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Keris Myrick
is a suicide attempt survivor."I survived a suicide attempt."
Keris Myrick is the CEO of a peer-run organization and president of the NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) National Board of Directors. She was featured in the New York Times for her strategy of using a busy schedule to combat the schizoaffective and obsessive-compulsive disorders she lives with. She was 52 or 53 (she says she stopped counting at 50) when I interviewed her in Los Angeles, CA, on April 11, 2014.
Iâm an Army brat. My dad was in the military. I was born overseas and we traveled.
Every three years, we lived someplace different. We lived overseas a couple of times and then various places in the U.S. My fatherâs a Vietnam War veteran so there was a year or two, I recall, where my father was away and that was a really hard time. All of this in context of always being an outsider, just looking at me, seeing Iâm a person of color, and I was born in Bremerhaven, Germany, where itâs like, âOh, well thatâs interesting. The baby came out with all this hair.â In German, they kept telling my mom I was gonna lose all this hair.
My mom was like, âWhat are you talking about? No, sheâs not.â
They were like, âYes, babies, they lose all their hair.â
So, from birth, there was always something different and people would define me based on the overarching culture, and I was different from that overarching culture.
I had all this hair and, I’m African-American and Iâm part Native Americanâyou donât lose your hair as a baby. You keep your hair. But they were German and thatâs not their experience. So, from birth, there was always something different and people would define me based on the overarching culture, and I was different from that overarching culture. And different didnât mean good all the time, so trying to understand and love myself and be comfortable with myself, trying to have a lot of self-confidence, was really, really hard because there were always a lot of stereotypes about what people expected of a black person or a student.
My mom and dad would say, “You have to sit in the front of the classroom. You have to be better than. You canât just be 100 percent. You have to be better than.”
And I donât blame them for that at all. I think that was a way of them making sure that I wasnât taken advantage ofâboth my brother and I, as kidsâand helping us to have self-esteem and feel comfortable with who we are. But inevitably, it just always made me feel very differentâand again, this idea that different wasnât good.
I think the first time I started having some real problems was around the age of 8. Thatâs right around the time that my dad was getting ready to be deployed to Vietnam, and we were living on an Army base, which was rare for us. We always lived in the community. We didnât really live on Army bases all the time, and when we lived on the Army base, there were a lot of people who were being deployed. It was Army culture, military culture. I was about 7 or 8 when I saw a kid from my class hang himself on the jungle gym.
None of us knew what to do and I just remember running to the teacher and saying, âThereâs snot on his nose.â Thatâs all I kept saying, “There’s snot running down his nose. Heâs not right. Is there something the matter?”
When they came out, they kind of ushered us off and then tried to take care of the little boy. Nobody talked to us about it. Nobody explained what he had done or why he had done what he had done.
It was just sort of this, ‘Yeah, shuffle them off and letâs pretend like it didnât happen, and then weâre just gonna go back to life just the way it was before.’ We kept playing on the same jungle gym. I didnât play on that thing because I knew that what I had seen. Itâs not supposed to happen.
When you live on base, they play âTapsâ in the morning and in the evening, and if youâre an officer (if youâre anybody, but especially if youâre an officer), you have to stop what youâre doing and salute. So we were driving homeâI guess it was 5 oâclock or sundownâthey were playing âTaps,â and somewhere on base they were lowering the American flag. He got out of the car and he saluted. He got back in the car and he kind of turned around.
We were in the backseat, my brother and I, and he said, âIâm going to Vietnam.â And then he turned around and just drove off. Just kind of drove home.
It was just kind of like, âWait, what? Thatâs it?â
Nobody said anything, and I was afraid to look at my dad, look at my mom, look at my brother.
I was thinking, âOkay, he just said it, like, “Oh, weâre going to the grocery store,” or, “Oh, you know, Iâm going to work and Iâll be back later,” or something.’
There are several years of my life when that happened that are somewhat missing.
He just said it like that, but I knew what it meant. Iâd seen the pictures and the television. It wasnât live like it is today, but you could still see the ravages of war. All I remember was that we moved to Texas. We went to Chinese language school to learn Chinese, âcause my dad did propaganda work. The next thing I knew, he was in Vietnam. Thatâs all I know. I donât know how he got there. I donât know if we drove him to the airport. I donât remember any of it. There are several years of my life when that happened that are somewhat missing. The only thing that I can really, really recall is he sent home a postcard, which he did all the time. He sent postcards. They used to record messages home on these little 75 RPM records, and they were mainly for my mom. We could listen to parts of them, but mainly they were really for my mom.
