Average. Average is the first thing that would come to anyone’s mind when they first saw this man’s face. Curly black hair, forgettable face, generic sense of fashion. Not a single thing stood out except for the bandage in his wrist. The blood had dried, and it must have been new. It was still white and clean.
His record wasn’t any different. It was perfectly average, too. Nothing stood out. No record of abuse, no record of criminal activity, and no noteworthy achievement, either. He was an average man, an average student, living an average school life. About the only thing that stood out was his suicide attempt 3 days ago, and now he’s here, in my office, looking at me with that stupid half-smile.
“Why did you do that?”
“Did what?”
“That.”
I pointed to his wrist. His expression did not change. He only acknowledged the existence of that wound with a simple ‘oh.’
“Because it was supposed to be quick and easy.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said, because it was supposed to be quick and easy. Just slit the artery, then it should be settled. No one said that it will hurt like hell.”
“No, not that,” I said.
“Why did you attempted suicide?”
“Interesting question,” he replied.
“I wonder about that, too.”
“So you didn’t even know why you tried to take your own life?”
He shrugged.
“I guess ‘doing it just because’ is out of your textbook, then?”
“Yes, yes it is. Now speak.”
He looked somewhat miffed by my bluntness.
“Well, I told you already, I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? You put knife on your wrist until it bleeds and you didn’t know why. Should I expect to find you pushing the same knife on your relatives’ jugular one day? For no reason too?”
“What, no! I’d never…slow down, mister. You’re supposed to help me here.”
“I am, and your attitude wouldn’t help either of us. I’m trying to keep order in this place, before you try derail it so you could leave without reflecting anything.”
There was surprise in his voice. His first thoughts when stepping into my office was probably something along the line of ‘I’ll pretend to listen to whatever he said and go back to my old habit.’ Wrong. One of the few things people often takes for granted is the kindness from people like me. They think ‘helping’ involve some tender words of encouragement and a confirmation that they’re all some super special person. They’re not. They’re just another dime-a-dozen bag of emotions, craving emotional confirmation to justify their position. Sometimes helping involves putting sense into their head, figuratively nailing it, if I have to.
“Alright, look, I…,” He said, hesitatingly.
“I’ve been reading this book, you know, by Freud. There’s this concept, it’s called Death drive, todestrieb. You gotta know about that, right?”
“Yes, of course I do,” I replied.
“I also know that Freud’s entire body of work is academically obsolete for more than half a century. Try again. Whatever you think is affecting you is nothing more than a placebo.”
And your interpretation of that concept is wrong too, I added in my mind.
“Crap. Well, I…”
“Is it something you don’t want to talk about?”
I interjected before he could finish his sentence.
“No, it’s not.”
“Well, we could talk about it, then.”
“I don’t feel like talking about it. Not right now.”
“So you don’t actually want to talk about it?”
“Not right now.”
“Then, when?”
“I don’t know, maybe when I feel like it.”
“And when would you feel like it? Next week? Next month? Next year?”
“I…”
“The first step to reach the root of the problem is to acknowledge that it exist, Mister Kennedy. Then we can move to a proper conversation and recovery. I am not a miracle worker, I won’t but able to help you if you refuse to divulge the information necessary for us to start curing you.”
He was silent, there’s doubt in his face.
“Next appointment, then,” I said, breaking the silence.
“Would you be ready to tell me the next time we meet?”
“Yes,” he said.
“I think I’d ready by then.”
“Good, at least we’re getting somewhere,” I replied.
“I’ll schedule the appointment, how about next week?”
“Yes, next week. Next week should be good.”
We exchanged a few pleasantries, just a way to end this on a less awkward note. If I wish this to be successful, I’d do well to make sure he’d be on a better state of mind the next time he visits. We said our farewell, and he closed the door on his way out.
He didn’t came by the next week, or the week after that. I had my doubts, but it seemed that today was his first and only session.
***
Truth to be told, I had quite the difficulties to recall the face of some of my patients. It’s a simple human flaw, we were not made to keep relationships with more than a dozen or more people. Dunbar explained it excellently; our monkey brain still works within the scale of a tribe, modern convenience just increase how far we could be apart, not how many we care about. So it’s understandable when I didn’t recognize this patient until I read his record. He was just that unremarkable, even after a year had passed by.
“Mr. Kennedy,” I said.
“I think I remember you.”
He glanced at me, eyes fidgeting like a drunken fish.
“Yes,” he said.
“I’ve been here before, about a year ago.”
There’s guilt in his eyes. I could tell.
“So, it’s a noose now?”
He didn’t answer, he simply nodded weakly. I could see the fading pattern of a rope on his neck.
“I guess I’ll just have to keep it simple,” I said.
“Why did you do that?”
He turned his face away from me.
“I don’t know.” He answered.
“I don’t know, or I don’t want to tell you?”
He was silent.
I sighed. This is all too familiar; the main obstacle to find a cure is, more often than not, their own ego. If the recipient is unwilling to receive help, then no matter the method every attempt would end in failure. Too many times people are too afraid to admit their weaknesses, their real weaknesses. Not the weaknesses they told people about to make themselves look humble; those are just small, insignificant, unimportant holes in the cardboard fortress that is their ego.
“Alright,” He said, after a minute of silence.
“I’ll tell you.”
Then he starts rambling. As expected, he was only barely cognizant of his own failings. There’s many things that doesn’t add up, it was a jumbled mess of sometimes contradictory information. People often think that they know themselves the best, but perspective and objective truth is equally important to understand their position in a situation. Our brain is predisposed towards painting ourselves in a positive light; that is, memories are often warped to serve the narrative in which we are in the right. We are creature of bias, bias is hardwired in our brain. Understanding and minimizing this is first step to maturity, and yet people often fails to do so.
Mister Kennedy’s main problem, from what I could tell, is embarrassment. There’s no traumatic experience, no secret history of abuse. His was a case I often see in my line of work; they were never good enough for themselves. He expected greatness when being good is enough, and beat himself over it. He set the bar too high the only option was to fail. He thought he’d never be good enough, ignoring how people around him love him for who he is. He expected himself to fail, to not measure up to the challenge, to fall in a hole he dig by himself. So rather than to face that, he chooses death. He chooses to die while he was still in their good grace, before his imagined failure could cost him his relationship. It’s the classic recipe of anxiety mixed with depression and low self-esteem.
“So that’s your problem?” I asked again.
“Yes.”
To admit this problem is to admit that they’re not even good enough to have a ‘real’ problem. They’ll feel guilty for having such a mundane reason for ending their lives, never mind that no matter their reason, suicide is just a silly thing to do. It’s a vicious cycle only our paradoxically primitive and advanced monkey brain could do.
“Mister Kennedy?” I said.
“Yes?”
“I have something to tell you.”
And in the end, the only thing I could give are words of encouragement and a bit of moral support. This is about the only method that I could start with, considering how infuriatingly simple his problem actually is. Love yourself a bit more, don’t push yourself too hard, and stop comparing yourself with other people. It’s the sort of make believe cure you’d find in self-help book, and I had to gag when everything’s over. We could try a more reasonable approach once he developed a bit of a backbone, but for now I need to focus to rebuild his self-esteem.
“So, next week?” He asked.
“Yes, if you could.”
We exchanged a short farewells, and he once again left my office. I couldn’t be sure if he’d keep his promise this time around, but at the very least I could be sure that there would be visitor. After all, that’s the eternal predicament of this monkey brain of ours.
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