What’s it like to have two people you know express their suicidal ideations to you?
One is a close friend of many years, whose mental health has consistently zig-zagged over the course of our decade-long friendship. The other is a driver at Jimmy John’s, one I work closely with during our weekday evening shifts. Getting shoved to the edge, both of them, by the cruelty and unconscionability of our world.
My close friend brought it up in a fairly nondescript way; we chatted one afternoon and she brought up her attempt, sending a darkened silence through the room for the rest of our hangout. She later apologized for it since she knew I was headed to work afterwards, but I wasn’t too interested in squabbling over what I knew was a genuine cry for help. Seemingly the next day (or day after, possibly) my driver friend, who had been scammed by a predatory house listing and donned a bloodied hand from punching a hotel room wall of a customer, spoke softly to me about his fantasies of death and hitting his limit. He can’t afford his therapist anymore and he’s being pushed out by relatives. Another driver says he’ll “find his luck soon.”
What am I to do when confronted with their anguish? I can visualize their anger, what getting constantly knocked aside in all directions looks like, their numbness at the sound of distant optimism. My longtime friend speaks of it jokingly as her “Joker origin story” and my driver friend sees it as his “eleven year” curse; both have pushed beyond hatred, anger, roiling fuses.
I’ve been at a series of breaking points as well. Stumped, here at almost 25 years of age, looking to whether I want to continue my academic career or push forward with my uncharted job path. No credit, no car, living off the good graces of a caring boyfriend with a professional career. When will I start peering off the interstate bridge in my dreams, as my driver friend has described?
