Crisis Averted...

Currently Listening To: Off With Their Heads - All Things Move Toward Their End

Another story from the infamous campus of Notre Dame De Namur University. I wonder if the school cares whether or not I share these stories with you...

Tommy woke up one morning in his bed in his dorm on the third floor of SJ feeling, well, less than perfect. He was a pretty normal student, really no different from you or me. He enjoyed skateboarding, fast music, and fast women. The only problem with the kid was not on the surface, but what lies beneath. Tommy had been diagnosed with clinical depression about a year ago. He was seeing the school therapist every week to talk about his feeling and try and find a way for him to not feel so bad. He didn't have a reason to be sad. He had friends who cared about him and loving parents that would drop everything to help their son. But sometimes depression cannot be explained so easily because it is a mental health issue, something in Tommy's brain was not right. He tried doing the whole medication thing, but he didn't like the way the meds made him feel, numb. Without consulting the doctor, he took himself off the medication (20mg Lexapro once a day), he decided that he would try and manage his problems without prescription drugs and get proactive in his treatment.

He was doing really well for a while, but some days were harder to cope. So that particular morning, while his roommate, Dave, was out of the room he would take his life. He began contemplating the different ways he could take himself out. His first thought was to drown himself in the school pool. He would gather as many rocks as he could and stuff them into his pockets and sink to the bottom of the deep end. He figured that it would take a long time and that he didn't really want to be in that kind of pain. His next thought was to jump off the forth floor of Ralston Hall, but he knew that it would be hard to get to the top of the mansion without being caught and told to get down by some type of authority figure, so that idea was nixt. He thought about poisoning himself, recalling Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple. He would drink Kool-Aid laced with cyanide, but then realized that he didn't even know where he could score the harmful poison. He was finding that it was not as easy to kill himself as he first thought, but he was determined to do something.

He finally made the decision that he was going to hang himself. He went to his closet and grabbed one of his neck ties and tied it firmly around his neck. He grabbed his desk chair and moved to the middle of the room. He placed the chair under the light fixture, stood on the chair and tied the loose end to the light. He tied the tie good and tight, looked around the room for a moment and then kicked the chair out from under his feet. His body dangled from the ceiling, his feet kicked about under him just a foot above the ground. His face began to turn red immediately and he was choking violently. But before he could kill himself, the fixture gave way from the weight of his body and he feel to the floor. He lay their for a moment, in shock. He was going to have to explain to Dave why the light was broken and realized that that was going to be an awkward conversation. He gathered himself up and moved over to his bed and opened his nightstand drawer. He reached in a pulled out a medium sized pocket knife and put the blade to his wrist. But just as he was about to slice into his arm, there was a knock on the door. Frightened by the knock, he threw the knife across the room, stood up from his bed, fixed his hair in the mirror, and yelled to the person behind the door to be patient, he would be their in a moment.

Tommy opened the door and to his surprise it was a girlfriend of his that he had a crush on since first coming to NDNU. Christie told him that Dave told her to go grab him because they were all going to Half Moon Bay for the day and wanted to know if he wanted to come along. He rubbed the back of his neck and thought for a moment. Looking at Christie, Tommy realized that he did have something to live for, or at least that day, grabbed his coat hanging on the wall and closed the door behind him. This life could be tolerated for at least one more day.

NDNU is a pretty messed up place. I know it seems like there are no positive stories about the school but there are, these just seem to be more interesting.

If you or someone you know is danger of hurting themselves, take action now. There are people in this world that you can contact if you are in need.

love,
maddog