The Mask

There will be time, there will be time, to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet. -    T.S. Eliot

“Nobody could tell that anything was going on. The [suicide] notes gave me something to focus on [at my desk] so that I could do my job without thinking about it and be really occupied with it. I was able to do [my job] by rote, going through my role but not being there…” - Deborah

With the news of the probable suicide of L’Wren Scott, noted fashion designer and partner to The Rolling Stone’s, Mick Jagger, we read messages from around the world attesting both to understandable sadness and shock.  Quite often, we hear smart, caring, well-intentioned people say, “I had no idea, he seemed so happy”, or “Her life seemed so together…”

 
How does this happen?
 
As someone withdraws into the idea of suicide, what I’ve termed the suicidal trance, he or she becomes increasingly trapped within a closed system of corrosive thoughts and emotions.  It prevents others from seeing their anguish and one misses the opportunity to receive much needed understanding and compassion. Ones inner turmoil, and in large measure his or her humanity, becomes concealed. As the withdrawal continues, a pernicious belief encamps within them – that no one will understand the dilemma they are in or even if they did, would not be able to help.
 
As a result, people create a façade, designed to mask their pain, and that mask is often nearly impenetrable. So much so, that when others don’t recognize the façade, isn’t an indication of their lack of attention or love, but a testament to how powerfully someone who is suicidal can withdraw into a tight spiral of emotional pain and hide it.
 
What happens inside this closed system?  People who descend into suicide become their own judges and juries. They privately decide that their concerns are either:
 

•     pathological
•     impossible to grasp
•     impossible to remedy, or
•     not worthy of another’s attention.

 
They pull further away from genuine interpersonal exchange and, over time, lose a sense of who or what could be helpful. It is as if someone has become lost in the forest and finds a cave for shelter. The territory is foreign and the sounds, alien. Every rustle of leaves or crack of a twig is interpreted as a sign that something alive and dangerous is drawing nearer, and one pulls back into the cave, withdrawing deeper and deeper. The further he or she retreats from the cave’s mouth, the less the possibility of distinguishing fact from fear, help from danger.
 
 Some forms the façade can take:
 

“…everybody thought I was happy and normal and well-adjusted and I got straight A’s. I was a good person, you know? I was just trying to pass for normal."  - Mattie

 
As inner turmoil remains unaddressed, the chasm widens between one’s silent suffering and the image one projects.  Emotional pain – most often fear– continues unabated and the perceived need for the façade increases. Unfortunately and frighteningly, people can mask themselves so skillfully, it fools friends and loved ones alike.  Some forms of the façade may include:
 

•      extroverted – happy and smiling; life of the party and friend to all.
•      robotic – cloaked in plain sight, methodically going through one’s day
•      hostile – combative, defiant but underneath, terrified.

 
 
Here are some examples…

Extroverted:

In the roughest times, Mattie could always call on her wit, her joie de vivre, and her considerable intelligence. People naturally gravitated to her, as she was attractive, genuinely caring, and unpretentious. Her most frequent complaint was that she didn’t have enough time for all her friends. No one knew the self-loathing she carried, or that she was bulimic and often contemplated suicide.

“There was something inside me that [felt] just horrible or bad or needy or painful, and  it didn’t match the outside, because I’d always been so extroverted.”
 

Methodical and Robotic:

"Nobody seemed to notice, except one. When I came back from lunch, one woman asked me if I’d been crying. I went to the bathroom and washed my face and I did not talk to anyone again the rest of the day. No one bothered me!"
 

Deborah is a medical secretary who lives in Colorado Springs. She spent the day of her suicide attempt calmly and unobtrusively sitting at her desk in the office, writing suicide notes. The mask she wore was virtually impenetrable.
 

Defiant & Hostile:

"James Dean was one of my biggest heroes—Rebel Without a Cause, The Outsiders, Indiana Jones, Fonzie. I grew up on Rambo films and Playboy. Tough guys were my idols.  Smokin’ cigarettes, stealing shit, comin’ in the next morning all hung over. Living on the streets, sleeping in newspaper bins—these were my battle scars.
I started realizing how much pain there is in the world, how much loneliness, and although I don’t want to kill myself anymore, it still frustrates me how many kids feel like shit. – Jason, 19
 

Withdrawn:

"I acted out for years—didn’t communicate with my parents, hung around the university bars uptown, and sexually acted out a lot too. I was pretty promiscuous and I drank a lot. I didn’t talk to anyone. No one. I got into the blues and listened to Billie Holiday records." - Cynthia
 

Next Blog:  What Can Someone Do?

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Courage

“The original definition of courage when it first came into the English language, from the Latin word ‘cor’, meaning ‘heart’, was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.”  – Brené Brown, TED Lecture, 2010

Some years ago I did what looked like a crazy thing.  Over a three year period, as I traveled the United States for my work as a trainer of therapists, I put out the word that I wanted to interview people who had attempted suicide, and specifically, people who, through their own hard work, and the assiduous care of others, reclaimed the qualities of balance, perspective, connectedness and happiness in their lives.  People who came back to life, literally from death’s door.

