Warning graphic and may be triggering.
For the first several years after Michael returned home from Afghanistan, his new norm consisted of daily suicide ideations with an act on or attempt about every 3 months. Because of his safety risk, the Army kindly put me in the position of lifesaver for my husband and deposited more money into his paycheck for my troubles. It wasn’t until the 3rd attempt and ER visit/hospitalization that I began to question what role the Army and his Doctors expected me to play.
The first two attempts he was released to my care with a safety plan. After the first, to me, this meant to keep quick killing items out of his reach, to react or respond to his every need, and to make sure I always slept with one eye open. I was on guard 24×7. After the second, it meant I needed to also watch for slow killing items like steak knives and bed sheets. By the third attempt I was disheveled, unnerved and the thought of taking him home with me scared me more than death. I didn’t know how I could keep going. I was already burned out. I went from running a successful software consulting home based business 8 to 5 to reallocating hours so I was working 4 to noon, to reducing hours and giving up contracts so I was working 4 to 8 while he was asleep until one morning he was demanding attention and an argument erupted and I put my foot down and said I have a call with a client, I can’t give you the attention you want right now. I was about 15 minutes into that call when I heard the sound of a 9 mil chambering a round. I went ghost white, felt nauseous and expressed I had an emergency and had to hang up. I ran across the living room to our bedroom to find Michael lying in bed with a gun in his mouth and tears running down his cheeks. The next few moments felt like forever as I began to negotiate with everything in me for him not to pull the trigger. I talked about our kids. I talked about us. I tried to be as hopeful and positive as possible while still balanced with making sure he understood the consequences. Finally, I threatened that I would hate him for all eternity and would surrender my salvation. My heart was pierced at the utterance of those words, but they were the words, that when they sunk in that I was willing to lay down my eternal life that he may live, that caused him to remove the weapon from his mouth and hand it to me. They were the words that were strong enough to have him consider pain affliction vs pain infliction.
After that, when I could breath again, I demanded to the doctors that they would keep him or they would help me figure out what my role was as lifesaver aka caregiver. The first question I had: What is a safety plan? I explained the doctors have now given me discharge paperwork three times that says he’s released to me with a safety plan, but I’ve never been given a safety plan. The doctor half smiled as if I was joking. When he realized I was dead serious he took time to explain to me that the safety plan had nothing to do with me. He said it was worked out between Michael and his care team and illustrated how Michael would make sure he was safe, not anyone else. My role within the plan would be a support, someone he would turn to when overwhelmed by life, but I was in no away accountable or responsible for his enactment of his safety plan.
While this offered a momentary sigh of relief there were still other obstacles to consider. One obstacle was determining how he got the weapon from a safe only I had the combination to. Another obstacle was how different and ugly this attempt seemed. This one seemed more like an attack on me than a broken, war tattered man whose anguish weighed so heavily on him it tipped the balance. This one seemed like the outburst of a toddler who wasn’t getting the piece of candy it wanted. While it seemed kind of like this, I brushed it aside. There was a part of me that said that would be unreal, it just couldn’t, the heart of darkness that it would take to punish someone with suicide. I’m overthinking this here.
Overthinking. Something that is starting to change inside of me. Pair that with opperant conditioning performed by a mad scientist and you have a potion of disaster. Now that we’ve developed a willingness to die at his own hands, I was always thinking about how to prevent that. The lifeguard shirt is hard to take off. We had moved beyond just the instruments of death to other contributing factors. Avoiding the triggers. Always thinking of how things I say or don’t and things I do or don’t might actually be deadly. Sharing my struggles and burdens could tip that scale. Sharing my feelings could tip that scale. Opening my mouth could tip that scale. Not attending to his every need or desire could tip that scale. His mental state was one that required constant attention to help him process and battle the thoughts that tormented his mind. His coping mechanism of isolation put me in prison as well. It was a perfect balance between enabling and co-dependence that seemed inescapable.
One Couple Under God 