into college at Kelvin Grove. She's a singer and an actress." I was afraid of sounding too young, like a teenager. I wanted him to know how serious this was. "Barb's had a really rough year."

"So she's worried about school, then?"

I hesitated. How much do I tell this man? He seemed caring enough. I wanted him to know who Barbara was, I wanted him to know she was a fighter, a really strong person.

"Barbara was raped about eight months ago. A friend's fiancé. She's been working through it, but sometimes it's really hard, you know? She's a beautiful person... it makes me so angry."

Paramedic One nodded. "Does she drink a lot now?"

"I guess so," I replied, lost in my own thoughts. I kept my eyes on Barbara, her eyes closed, and wondered what she was thinking. Is she happy that we're going to the hospital?

The ambulance slowed and pulled around. From my glimpse through the back windows of the ambulance, I saw an alley. I knew we must have entered the labyrinth of the RBH. A few more turns and Paramedic One said, "Okay Barbara, we're here now." We emerged from the comforting closeness of the ambulance into the fluorescent white-ness of the Outpatients Department.

During the brief check-in procedure, Barbara returned to consciousness as Paramedic Two handed over some paperwork to an admissions clerk.

"How are you feeling?" I asked.

"I have a headache. I feel stupid, embarrassed," Barb replied shakily.

"Embarrassed? Oh Barb...," I held her hand. I felt myself relax with relief. She feels embarrassed. That means she didn't want to die. I'm so glad she feels embarrassed!

Paramedic One said, "Let's sit you down over here," helping Barb off the stretcher and over to the orange vinyl chairs in the waiting area.

Paramedic Two approached with a clipboard and said, "Once you've filled these out, take them to the admissions desk and then you'll wait for the Resident. Good luck."

Paramedic One said looking from me to Barbara, "Take care, eh?"

Our words of thanks tumbled over each other as the paramedics walked to the automatic doors and out into the humid darkness. I suddenly felt quite alone, and a little overwhelmed. Once admitted and seen by the Resident, we went to a second waiting area for Barb's cuts to be treated. It was a long, anonymous time before Barbara was called and left my sight for the first time since I pulled back the shower curtain.

I waited in a wide, white, hallway lined with stiff, plastic chairs. Rows and rows of fluorescent lights thwarted any effort to identify the time of day. How long had we been there? I was detached from the natural world. As I waited for Barb to come back from the operating room, I was surprised to recognize a face walking towards me. It was Paramedic One.

"How's it going?" he asked. "How's your friend?"

"She's getting her wrists stitched up," I said.

"Yeah, I thought they'd need stitches," he replied. "How's she feeling?"

"She's got a headache, but I think she's going to be okay. She started to say that she felt more embarrassed than anything else."

Paramedic One nodded. "Glad to hear she's feeling better. Just thought I'd come check on you since we were back in the area."

"I really appreciate it," I said. "I know Barb does, too."

"All part of the job, eh? Take care," he said as he turned and walked back down the hall.

"Yeah, I will. Thanks," I replied.

About ten minutes later, Barb emerged from one of the many doors opening onto the hallway.

"How was it?" I asked as Barbara walked towards me and said her good-byes to the operating room nurse who was cheerfully wishing her good luck.

"It didn't hurt because they used a local. But I know my wrists will hurt a lot when it wears off. It was a woman doctor who stitched me up. She was chatty, almost cheerful," Barb replied. "She made some comment like, 'Geeze, you made a bit of a mess of this, didn't you?' She wasn't mean or anything. Just like this was a normal thing." Barb smiled. "I didn't feel so embarrassed."

I hesitated for a moment before I asked the question. "Barb... How did you do it? What did you use to cut yourself?"

It was Barb's turn to hesitate for a second. "A razor."

"But I didn't think there were any... Or, perhaps there was one, but it was a plastic one." I was trying to get a clearer picture of what had happened. I couldn't match the damage on Barb's wrists with my image of those tiny blades wrapped in plastic.

