12/6/23
Newsletter #525
The Crack of Dawn
Suicide in our society is a forbidden subject. Just saying the word suicide can get you locked up for two weeks in the nearest psychiatric ward. My late mother, who was severely hooked on Oxycontin, Oxycodone, Percodan, Percocet, etc., and was in her mid-eighties, said the S-word to her psychiatrist and got a week in the looney bin for the mere utterance of the word – at 85 years old!
So, I was broke and drunk from the end of 2006 to the summer of 2011. I appeared at conventions, sold DVDs online, I became the film reviewer for True West magazine (which didn’t pay much, but I enjoyed it) and I actually started and ran a walkie talkie rental business. I did this throughout the course of Michigan’s 40% film incentive program under Governor Jennifer Granholm, which was a smashing success. Many of the dormant film supply companies here in Detroit that had fizzled in the 1990s came back to life, as did quite a few new companies, like mine. Back then it was not uncommon to see movie stars like George Clooney, Clint Eastwood or Al Pacino, who were staying at the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham, a swanky suburb a few miles from here, go walking by. Since it was going so well, when Gov. Granholm completed her two terms, and Republican, Rick Snyder, was elected, the first thing he did was to kill the film incentive program, putting me and all of the other production support companies immediately out of business. Then, once Snyder had his evil mojo working, he decided to fix Flint’s water system.
When I was flat out of money, and didn’t seem like I had the wherewithal to make anymore, nor would anybody lend me any more, nor could I see a hope in hell of ever being hired to direct again, I naturally became completely hopeless. Sadly for drunks, when they become hopeless, they also become unbearable. Nobody wanted to talk to me, and I don’t blame them.
Now, instead of putting in some time researching the subject – which is more complicated than it appears – I simply took all of the pharmaceutical drugs that I had in my cupboard. I don’t take opioids, so I didn’t have any of those, nor did I have any strong sedatives. In fact, among all of my pills – blood pressure, high cholesterol, an anti-depressant, low-dosage Xanax – there wasn’t anything that was nearly fatal. Then I did exactly what all unserious suicidal people do: I called someone (my sister) and said what I did. I would come to learn that people who are serious about suicide intentionally don’t call anybody because they know that they will intercede.
All of the Xanax knocked me out, but certainly didn’t come anywhere close to killing me. I woke up in a small room St. Joseph-Mercy Hospital in Pontiac, overseen by a person reading a book. I woke up and passed out a half dozen times, and each time there was a different person sitting in the same chair reading a book. Suicide watch. Then I awoke to find not one former girlfriend, but two, then passed back out. When next I awoke my sister Pam was standing there. She said, “They’re taking you up to the sixth floor.” Then two big, black orderlies (who are now called “techs”), rolled me on a gurney to an elevator and took me up to the locked, sixth floor, psychiatric ward. One of the techs, I would later learn, was named Anthony. He was a huge, baldheaded, black man of about six-five, built like a brick shipyard, and he never smiled. Never.
Everything, including my clothes, was taken from me. No phone, no wallet, no money. I was given a hospital gown, and a pink plastic container holding a toothbrush and a little soy sauce packet of toothpaste. Then, in a little room with only a desk and two chairs, overseen by the enormous, Anthony, standing there with his arms crossed, a nurse presented me with a form. A consent form. Briefly, you either sign the consent form saying it’s OK if they hold you in the locked ward for as long as they see fit – they tell you it will be at least a week, possibly two, but who knows? – or you can forgo signing it, in which case it has to go in front of a judge, and that never takes less than two weeks. Decide. Right now. Being a tough guy, I put my finger on the form and pushed it off the desk onto the floor. Anthony stated flatly, “Pick that up.” I hastily picked it up and signed it.
I was put in a room with an 80-year-old man in a hospital gown named Seymour who was about to get a procedure — and MRI or a CAT scan — that entailed him having to drink a gallon of radioactive fluid. He was from Scotland but had lived in Canada most of his life. He was on so many strong meds that between his Scottish accent and his slurring I could barely understand him. He explained that he had a tendency to wander away from the house at night, so his wife had him locked up. I thought, “Well, sure, this whole thing is a bad situation, but it’s not that bad.” That’s precisely when Seymour blurted quite clearly, “Oh, shit!” and attempted to bolt for the bathroom, which he didn’t come close to making. In a panoramic arc, Simon sprayed diarrhea across the entire room – the bed, the floor, the walls – before he got to the bathroom.
I immediately began to gag. I staggered out of the room, up to the front desk, took a breath and explained what had just happened. None of the nurses (also called techs) and the techs seemed even slightly interested. I asked, “Can I sleep somewhere else?” They said, “Sure, sleep in the Quiet Room.” The Quiet Room was the size of a utility closet, had a mattress and a blanket, and no doorhandles on the inside. When they shut you in there, you weren’t getting out. But they didn’t shut me in; they left the door slightly open. I fell upon the mattress and went right to sleep. I’d had a hell of a day.
And there you have it.
I didn't really enjoy writing those.
Thanks for sharing this. Has inspired me to write down my own personal psych ward stories.