My Silent Cry

I felt an odd sense of relaxation as I tried to comprehend the fact that I had just chased down 12 sleeping pills with a half pint of Hennessy. Ten minutes into my lunch break, I decided that I couldn't take it anymore.

It had been a year to the date of my rape and I had found myself forced to relive the life-altering experience. My mind had been in it's own world all day while I was at work and I found it hard to concentrate. As I laid there in my bed tears fell down the sides of my face making puddles in my ears..... I waited to fall into my eternal sleep.

I still had on my tan colored suit and black heels. I clenched my eyes tight and continued to wait. After minutes went by without feeling any change I sat up in my bed mad and frustrated. As I stood to my feet my eyes went black and other reactions followed closely behind.I fell to the floor and my ears began to ring.

At that moment I felt myself slipping away and at that moment I realized that I was not ready to die. I forced myself to my hands and knees and, still blinded, felt my way out of my room and towards my roomates door. Back then I hid alot of things that I went thru by being overly funny. No one knew until that day that I was even remotely depressed or unhappy.

As I came upon my roomates room, I pushed the door open with one hand as I balanced my body with the other. My head hung low so she was unable to see my face. I could barely hear her muffled laughs as she asked me what I was doing. I lifted my face towards the sounds of her voice and the laughter immediately stopped. I can only image the look on her face when she saw mine.

My eyes were wide open but I could not see, nor could I hear. My face was streaming with tears and I could barely move.

"Whats wrong Free!?" She repeated over and over again.

She grabbed the phone and began to dial 911. I grabbed her ankle.

"No ambulance." I said. "No ambulance."

We lived in a college apartment community and I did not want everyone questioing why I had been rolled out onto a stretcher and into an ambulance.

"Take me to the hospital." I begged.

My car was the only car there and it was a stick. She didn't know how to drive a stick so she called one of her friends to come and get us.

"Please hurry." I heard her say "I don't know whats wrong with her."

After hanging up she ran into the kitchen and grabbed ice and a glass of water. I proceeded to tell her that I was tired of the way that I felt and I thought the only way out was to take my own life. She ran into my room looking for any signs of premeditated suicide. She found the empty bottle of sleeping pills and the bottle of liquor laying beside my bed. She called her mother crying and told her what I had done. Forcing me to drink some water and rubbing the ice cubes on my neck she rocked me back and forth as she tried to keep me awake.

"Stay with me sweetie. It's not your time to go."

It seemed like hours before we heard the knock at the door. They picked me up and put me into the back seat of the SUV and rushed me to the hospital. She sang a song to me off of Janet Jackson's "Velvet Rope" the whole way there and talked to me trying to keep me from going under. Hearing her cry made me realize that in taking my own life I would not only affect mine but those who loved me as well and I felt selfish. When we got there I was barely holding on. I was so tired. The nurse that met us at the Emergency Room doors asked them what was wrong with me.

"She tried to kill herself. She took sleeping pills." replied my friend.

"How many?" the nurse asked.

"I don't know!" she screamed "I don't know!"

They rolled me into a room and laid me out on the bed.

"I'm not ready to die." I said.

"You're not going to die," replied one of the nurses "not today."

They proceeded to make me drink this charcoal formula that would absorb all of the pills that I had consumed. Every gulp I took, I threw up.

"Even better." said the nurse. "Get that out of your system."

After hours of puking my guts up I finally came to a rest. My body ached from the hard convulsions but I was alive.

"Never again," I thought to myself. "Never again."

It was years before I was able to share this experience with my family. It used to be extremely hard for me to even talk about. I was so embarrassed aboutt the fact and it was hard for me to face myself in the mirror. I still, to this day, am thankful that I was not successful at my attempt. Life gets hard, ladies and gentlemen but if it doesn't kill us, literally, it will only make us stronger. Trust me, I am living proof.

Depression is hard to recognize in other people.So be very aware of changes in your friends and family members. Often people who are depressed feel alone and feel like no one cares or understands them or what they are going thru. Be there. Listen. Love them. It makes a tremendous difference to know that someone cares....even if it is only one person that is reaching out.