Partly, it came from my training as a researcher.  I was taught that if you wanted to understand a deep part of human experience, in this case psychological and emotional healing, it was essential to listen to and chronicle the stories of those who had truly been there; who had powerfully experienced it's entire arc. This is called participatory research and it’s less about statistics and more about “stepping into someone else’s shoes” in order to derive a true sense of what it’s like.

And, partly, it came from a quirky optimism I seem to have, that arose both in working with others, but also in my own life; a recognition that when we are pushed to the edge, up against the wall…really challenged by significant life issues, that that wall represents the edge of the box we are trapped in; the box we rummage around in that generates a lot of suffering for ourselves, and most often, for our loved ones.  So, bad news-good news.  The bad news is that we suffer, often caught in this box of limited perspective and constricted narratives.  The good news, is that when we are up against the edge, the inside wall, we are only a hairs-breath away from jumping out of the box altogether!

So, I traveled the country, sitting with people, in their homes or in nature, often for three, four, or five hours at a time, listening to and recording their stories, sometimes harrowing and unflinching in detail. But listening particularly to the parts of the story that detailed how people began to embrace life again, and humbly, little by little, came to believe again – in possibility, in others, and, blessedly, in themselves.   I discovered that these deeply personal stories, were also universal stories.  I learned that in listening without prejudice or fear, these stories shed much light on precisely how all of us can bring ourselves back to life…not only from the brink of life and death; not just in a suicidal context, but with regard to the dizzying array of other challenges all of us face in our lives.  Those I interviewed told their stories, with a full and open heart, both to help others, and so that one day, others wouldn’t have a story like that of their own to tell.  I was blown away by their courage. Still am.

A final note:  In writing Waking Up, Alive, it was not my intention to create another trend or another series of identities through which people can define themselves. In fact, it is my fervent hope that as we move further into the 21st Century, people will define themselves in terms of their strengths and their potential rather than their wounds. I have undertaken this work in order to break the silence to which so many—be they survivors of suicide attempts or the enormous number of people who secretly contemplate the act—have sentenced themselves, and to open communication between those who have attempted and those who haven’t. Ultimately, this book was written for everyone, for each person bears his or her share of pain, and everyone has felt stuck at one point or another in his or her life. I chose to write  Waking Up, Alive so that we may remember that there always exists a “yes” after what seems to be the final “no.”

I hope that in some small measure these words may alleviate suffering in the mysterious world in which we live.

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Ruth

Ruth

“I’ll be the heavyset one waiting for you in the hall,” she said over the phone. Ruth doesn’t mince words. She speaks the truth, unadorned, and looks slightly askance at me, dubious, as if she doesn’t expect a connection. Ruth practices medicine in Boston. A physician who, in addition, is completing her psychiatric residency, she is dressed informally today, wearing a kufi—an African skull cap—and jeans. We talk in the steeply raked lecture room at the university and sit alone amidst hundreds of empty seats, our voices echoing softly in the amphitheater. Ruth is a curious combination of guarded and forthright, thoughtful, yet ready to laugh and enjoy my company for a moment or two. Her's is a powerful story about loss, the inability to grieve and ultimately,  enormous resilience.

Ruth was raised in Harlem by a stern and sometimes abusive grandmother. Her mother, a prostitute and drug addict, lived nearby. Her father, also an addict, had long since left the family. Ruth grew up smart and streetwise. She survived by hiding significant aspects of her life from others. Against her grandmother’s wishes, she discovered who her mother was (Ruth had been told she was a distant aunt), and would sneak off for forbidden visits after school.

My mother was in the drug world, so I would see her at times when she was bloodied and beaten up by her pimp. She’d fawn all over me—tell me I was her princess. It was the only time in my life I felt special. I didn’t realize until much later how irresponsible that was. I just thought my grandmother was keeping me away from her.

Ruth also hid the fact that she was being molested. From the age of six to thirteen, she surrendered to sexual contact with her mother’s boyfriend’s son, a teenager who had also been taken in by the grandmother. Her grandmother was unpredictable in her affection, and this left Ruth feeling that, aside from stolen moments with her mother, the only person who really cared for her was her “stepbrother.”

He would take me out to play and stuff like that, so when it came around to him wanting sex, I felt, “Sure, whatever...”

Lonely and confused, Ruth became a tough and intimidating teenager. Exceptionally bright,  she maintained good grades with little effort. Yet her school days were often spent in detention after having fought with classmates. No one seemed to understand her pain, and she decided that there was not likely to be anyone in the future who would either. So, Ruth covered the tender and vulnerable places within her with a sharp tongue and quick fists.

I had a big mouth. I didn’t take anything from anybody. If they yelled at me, I would punch them in the eye! They used to call me “Blackie,” you know, ’cause that was the early sixties and being black wasn’t cool. I ended up feeling I didn’t want to be black either, so I would start a fight when someone called me that.

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