l'appel du vide. (The call of the void)

Have you ever been driving down the highway and just for a second the thought crosses your mind to grab the wheel and wrench it to the left and slam right into the retaining wall and flip the car end over end?

You're not going to do it but that thought, that moment that feeling... that's l'appel du vide, the call of the Void.

 I love this expression not just because it's French, or a painfully accurate description of my emotional state of late... but rather because of the poetic density of its meaning.  A meaning you can't really achieve succinctly in English.

It describes the state of being inexorably pulled, drawn, called toward self destruction, the inexplicable desire to jump from a high place, the uncontroable urge to do some dangerous, reckless, life-threatening thing.

Those French have a word for everything!

I felt the call of the void deep in my soul not too long ago.  It kept at me, it wouldn't go away.  Like a ringing in my ears... spiritual tinnitus.  The singing earworm of doom... but no not "doom" it became a comfort, it became a way out. Once the plan had formed fully in my mind it was my golden parachute, albeit without a parachute.

Yes I was seriously planning to kill myself.  I was miserably depressed I didn't see a way out so I created an elaborate, very real plan.

Of course it had to be dramatic if I was going to answer l'appel du vide. The void was going to give me my 15 minutes even if it was posthumously.

Now you armchair Suicide Hotline volunteers relax.  I confided all this and more in the healthcare professionals at the Veterans Administration.  This was  10 months ago  I was hospitalized briefly  more on that later.   I'm not in any danger now. I am only sharing all this with you to get it out of my head.

Blogging is like journaling but for bi polars with narcissistic traits and tendencies.

I don't want to die now but the plan was really fucking good.... I'm kinda proud of it as sick and morbid as that is.
Here's the background so you can really get how cool it was going to be.  And yes I hear how fucked up that sounds.

There is a ghost story most of the tour guides in New Orleans tell about a young man named Zach a Gulf War 1 veteran who in 2006 committed suicide by jumping off the Omni hotel's roof.  Before he jumped he killed his girlfriend.  A suicide note in a ziplock bag in Zack's pocket led police to their apartment.  He had strangled her in their bed and then slept next to the body every night for the next 10 nights.  He then cut her up and cooked her in pots on the stove and in the oven.   He is said to haunt the rooftop pool and bar of the Omni Hotel in New Orleans.   There's even a Lifetime movie about it.

My plan was simple.... Double Down on the Zack story; leap of the Omni hotel roof.   But there was a lot more to it than that.  First of course there's  blame to be assigned, guilt from the grave to be doled out.  I would have to write the mother of all guilt dripping suicide notes blaming people I don't like for my demise.  But it turns out I have been writing, editing and perfecting suicide notes in my head since I was 12 years old so that part will be easy. Then the fun part a big shout out to a select few, somewhat sympathetic friends in the tour guide biz asking if they would please remember me the way I was not the way I ended up and think of me on their nightly tour.  ask them to tell my story... the lonely and depressed tour guide (Army Vet like Zack btw) who talked to ghosts every night and finally decided to join them.

Remember me and I will give you and the people on your tour ;-) a special gift from Beyond.  All you have to do is whisper.    "Monsieur Guidry l'appel du vide" three times... if you do this small kindness I promise to cover your group with good vibrations and protection for the entirety of their stay in New Orleans.

But those who fail to tell my story and those cynics who refuse to whisper my name will meet with grave misfortune.

I would send the note as a press release and a mass email to every tour company in New Orleans and every media Outlet.  Then turn on the camera and jump off the building from the exact spot where Zack did.  LIVE streaming the jump.

Come on....are you kidding me? That's a fucking exit.... Instant legend! Right?

With the high place/void selected I visited often, listening for the sirens' call... writing drafts of the note, in my head.

This is the view Zack saw before he jumped.  I sat in the spot where I think he sat more than once, no girlfriend cooking in a pot on the stove back home but still
...   the void did call me but not strongly enough.

In the end I didn't want to die... I've seen suicide up close and it's a mess. It destroys those Left Behind. I didn't want that. What I wanted was peace.

This was October of last year. But the feelings had been building up for the better part of a year. Crippling depression barely able to function and when I got too close to the edge I realized I didn't want to die.  I asked for help.  I'm lucky, I'm a veteran, I have Healthcare so I have options.

I spent a week in-patient and then transitioned to a halfway house but I never really followed up with the therapy and medication I needed.   I threw myself back into work and pretended everything was fine.   And it seemed like that was all I needed.