"I broke it so I could get the blades," she explained.

Damn, I thought. "But we were listening. I didn't hear anything."

"I broke it under water so you wouldn't hear," Barb said, looking away for a second.

So determined, I thought, and waited for the image to sink into my mind, of Barbara breaking the razor, quietly, under water. "I need to know something else."

Barb turned to me.

"When I came to give you the cigarette... You'd already done it, hadn't you?"

"Yes," she replied, "but only the left one."

What a fucking idiot I am, I thought. I knew that... KNEW it. She was still conscious then. Why didn't I confront her about it at the time? Why did I leave again?

"I didn't want you to know," Barbara said, reading my mind. I nodded, still lost in my thoughts. She held my hand.

I finally said, "One of the ambulance guys came by to see how you were doing. The one that was in the back of the ambulance with us."

"Yeah, I saw him," she replied. "He popped his head in while I was getting my stitches."

"Really?"

"Yeah, he was really sweet," Barb continued. "He said he hoped I felt better and then he said, 'Life's not so bad, really.'" She paused and I wondered how she took his comment. She smiled, "That was really nice of him, don't you think?"

"Yeah," I said. "He was a nice guy. . . . What do you have to do now?" I asked.

"We have to find the psych ward and take this paperwork to them. They want me to stay overnight and have a psych consult in the morning," Barb replied.

I nodded. Maybe someone will finally help you, will finally understand what's going on and give you what you need. Give you back what you lost, I thought. Or what was taken.

We found the psychiatric ward and Barbara was admitted by a cheerful, red-haired nurse. She directed us to an area with half a dozen beds to the left of the open hallway. Thin curtains provided an illusion of privacy between the beds and there was a direct line of sight between us and the nurses' station. A small plastic Christmas tree blinked its colored lights in a lopsided pattern. Barb and I looked at each other as we stood beside her assigned bed for the night.

"Merry Christmas," Barb said. We surprised ourselves with laughter.

A stern-looking nurse approached us. "Barbara Fordham?" she asked.

"Yes. That's me," Barb replied.

"This is your bed. You need to get settled for the night," she said as she turned back the stiff sheets. "And are you a family member?" she turned to me.

"No," I hesitated, "I'm her best friend."

"It's not visiting hours," the nurse said ambiguously.

I'll be damned if I'm leaving now, I thought.

"Can't she stay?" Barbara asked. "She has no way to get home. She came in the ambulance with me."

After a brief hesitation, the stern nurse softened a fraction. "There's a chair beside the bed. I suppose it won't do any harm for you to stay, if that's what you want to do." She seemed put out, but Barb and I were just glad that she said I could stay.

"Thank you. That would be great," I said. My bravado was replaced by submissive gratitude.

It was only a couple of hours until morning. Barbara rested rather than slept, trying to avoid putting pressure on her wrists, which had become quite painful since the local anaesthetic wore off. I tried to stay awake, watching her, trying to sort through the events of the evening and wondering what would happen next for Barbara, and for me. After about an hour, Barbara suggested I try to lie down on the bed. I was so tired. I felt guilty about sleeping but, in the end, I did sleep, curled at the foot of the bed while Barb stayed curled at the top. The morning was heralded by fluorescent lights being turned on and the sounds of people moving up and down the open hallway on the other side of the curtain.

"You stayed here all night?" the cheery red-haired nurse asked as she approached the bed to tie back the curtains.

"Yes," I said. Of course I did, what else? I thought.

"You have a very good friend here," she said to Barbara.

"I know," said Barb, smiling.

I was bewildered and said, "Barbara deserves a very good friend, she's been that for me."

In the morning, we waited for Barbara's psych consultation. It had been many hours since we'd had a cigarette, so we went out in the hallway to have one. For many years now, there has been no smoking permitted in any government building in Australia but back then, particularly near the psych wards, I guess, room was made for smokers.

