I am re-posting this entry because we’re rounding into the holiday season. Many of us associate the holidays with seasonal songs and foods, silver bells and merriment. But there are also a lot people out there suffering. And what they don’t know is that they needn’t suffer alone. Our attachment to how we believe things should be is what creates so much of our suffering, and we can feel like prisoners of our own thoughts. There is relief if you find the right support. Asking for help is what strong people do.
Reach out. Show affection. And spread the word. “988” is the three-digit, nationwide phone number to connect directly to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. By calling or texting 988, you’ll connect with mental health professionals with the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. No one should suffer alone.
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No one has drowned. There aren’t even sorrows worthy of drowning. I can’t remember the last time I had a sip of alcohol. It was probably last September, and the lack of alcohol wasn’t even a decision I made. I guess when you’re just trying to eat healthier and wake with energy, the alcohol just doesn’t seem worth it. I wrote a shit ton more when I drank.
The only reason I wanted to post a blog entry right now is so I’ll have proof. Not 40-proof, not proof that I’ve gone without liquor, but I needed to go on record now that I just spent 40 minutes hunting down the name of that movie that has haunted me since I was a child.
I don’t know how old I was, but it was the 80s, and I was home watching a movie on “Home Box Office.” All I could recall was summarized in tonight’s search queries:
Teacher swimming cave drown
Teacher swimming hole
Drowning movies
I needed to write this post because I will undoubtedly forget the name of the movie, and I don’t want to spend another 40 minutes needing to know the name, as if by just knowing it, I can exhale and life may continue. It’s that one solid thing that if I can capture it, all is somehow okay, and my brain can get back to the living.
FORTRESS (1985)
“An Australian school teacher and her students are kidnapped. She and the children fight for their lives and try to escape from their captors.”
You have to understand that I was a student. I was a child. This seemed a possible scenario. I was so terrified of drowning that I had to change the channel mid-movie. I couldn’t watch what happened next, and having never watched it again, it has stayed with me all these years. That need for air and the panic when you can’t break the surface of the water, when you’re blocked under rocks, it’s unbearable to me. I had to look away, and even doing so, I was never able to really look away. Instead I look for it, decades later, searching to see what happens next.
This was the exact scene that has haunted me: https://youtu.be/e5xnyClQ_kk?t=41m30s
Now, without getting political, there is the news. The news of suicides, Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain, these tragic preventable stories. In my life, I’ve personally known 3 people who have committed suicide. 1) My 2nd cousin. 2) One of my best friends from college, through all four years of school and afterward. 3) Ned Vizzini, a fellow writer and friend who spent days sleeping in my home when I invited him to be on a panel with me for SXSW. 4) One of Phil’s friends, whom I’d met and spent a weekend with in Rhode Island. 5) There is also the husband of a close friend, but I’d never known him. These are the personal ways my own life has been touched by suicide.
I also remember growing up that my best friend’s mother worked a suicide-prevention hotline, where she’d spend hours counseling people. And I remember her once saying that she’d spent the whole night talking to someone only to find out that it was a prank call. It’s strange the things we remember.
One thing I want to remember in all this is how to love and how to prioritize. While I want my children to do well in school, what I really truly want, is for them to be happy. Not anxious, not worried about test scores or cliques or who was invited or wasn’t invited, none of it. I just want them to know they are loved, just as they are, without having to accomplish or achieve. They are important and invaluable.
Douglas Klein: August 3, 1976 – June 28, 1999 (Age 22)
Jessica Gordon: December 29, 1974 – April 2006 (Age 32)
Ned Vizzini: April 4, 1981 – December 19, 2013 (Age 32)
Heather B. Armstrong: July 19, 1975 – May 9, 2023 (Age 47)
OMG can you please write more? Seeing a new post is like hearing from an old friend. Thanks for this!
Sitting here all bored and i found this. I am already in love. Thank You
Yep – I know the feeling. Even though the darlings are now 24, 26 and 27 – I still worry. Even though they are all successful and independent and happy and strong – I still worry. Even though they are all living their dreams and having their best lives – I still worry.
So I check in subtly – a text here, a conversation there, a care-package from home, and I cross every single one of my fingers and toes that the one worst moment of their life won’t lead to them leaving this life forever, but that they’ll hear my voice in their head saying ‘call me, I’m here for you’. I don’t know how I could ever get up again. Let’s hope we never have to find out.
It is a scary time in this world.
My own experience with suicide was traumatic and put me and my boyfriend in counseling. The young man never once indicated he needed help. So sad when you think about how these things can be prevented and should never ever happen.
Yeay another post – even if on a very sad subject.
Stephanie, I honestly still check this blog almost daily hoping you have written an update. I wonder how Mr Bikini & Linus are, and how the beans are doing at school..
Also if you have settled in and found new friends since you moved again, do you still miss Texas?
Also wishing you posted more frequently about what’s going on in your life.
Yes khrmail, a month since I posted last and no new blogs.
Such a shame. Loved this blog x
I thought about you today, googled you, and realized you were back to writing. I cannot wait to read more of your posts. I feel like I’ve known you for 20 years, which proves what an incredible writer you are. <3
Maybe they just said it was a prank call at the end to cover their poo with dirt. Maybe she did save their life. <3
I’m on my way to Aruba and I was trying to get on to your meeting. No luck, but I still needed my dose of Stephanie. Decided to go onto your website and read some of your blogs. This blog is so powerful. I love the paragraph about what you want for your kids. I feel exactly the same way.
Hopefully, this blog will help those out there that need to reach out for love and support. ❤️