LJ Idol Week 10, Icarus, Mending Wings
In the depths of despair they perform the only actions they feel are left to them. Slitting their wrists, taking the pills they have so diligently saved up for this day, or some other act that can bring it all crashing down. They clip their own wings hoping to plummet to the depths of the earth, where in death they will find rest. They tell me they are looking for peace. They are looking for an end. When once they were flying high now they feel they have nothing and death is the only thing that will bring them freedom from the thoughts in their head or the pain in their bodies. They try hard to end it all, but in the end they fail.
I get their calls from hospital psychiatric wards, or from just having been released from the hospital. They need my help, someone’s help, anyone’s help, because they tell me they can’t do it alone anymore. They need Social Security, Housing, Food Stamps, Welfare, and a listening ear. I try to help, I do what I can. I listen, I try to build them up where I can.
I understand how they felt when they were flying high with everything in life going well. They once had good jobs, nice cars, owned houses, and were in good mental and physical health and then things came unraveled. I understand what the undoing feels like. It’s like an onion. They’ve been watching things peeled away from them, layer by layer, first their material possessions, then maybe a job, or physical health, or close relationships, and then the sanity starts to slip loose. It’s a fragile layer. I understand the depths, the wanting to end it all, to go crashing right into the earth, or to fall to the bottom of the sea where no one can reach you. I haven’t tried that act though, that act that is meant to end it all. So I don’t know what the failure is like. I don’t know what it is like to know that this one last thing is not even worthy of success. I don’t know what it is like to wake up and still be alive. I have no idea what it is like to be found in a puddle of blood, or to dance in and out of consciousness as you slowly begin to realize that you failed to end your life.
I try to understand.
I try to help.
This is my job.
Sometimes I can help them find a place to live. Other times I can get them a steady income even if it isn’t much. I can help them get a therapist, find a food bank, or locate a support group. Through it all, I listen. It’s the best I can do. I try to help them mend the wings they tore to shreds. It’s a difficult process. Some make it, some don’t. I take no glory for my work, I’m just another person, caught up with them in a life that is sometimes parallel, and sometimes far more privileged and easier than their own. I can see the sun though, and I can honor its rising every day, and each day I start over again, working on my own goals, and seeing what wings there are to mend.
I get their calls from hospital psychiatric wards, or from just having been released from the hospital. They need my help, someone’s help, anyone’s help, because they tell me they can’t do it alone anymore. They need Social Security, Housing, Food Stamps, Welfare, and a listening ear. I try to help, I do what I can. I listen, I try to build them up where I can.
I understand how they felt when they were flying high with everything in life going well. They once had good jobs, nice cars, owned houses, and were in good mental and physical health and then things came unraveled. I understand what the undoing feels like. It’s like an onion. They’ve been watching things peeled away from them, layer by layer, first their material possessions, then maybe a job, or physical health, or close relationships, and then the sanity starts to slip loose. It’s a fragile layer. I understand the depths, the wanting to end it all, to go crashing right into the earth, or to fall to the bottom of the sea where no one can reach you. I haven’t tried that act though, that act that is meant to end it all. So I don’t know what the failure is like. I don’t know what it is like to know that this one last thing is not even worthy of success. I don’t know what it is like to wake up and still be alive. I have no idea what it is like to be found in a puddle of blood, or to dance in and out of consciousness as you slowly begin to realize that you failed to end your life.
I try to understand.
I try to help.
This is my job.
Sometimes I can help them find a place to live. Other times I can get them a steady income even if it isn’t much. I can help them get a therapist, find a food bank, or locate a support group. Through it all, I listen. It’s the best I can do. I try to help them mend the wings they tore to shreds. It’s a difficult process. Some make it, some don’t. I take no glory for my work, I’m just another person, caught up with them in a life that is sometimes parallel, and sometimes far more privileged and easier than their own. I can see the sun though, and I can honor its rising every day, and each day I start over again, working on my own goals, and seeing what wings there are to mend.