My mom committed suicide when I was seventeen.
Phew, now that that's over with, let's get into the details.
I talk about mom death a lot. Probably more than most who have mom death. And to the credit of the reasonable human beings around me, very few people question it (at least ou tloud). But, in the spirit of Taboo Tuesday, I'm going to dedicate my first real blog post to the uncomfortable thing I bring up most often: My super dead mom.
I say super dead, of course, not because she was supernaturally affected by radioactive material, born on a fictional planet, or was a martial arts proficient turtle (even though she was), but because it's been over five years since she died. For me, that's a super long time -- more than 20% of my life, in fact. By the time I am 35, my mother will have been dead for more of my life than not.
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| Fun fact: that thought is what caused my first post-dead-mom breakdown in class! |
I want to blog about it because I have experienced that morbid curiosity of hearing about death and wanting to know more. There are questions that I have wanted to ask folks about their own dead people, but have felt too awkward to broach the subject -- worrying that it would crack open some Pandora's box of misery within them.
Well now here I am. My box broke years ago and like the toilet in my old apartment that is probably still flooding, I sure as hell didn't call nobody to fix it.
Here are the ten things you may want to know about my mother's death. I don't want to hold anything back because according to my sensei, Dwight Schrute, information is power.
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| Drumroll Please... |
THE TOP 10 THINGS YOU MAY HAVE WANTED TO ASK ABOUT DEAD MOMS BUT DIDN'T BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T WANT TO SOUND LIKE A DICK!
1. How did she die?
Good question, Quinn. This is certainly the first thing I want to ask when I learn about a newly dead person, but instead of asking, I just scour the internet for an obituary that hopefully isn't too vague.
The Answer: My mother killed herself by overdosing on prescription medication, a cocktail of primarily benzodiazepines. She had attempted it several times before, most attempts were many years ago, and she was seemingly 'out of the woods' when this happened.
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| Apparently not so much. |
I am lucky in that I wasn't the one to find her, without giving away too many details (seeing as this is no longer my information to give), my dad and brother did. Obviously death is not pretty -- I have seen the pictures. If you do have any more questions about this, you can ask me in a less public way. I'm into demystifying the taboo, but I'll be damned if I ruin someone's appetite for their delicious Cheetos as they read my post.
In short, what has been described to me is that she orchestrated it so that she died while looking at pictures of her family. Trying to imagine the horrible anguish she must have gone through while doing this has caused me many sleepless nights.
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| I mean, come on. Who wants the last thing they see to be that mug. |
I was asleep when she killed herself (early that morning). I found out while I was taking an online test for a statistics course. My dad came in (naturally, crying). He actually couldn't say it, and my brother had to tell me. I was very surprised.
2.5 Did you finish the Statistics test?
No. And I dropped the class (which was stricken from my record because I failed 100% due to my mother's death).
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| Suppoooooosedly. |
3. Why did she kill herself?
The Answer: While I don't know the exact answer to that question, I'd say it was because of a combination of bipolar disorder and drug addiction.
My mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was a toddler. Basically, a third of the time, she was manic: very energetic and excitable, she would talk so quickly she missed words, she started projects that she'd never finish, and she'd make bad decisions like gambling, stealing, forming dangerous relationships, running away without telling anyone... without ever realizing her behavior was odd. Another third of the time she was depressed: she laid in bed for days, wouldn't eat, cried, would forget to pick me up, refused to shower, occasionally tried to kill herself but didn't have the energy to go through with it. The last third of the time, she was my mom.
I watched this disorder ravage her for fifteen years. I watched her take drugs to dull her painful reality. I visited her in jail and in the hospital numerous times after she tried and failed to kill herself. She didn't die in a day. She was being eaten away at for two decades.
There's too much to talk about with how bipolar affected my mom and my childhood, so I'll probably make another post about that later. (Woohoo!)
Ultimately my mom killed herself because she was sick and there was nothing anyone could do to save her. She battled an illness for many years, but... as many people do with incurable illnesses... she eventually succumbed.
Suicide is often not a choice, it's the result of a fatal disease.
There is no doubt in my mind that my mother didn't really want to die. I witnessed her manic and depressive decisions for years and I understood her thought process, as warped as it may have been. That third mom, the one who was really "her" once promised me, assured me that she would never kill herself. She was not the one who chose to leave.
My mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was a toddler. Basically, a third of the time, she was manic: very energetic and excitable, she would talk so quickly she missed words, she started projects that she'd never finish, and she'd make bad decisions like gambling, stealing, forming dangerous relationships, running away without telling anyone... without ever realizing her behavior was odd. Another third of the time she was depressed: she laid in bed for days, wouldn't eat, cried, would forget to pick me up, refused to shower, occasionally tried to kill herself but didn't have the energy to go through with it. The last third of the time, she was my mom.
I watched this disorder ravage her for fifteen years. I watched her take drugs to dull her painful reality. I visited her in jail and in the hospital numerous times after she tried and failed to kill herself. She didn't die in a day. She was being eaten away at for two decades.
There's too much to talk about with how bipolar affected my mom and my childhood, so I'll probably make another post about that later. (Woohoo!)
Ultimately my mom killed herself because she was sick and there was nothing anyone could do to save her. She battled an illness for many years, but... as many people do with incurable illnesses... she eventually succumbed.
Suicide is often not a choice, it's the result of a fatal disease.
There is no doubt in my mind that my mother didn't really want to die. I witnessed her manic and depressive decisions for years and I understood her thought process, as warped as it may have been. That third mom, the one who was really "her" once promised me, assured me that she would never kill herself. She was not the one who chose to leave.
4. What about the suicide note?
Yeah, blah blah blah, mental illness, blah blah blah, speculation, blah blah blah... but what did she actually say?
The Answer: My mom left several notes, to various people. Most of them were largely incoherent (like I said, bitches be crazy). The traditional note you'd expect (the "I love you all, this is why I did it, please don't blame yourselves...") was about two pages long and was addressed to my brother.
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| But I ain't jelly or nothing. |
There's not much to say about it. It's pretty much what you'd expect. She loved us, she felt like a burden, she thought everyone would be better off if she wasn't around. The usual.
MY note was one sentence long and has resulted in being among the greatest mysteries in my life. It read:
"If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks, then I'll follow you into the dark."
Let's let that sink in.
The final words my mother, a scholar of 19th century English literature, left for me was a line from a Death Cab for Cutie song.
If that's not proof she wasn't in her right mind, I don't know what else is.
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| I mean COME ON. |
5. Did you know it was going to happen?
The Answer: Not exactly. It was, like I said, very surprising. My mother was very ill throughout the 1990s, which involved her being homeless, jailed, involuntarily confined to a psych ward, etc.
Some crazy shit happened in the '90s, and we only know what we witnessed and what she remembered (she lost a lot of memories while she was manic).
She did attempt suicide at least three other times that I know about, but that was all during the bad years. In the 2000s, she rapidly improved. She got a job again. She got her own place. She took care of us. She was "herself" a lot more of the time. When she died she seemed to be a bit hypomanic (a much less severe kind of mania), but we certainly did not expect her to kill herself.
The Answer: I get why other people are mad when someone they love commits suicide, but I never was. Like I said, I don't think it was really a "decision" in the simplest understanding of the concept, so I don't blame her. People die, getting angry about it isn't going to help me feel better.
The Answer: At first I was in shock, then I cried a lot. I skipped a week of school. Not only was I very busy (she actually killed herself the day before my USC application was due)...
... but the most useful thing for my 'recovery' was getting back into regular life. It was seeing that, despite the fact that it seemed like the world stopped turning, it hadn't.
For those who haven't experienced this kind of trauma, it's very difficult to describe. It's mentally exhausting (seeing as it's all you think about), it's physically painful (that cliche about your heart hurting is stupid and true), and it's just... like a haze. A very odd, uncomfortable haze. You can either sink into it or let life pull you back out.
I initially chose not to talk to many people about it. I didn't want them to know because I figured they would treat me differently, and the best thing for me was to be assured that I was still the same person. In that second semester I learned who I actually wanted to be friends with, based on the way they reacted to the death. I respect many of those people immensely now (Maria and Jenna, if you're reading this, you made a big difference for me, in particular).
*If you are suffering from something similar, talking to people who understand is a MASSIVE help, I've found. You can always contact me if you'd like.
