Chapter One: Family History

“Let’s face it. Emily is a bitch, your brother wants to fuck you, and your sister wants you dead.”

— Best Friend’s Quote

Suicidal is a strange state of mind. People who haven’t experienced it seem to hold those of us who have in the lowest contempt. “How weak and selfish can you get? Stop being such a whiner. Can’t you think about other people’s feelings? How do you think killing yourself would affect them? What about your kids? God, you’re a selfish bitch.”

They’re right, of course. Being suicidal is very selfish, but it’s the kind of self absorption one has when they’re in huge distress. It’s akin to having a rat gnawing on your face. You want to consider other people’s feelings, but it’s hard to concentrate on somebody else when a large rodent is burrowing through your cheek. Teeth, blood and pain are all you can manage to think about. The trick is to kill the rat. Take it from me, that chewy little vermin is hard to get rid of. But not impossible.

I was seriously suicidal only once in my life, in my mid-twenties. It’s not like something one decides on a whim; there’s a long, greasy trail of horror and grayness that leads up to it. Mine was a sort of listless desperation; a need to just give up. To die, to sleep, perchance to dream. Shakespeare got it right. That’s exactly what it feels like.

Have you ever gotten to a point where you looked at your own life, thought “Fuck this,” and reached for the economy-sized Valium? Ah, suicide. So dark and seductive.

My pivotal moment came when I was twenty-six. Ironically enough, it was the thought of others that saved me.

I used to be so pissed off at Fate for making me stay alive. Once, Death was all I longed for, and I was mad as hell that I couldn’t indulge that particular fantasy and kill myself.

I had it all figured out. X-Acto knife, warm bath, Amitriptyline in a bottle, suicide note in its neat envelope. Then the last minute save. My two-year-old son knocked on the door and asked for chocolate milk.

He saved me from myself. I realized, with that little door tapping, that I couldn’t leave my two children with the memory of discovering my bobbing, bloody corpse. Since their dad worked eighty hours a week, it was a sure thing that the kids would find me. I couldn’t do it to them.

That’s not to say I was happy with that particular responsibility, or even the slightest bit grateful. Truth be told, it made me mad. Not at my kids, but at Life in general; the simple fact that I had to keep on waking up every day to the worst bitch I knew. Myself.

Insecurity is the biggest mindfuck of all. Forget hate, depression, self-loathing. They’re all just symptoms of the real monster. Insecurity made me see everything through shit-colored glasses. At such a low point, I was incapable of recognizing anything good about myself. I looked in a mirror and saw garbage. No redeeming qualities whatsoever. Just a fat, ugly, depressed, loser piece of shit bitch looking back at me. I hated myself for all that pain and rage, and insecurity smiled its oily smile at a job well done.

When you mindfuck yourself that way, you actually believe everyone would be better off if you were dead, including your children. I wanted my kids to have a decent mom, not a dirt poor bitch like me. They’d be better off with someone else. I knew Peter would remarry in a second, probably an educated woman with money. Anyone would be better than me.

Plus, I wanted out. Everything was lousy. Better to just die. Hide the existence of Rebecca O’Donnell, bury her deep in the cool ground and forget about her. Fear and misery had crippled me, turned me into a chicken shit, bitchy black hole, and I knew it.

To me, the worst thing was the total betrayal of God in the gifts He’d so generously given me. How’s that for a strange reason to open my veins? And I’m not even religious. Destined for greatness and too cowardly to grasp it. I’d fucked it all up, and the knowledge was eating me alive.

I’m an artist. Dropping polite modesty, I’m a great artist, with more talent than anyone I’ve ever met. An art professor in college once told me he could teach me nothing. Grad students were instructed to copy my work when I was a freshman.

But you know what? Who cares? None of that means shit if you don’t do something with it. This talent was a gift straight from heaven and I’d done my damnedest since I was legal to fuck it up. Thus the razor blade, pills, and hot bath. I’d hit bottom so hard I couldn’t see up.

So what had gotten me to such a state? What had driven my face so deep into the shit I couldn’t see daylight anywhere, in anybody or anything? I’d always loved life, even as an abused kid, even after surviving my first husband. What destroyed that?

To keep the picture as three dimensional as possible, I’ll begin at the beginning.