As we sat there, a wide-eyed waif came to sit beside us on the bench, waiting for her own appointment. Shoeless, and wearing tiny shorts and a t-shirt, she told us that she had been raped the night before. Her tone was light, almost jovial. She showed us the strangulation marks on her neck and told the story of how she had traveled all the way from Mt.Gravatt on the other side of the city. I wondered what Barbara was thinking, how she was feeling. Eventually, the waif went to her appointment. Barbara left hastily and was violently sick in the ladies' room, overcome with nausea.

"Must have been that cigarette," she said when she returned.

I nodded and did not contradict her.

Nicky arrived with a change of clothes for Barb and me. Then, Nicky and I waited while Barbara spoke to the psychiatric resident. I had high hopes for this appointment. We'd stayed in the hospital all night waiting for it, but when Barbara was finished, she was not transformed.

"I actually had to see three of them," Barb said when she emerged from her appointment. "They seemed nice enough, but they weren't really that interested in talking to me about what's been going on. They recommended that I come back for appointments as an outpatient, but I could go to see someone else as well. I think they just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to turn around and try to hurt myself again. They said, if I did, they'd send me to Rosemount. . . ."

We knew that Rosemount was a psychiatric hospital, but we had no experiences by which to understand the threat. With images of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest intruding into our minds, we gathered ourselves together to go to the bus stop.

And that was that.

We walked out into the blazing heat and traffic of a pre-Christmas workday. And we went home. With no maps to guide us through the territory we had entered so blindly, we only knew to hold each other's hands as we went.

December 1987 - ELISSA

She gave me flowers

Such a simple gesture

Yet one filled with deep emotion.

She gave me her hand

and we walked side by side

past the debris and decay.

Guiding me all the way

with her love and support.

We stood at the altar facing my demons.

She shared her armor with me

and we survived.

Afterword

Suicide tends to be viewed as the act of an individual and, particularly in adolescents, is associated with egocentrism (Stillion, McDowell, & May, 1989), alienation (Harter & Marold, 1994; Hendin, 1985) and ultimately a total rejection of family and friends (Pritchard, 1995). Barbara did not fit the profile of an isolated teen and I did not experience her suicidal act as a rejection of me nor of my friendship. Rather, while I acknowledge the trauma of this event, I interpret Barbara's suicide attempt as an act of hope. This is not to say that suicide is a "healthy" and reasonable choice for anyone. However, when interpreted in the context of our friendship, the significance of Barbara's act was that it led her towards a recovery of self that previously eluded her. Barbara did, in fact, gain admission to the acting course as she had hoped. She graduated in 1989 and has been a professional actor and singer for 10 years now.

Barbara tried to end her life that night in December. However, by electing to include Nicky and me in her act, she relinquished the power to determine the ending of her story. At some level, albeit subconsciously, Barbara believed that her friends could bring her back. Although I deplore the pain surrounding Barbara's suicide attempt, I am also grateful for the opportunity to reach out to her, hold on to her and ultimately recover a hopeful message from an event that, for too many others, ends in tragedy.

References

Frank, A. W. (1995). The wounded storyteller. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Harter, S. & May, D. B. (1994). "Psychosocial risk factors contributing to adolescent suicidal ideation." In G.G. Naom & S. Borst (Eds.), Children, youth, and suicide: Developmental perspectives. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Hendin, H. (1985). "Suicide among the young: Psychodynamics and demography." In M. L. Peck, N.L. Farberow, & R.E. Litman (Eds.), Youth Suicide. New York: Springer.

Naom, G.G. & Borst, S. (Eds.) (1994). Children, youth, and suicide: Developmental perspectives. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Pritchard, C. (1995). Suicide -- The ultimate rejection?: A psychosocial study. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Stillion, J. M., McDowell, E. E., & May, J. H. (1989). Suicide across the life span--premature exits. New York: Hemisphere.