And I might have been okay, I was working, I love my job I'm a tour guide I'm good at it I make people happy.   I was putting everything back together  I met a woman, funny, smart, a tour guide and comedian like me.... everything is roses and lollipops.

   

But that's when the world usually decides to take a giant shit on you.  And that's when... if you're not doing the work.... not taking your medication, not in therapy.   If you haven't built your safety net... you find yourself uniquely illequipped to deal with the world of shit in which you find yourself.

A little fuzzy on this whole world of shit thing?  Need a few examples of what that might look like? sure I'm talking about shit like ....
a crazy ex-wife who's afraid that your child is going to want to be with you more than her so she takes the opportunity of your depression and precarious housing status to sue you for custody and revoke your parental rights.  And since you're at your worst fresh from the psych ward and you don't have any money and you can't afford to defend against her outrageous perjury and lible you lose your parental rights.

 Then maybe some shit like...

you have a hernia that pops out of your stomach  like an outtake from Alien

 But because you're been to the hospital previously and admitted your drug use they see you as a drug seeker and don't want to give you pain medication so you spend hours in the emergency room waiting to be seen in agonizing pain.

You finally get the surgery for your hernia but your new girlfriend loses her shit on you in a wild black out drunken rage while you're recovering from your surgery.  It's so violent and crazy the police are called and she gets dragged off and charged with domestic battery

you get evicted from her apartment because you're not on the lease you end up homeless scrambling to put a roof over your head... so you end up in a rent by the week Hotel in the middle of Cracktown.

Now the depression really sets in.  You really should have started therapy months before but hadn't....you're  still holding on to your job at this point you don't know how....staving off the depression with heart-stopping quantities of narcotic stimulants and while you really didn't want to jump off the roof of the Omni Hotel.... it is starting to seem more and more like a good idea.

 Imagine being covered with a lead blanket that reeks of urine and body odor, and someone is beating on it with a baseball bat while telling you what a piece of shit you are ... Occasionally interrupted by a fat toothless hooker knocking on your door asking if you have any crack to spare.  WINNING!

I spent about 6 weeks like this making the decision every day not to kill myself and everyday it was a close call until...

The drugs stopped working even if they hadn't.   I couldn't pull it together enough to make money any more.

So I found myself "winning" in a crack motel in a part of New Orleans so shity no one will deliver food there because it's too dangerous. Bankrupt in every sense of the word.

I gave up and lay in bed I pulled the lead blanket up over my head  and let em go to town with the bats ...two days... hoping my heart would stop. I didn't even have enough money to get to the Omni Hotel I even fucked that up.

When you think it can't get worse  a hand reaches into your chest starts to twist your heart.  The chest pain would not stop.

At first I was cheering for it; "come on and just fucking do it."   Then I realized I didn't really want to die.  I want to see my son grow up. I want to make sure I do everything I can so this doesn't happen to him.

 I called my sister who found out it's hard to call an ambulance in another state.  So she called the guy at the front desk of Cumdump Inns and Suites.   Now I'm  waiting for the ambulance clutching my chest and all of a sudden I felt the weight lift.....  because I knew where I was..... I looked around and I was there... I was at the end of the road....

If you're in recovery and you're reading this you know the place.   It's the most important place you can be, it's the Tipping Point the darkest moment before the dawn, the last straw....

The reason I didn't recognize it before is because every time you go back out the end of the road moves.  It gets further away, it gets darker...

But because I've been there before I recognized the feeling.  And once I knew where I was  I knew what to do.

I have heard the following read literally thousands of times and I was able to recite it verbatim while being loaded into the ambulance.    It's from the basic text of Narcotics Anonymous: We do recover:

When at the end of the road we find that we can no longer function as a human being, either with or without drugs, we all face the same dilemma. What is there left to do? There seems to be this alternative: either go on as best we can to the bitter ends—jails, institutions or death—or find a new way to live.  In years gone by, very few addicts ever had this last choice. Those who are addicted today are more fortunate. For the first
time in man’s entire history, a simple way has been proving itself in the lives of many addicts. It is available to us all. This is a simple spiritual—not religious—program, known as Narcotics Anonymous.

I don't want Adonis DNA and tiger blood I'll take cockroach DNA all day long and twice on Sunday! How am I alive I have no idea but I'll tell you this...

Skip G. is  back... 25 days and counting.  Pas plus l'appel du vide.... toujours plus laissez les bon temp rouler!