Yeah. So I guess I just carried on. It didn't feel like I should have been able to at the time, and I was a bit wonky for a year or so there, but I'm here now and I'm good!
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8. Are you over it?
The Answer: I'm not "over it" like it was a cold. I still think about her every day. I still cry when stupid fucking Death Cab For Cutie sings in their stupid whiny way.
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| Have some self respect and at least brush the hair out of your eye. This isn't 2004. |
But... kind of, yeah. There was a year or so where I was depressed. I couldn't function to the level that I usually would have been able to. And I'm normal now (or, as normal as I can be). Sure I think about her, and I miss her, but I'm not tormented by it. I've accepted that there's nothing more I can do.
And I'm largely a very happy person now. I'm even happier than I was before she died, in many ways. Not because she's gone but because I know myself better. I'm more comfortable in my skin and I give less of a shit about the stuff that I realized doesn't really matter.
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| Nine out of ten dentists recommend a dead mother if you want to give less of a shit. |
I admit I was very fortunate in that my dad has his PhD in clinical psychology and has been involved in the research of evidence based practices for many years, so I was exposed to very effective ways of "moving on."
9. What's your tattoo?
The Answer: For those of you who have seen my right leg, I have a tattoo that looks quite a bit like this:
I got it the month after my mother's death as a way to feel like she was still around, I think. It was like I had had a limb cut off when she died and I was desperate to feel whole again.
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| It was done by Pat Fish in Santa Barbara: http://www.luckyfish.com/ |
So I decided to get a weird, primary colored sunny-moony blob on my leg. After all, what's better for your whole than a giant, spiky thing?
I did get it for my mom, but I had thought about getting it for years before. Basically the story behind it is that my mom got a sun tattooed on her calf while in college.
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| You can't tell, but it's the same colors as the sun in my tattoo. |
And when my dad met her in grad school, he decided to go out and get a matching one on HIS calf because he's a pussy and loved her.
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| He would want me to tell you that his hairlessness is not a choice. His sock rubs the hair off his leg. (Shh, he wouldn't actually want me to tell you that.)
Ta-dah! The meaning behind my tattoo.
If you ask in the real world and I don't feel like talking to you, then I got it because I'm a big fan of Stephanie Meyer's "Eclipse".
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10. Why do you joke about your dead mom?
The Answer:
1. I find satisfaction in seeing people squirm over it. I think it must be akin to the joy other kids got from burning ants.
1. I find satisfaction in seeing people squirm over it. I think it must be akin to the joy other kids got from burning ants.
2. It's hilarious. If you don't think it's hilarious then you need to check your mom privilege.
3. I think about my mom every day. I don't get to ignore it or forget about it because it makes some people uncomfortable. There is nothing I can do to bring her back, so I'd rather find light in it then treat her being gone like some terrible, ugly scar that no one can discuss. Terrible things are usually the most hilarious anyway (please see point #2 in this list if you have further questions.)
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| You: "But Quinn, wouldn't she be annoyed if she knew what you were saying? Aren't you slandering your super dead mom's legacy as a karate turtle?" Maybe. She might be annoyed by my joking, but I think she threw her veto card away when she treated fatal drugs like delicious Pez candies.
Plus, no. If I had to guess, she wouldn't be mad. My mom, my REAL mom, that third mom I was talking about, she was fucking cool. My mom came from nothing and she ended up getting her PhD in literature in record breaking time. She survived some crazy stuff, and came out of it with her humor intact. My mom was the kind of lady who knew a hilarious fart joke when she heard one.
And I know, trust me, people tend act like the dead were perfect. My mom was not perfect, no way no how, but she does deserve some credit for who she was. She was kind, brilliant, and loving to a fault.
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If you'd like to read more about my dead mom, my brother wrote a classy (we may not share any genes) obituary: http://www.independent.com/obits/2010/jan/04/shelley-spear/
If you want to read something my dead mom wrote, be advised that she was less classy: https://www.facebook.com/notes/shelley-spear/25-random-things-about-me/145746545164
If you have any other questions about my dead mom, just ask. I ain't shy.
Next Tuesday I will talk about:
The Year I Thought I Was a Man
(and other things with phantom penises)!
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Quinn, I always knew I liked you. You are a gladiator and a comedian all at once. Thank you for sharing this and for being who you are.
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