All we heard was, âKids, I miss you,â but one time he sent this postcard home and it was right after Christmas.
It was of a Santa with all of these little Vietnamese kids, and I knew that a lot of these kids were adopted and stuff. He kept saying it was a magical postcard.
I thought, âOh yeah, itâs magical because maybe this is the first time theyâve seen Santa Claus and these are kids who maybe donât have parents because they lost parents in the war.’
I kept looking at the pictures and I was like, âOh, itâs magical âcause heâs black.â
There was a black Santa in this really crappy ass outfit. His beard was all dirty and I was really obsessing about the details of the picture.
Then I said, âWait, wait, somethingâs not right here.â
I looked closer. It was my dad, so my dad was the Santa. First of all, he was really thin, so even though he was wearing this suit, it was all wrong. All of a sudden, I got mad. I got really mad.
I was like, âWait, thatâs my dad. I donât give a shit whatâs going on. Thatâs my dad.”
I didnât understand how he could be there with all those children and leave us at home, and so I took a no. 2 pencil and I erased his face off of the picture. I got in so much shit. I got in so much trouble. My mother didnât understand it. She just scolded me for erasing his face off the picture.
All this to say, there were all these different things that happened that I never had language for and I never had words for. When he came back, I didnât talk to him until I was 18. Even though we were in the same house, and we had a very loving, very close family, I never talked to him.
It was very like, âYeah, okay dad. Yeah, sure, whatever. Yeah, Iâm okay. Yeah, okay, whatever.â
One day, he went off on me about it and thatâs when I realized, ‘Wow, I have all this stuff.’
As we talked about some of the stuff, we realized that when I was 5 and going to kindergarten, I was the only black kid in kindergarten. We were in Germany. In Germany, you learn to speak German and we did everything with the Germans. My dad wanted us to be part of the cultureânot live there as Americans, but live there as part of the community. There was a teacher who was abusing me. My mom had to go to the hospital. And the teacher was physically abusing me. I donât even remember this. My mom had to tell me. She caught the teacher eventually. Even to this day, I have certain fears about being late. The teacher kept saying that I was late to school.
My mother said, âBut she doesnât know how to tell time. Sheâs 5.â
There werenât digital watches then. You had to learn how to tell time. So there was all this stuff and I didnât have words for this stuff. Nobody understood this stuff. I didnât talk about this stuff, and I donât think peopleâmy parents or my family or teachers or anybodyâunderstood how those experiences are not normal. And for children, no matter how much resilience you have, those are very, very extreme and they affect you deeply.
So I was affected deeply and always thought to myself, âIâm not gonna live to 16. Iâm not gonna live to 18. Iâm not gonna live âtil 21. Iâm not gonna live âtil 22.â
It was always in my head that life wasnât worth living. It was just too freaking painful. And I never tried anything, but I just had the âlife is too painfulâ thoughts.
Finally, when I did attempt for the first time, my therapist thought something was going on and he suspected.
I kept telling him, âTake my dog. I have a dog. Take my dog.â
And he kept saying things like, âWhy are you trying to give away your good stuff?”
I didnât care about anything else. I just didnât want my dog to be alone.
I didnât care about anything else. I just didnât want my dog to be alone.
I said, âI donât want the dog to be alone. You have kids. Take the dog. Theyâll like the dog. The dogâs kind of a pain in the ass. I donât want the dog.â
He was like, âNo, no, you want the dog.â
I was like, âNo, I donât want the damn dog. Take the fucking dog. Take the dog!”
He called the police to come and check on me and the gas was going, and I donât really like to talk about that kind of stuff.
When the police came, it wasnât like, “Knock, knock. Hi. Hello. Are you okay in there? Everything okay?”
It was very aggressive. They came. They were very aggressive. I lived in an apartment building with maybe thirty other apartments. It was very small. Even though I didnât really know my neighbors, we all kind of knew what the others looked like, and I was the only one who looked like me that lived in the apartment building.
