depression

A dear friend of mine is very depressed, and that has me thinking of another friend who was very depressed.

I met Jen freshman year of college; she lived in my dorm. She was short, with long stringy hair and an off-kilter sense of humor. She’d tell me things like how she was “worried” about the proliferation of weird juice combinations like Kiwi-Strawberry.

I think maybe she was a little interested in me, but I didn’t really find her attractive. Still, she was fun and so I let her hang around me, even after she cockblocked me with this hot redhead at some dance. (“Yeah, Derek isn’t a very good dancer”… Umm, thanks Jen).

We worked as “campus patrol” buddies a few times, slacking off on our duties to go wander across a frozen Sunset Lake one night. It was a blast, even if I fell in up to my knees approaching the shore. (Then she told a supervisor about it and got us both scolded.)

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t count her as a close friends or anything … more a buddy than anything else.

When we returned for sophomore year, Jen had cut her hair short; it didn’t even reach her shoulders. I think it looked better but she was different — depressed, lackluster. She had stopped taking her Prozac, or so people said later. She had moved to a different dorm so I didn’t really see her that much.

I do remember making a trip to the hardware store in the first month or two of classes, and inviting Jen along to maybe cheer her up. She was in a dour mood and kinda unpleasant company, though. At the register, she toyed with a pack of razor blades.

“Something to cut my wrists with,” she said. I just looked at her oddly. It was a strange joke, but what can you say to something like that?

Back at school, I meant to tell my friend Steven M. to keep an eye on Jen; he lived in her the dorm and was one of the most responsible people I knew. However I never got around to it.

A few days later I did call her answering machine to invite her to some meeting of some campus group I was starting. It was mostly to see how she was doing. However by then I was probably leaving the message of a dead girl, because she had hung herself in her dorm room. She wasn’t found for a couple days. My friends woke me up to tell me.

I skipped the campus ceremony to play Spectre in the computer lab with my friend S.L., who as far as I know had been her only lover. (He had beckoned her over to his dorm late one night using Broadcast, an early instant messaging program). I think we both felt a mixture of anger, embarassment and maybe even a little shame. I also wouldn’t join two friends who drove to the midwest (Ohio?) for her funeral and to meet her parents. No way.

I felt really stupid for not picking up on the razor-blade comment (which I’ve shared with no one until now). But I really don’t think I ever felt guilty. Had I ever thought suicide was a real possibility, of course I would have done a lot more. I’m sure there were other signs that other people missed or ignored. Hell, in just about every school shooting, the kids gave off signs.

The bottom line is it was Jen’s decision to make, so she’s the one responsible for it.

The only person who ever said anything that made me feel better about the whole thing was my friend Chelle, who didn’t know her. She basically said how it had been raining hard that day, but if only Jen had waited, the sun would have come out tomorrow. I don’t know why that made me feel better, but it did.

I did go to a workshop on suicide prevention, although I’ve forgotten most of it. But I guess the bottom line is I always try to be there for depressed people, even if it means erring on the overbearing side. Y’all probably should as well.

Resources for people who are suicidal can be found here.