Deceiving my friends and doctors isn’t devious or selfish; it’s just pragmatic and necessary to achieve my goal. I’m a planner, as I’ve said a few times already, and if I don’t know exactly what’s ahead of me, I lose my shit. That’s probably why I’m here. Life is impossible to plan, so I’m constantly losing my shit. One minute things are good, the next somebody dies or gets sick or stops being your friend. You can’t count on anyone or anything, which makes life difficult if you’re a planner.
Actually, that’s the best part of tonight. I know exactly what’s ahead of me. Planning it, anticipating its finality and precision, is the best sedative I’ve ever taken.
How did I come up with my plan?
It came to me a little over six months ago. One night I dreamed I was in a plane flying toward the milky blue lining that separates the earth’s atmosphere from space. It looked like a little square of heaven itself from the airplane window. The me in the dream was thinking, God must be there. The flight lasted forever as we hurled ever closer to space but never actually left our atmosphere. There were no other passengers on board the plane. The cabin was empty of attendants, and all the storage cabinets were flung open and empty. The captain’s voice came on repeatedly, asking flight attendants to prepare for landing. The plane flew higher and higher and began to shake-just a bit at first, then faster-but I did not scream and I wasn’t scared. In the dream, I was constantly cinching my seat belt while I watched that horizon of milky blue heaven before me, just out of reach. I felt safe, like when I was a happy little kid before everything changed, before my father killed himself. It felt like the plane was just going to coast like this forever, and then suddenly the plane dropped into a downward spiral back toward the earth and I tried to scream, but no sound came out. Just before impact, everything turned to black.
I woke up breathless and in a cold sweat, alone in my room, still weighted with the haziness of sedation. (I probably should have mentioned that the day before my dream, I had had another “incident” and they had loaded me up on sedatives to keep me calm.) It was as though God, or someone or something, had delivered a message through my dream: no more “incidents.” In my heart, I knew the first and second “incidents” were halfhearted, non-attempts at hitting the switch. That’s why I’d never let the doctors tell me otherwise. Suicide requires true intentions, and mine never were. The first time, I wanted my mother to find me with the carving knife and I wanted her to cry and bemoan my fate, like she did my father’s and grandmother’s. But I never intended to die that day. The second, well, let’s just say, some of the staff got a chuckle out of my lame efforts. But they won’t be laughing tomorrow morning, and they won’t think my efforts were without genius.
I come from a family of depressives and suicidals, beginning with my great-grandfather, then my grandmother, and then my father. At the time of my first incident, I desired the specialness their lives took on after they offed themselves, how everyone talked endlessly about their struggles and their dramatic ends, but I didn’t know then if I had the courage to follow their path. The first two dry runs told me I did and that I just needed a plan that didn’t allow me to be saved.
When I woke from my dream, I knew I had found one. I knew exactly what I had to do in order to escape Life House and my miserable, painful existence.
It was simple, so simple. I remember a little smile sneaking onto my face, feeling conscious of my muscles stretching in unfamiliar ways. It surprised me, the joy of knowing, of planning it. I still don’t know why I had never thought of it before. But I started working on my plan that morning and it was as grand and simple as any other.
I would be good. I’d be great. I’d be better than any patient ever stuck inside the walls of Life House. I’d smile; I’d talk; I’d comfort; I’d reveal; I’d comply. And I’d compile enough points to earn a trip home. It didn’t matter if the trip home was for a week. Once on board the plane, I’d be free: of doctors, nurses, attendants, patients, my mother, my memories, anxieties, and fears. Free to move about the cabin. Free to enter the bathroom and lock the door and pill myself to nowhere. Free to die. Free to live in oblivion.
As I lay in my bed that morning six months ago, I knew I had stumbled on a plan that would work.
Alex Morel
Survive