And here come the police and they were rapping on my door, âPolice! Police!â
I was thinking, âWhat is that? Theyâre kind of interrupting my thing. I got a thing going on right here, right now. What are they doing here?â
They just kept making it louder and I thought, âNow itâs embarrassing.â
So I was like, âOkay, Iâm trying to kill myself here and Iâve got this embarrassing situation with the police going on over here.â
I ran to the door and I opened the doorâand Iâll never forget thisâI opened the door and I said, âGet in here. Get in here right now.â
They were like, âWhat? What? What just happened?â They came in and shut the door
I said, âWhy are you yelling? You canât be standing outside of my door yelling like that.â
They said, âDo we smell gas?â Then they kind of took care of everything and they said, âAre you okay?â
I said, âIâm fine. I was kind of taking care of some shit right here and you guys are all up in my space.â
They said, âWell, we got a call from your doctor that everythingâs not okay. Is everything okay?â
I donât remember all the details of all of that, but basically, they said I needed to go to the hospital with them. I didnât want to go.
I said, âIf Iâve gotta go, let me pack some pajamas or some clothes or something.â
They said, âOh, you can get that later.â
I was like, âAlright, so youâre gonna take me and then weâre gonna come back.”
I donât know how I thought I was gonna get back and get my clothes, but they kept saying, âNo, you can get that later.â
So I said okay. When we went out to go to the hospital, they asked me to turn around so they could handcuff me.
I didnât understand that either, and I said, âWhat do you mean, handcuff me?â
They said, âWell, we have to handcuff you.â
I said, âI canât walk out of here handcuffed. By the way, I didnât do anything wrong. What did I do wrong? Did I commit a crime? What did I do wrong? I donât understand. Why are you handcuffing me?â
They said, âWell, by law, we have to handcuff you.â
The whole process was very degrading and humiliating. I begged them. Out of everything that had happened that day, I was like, âI canât walk out of here handcuffed. Canât you handcuff me in front and put something over?â
They said, âNo, we have to handcuff you in back.â
And they handcuffed me in back. They walked me out. Thank god, I donât think anybody was looking. They walked me out. We had to stop by the police station. I had to see some young black kid being put in four-point restraints on a table because he had stole his grandfatherâs gun.
I kept thinking, âWhat did I do wrong? Am I a criminal?â
I kept asking, “Am I a criminal? What did I do wrong?”
Eventually, they finally got me over to the hospital. When we got to the hospital, they had to drop their guns off in this gun thing. It was just really disconcerting. So they had to drop their guns, handguns, which I didnât even notice.
It was the wrong hospital, and I kept telling them, âOh, youâve got me at the wrong hospital now.â I kept saying, âI think Iâm at the wrong hospital. Iâm supposed to be at blah, blah, blah hospital.â
They said, âNo, we have to start here.â
So I thought, ‘I need to shut up.’
I didnât know anything about psych hospitals.
I didnât know anything about psych hospitals. All I knew was, âShut up because youâve seen what happens in the movies.â
So I didnât say anything and then they came back and the nurse asked me if she could take my temperature. I thought if she took my temperature, it mean that I would have to stay there. Like, it would open a chart, it would open a file. So I said no, and I also didnât understand why, if I was there for trying to kill myself, what the hell my temperature have to do with anything. It didnât make any sense. So then I said no.
And then I did this: âNo, thank you.â
I was like Little Miss Sweetie Pie, saying, âNo, thank you.â
She goes, âOh, itâs gonna be like that, is it?â
And I was like, ‘Okay, wait a minute, what?’
She walked away and I thought, ‘Okay, good, sheâs gone.’
The next thing I knew, four burly guys came up and it was a takedown, because as soon as I saw them coming at me, human nature said, âProtect yourself.â
I said, âNo, youâre not touching me.â
And then they tussled around on the ground and they said, âTake her shoes because sheâs gonna kick us with these shoes. Sheâs kicking. Sheâs kicking. Take her shoes.â They ripped these shoes off me, and I wasnât able to wear these shoes for about five years after that happened. Couldnât stand the sight of them. They were my favorite shoes, but I couldnât stand the sight of them.
They took my shoes off and gave me a shot, five-point restrained me to a bed, forgot about me. I had to go to the bathroom. Iâm really lucky I can hold it for a really, really, really long time.
Finally, when the doctor came in, he said, âAre you calm now?â
I said, âI was calm from the very beginning. I was calm all along. I would have been better off had you guys just left me to do what I was gonna do. This is worse. This is worse.â
Iâve had several unfortunate experiences like that. I donât go to the hospital easily. I guess I thought, ‘If thatâs what itâs like, thatâs what itâs always like, whether you walk in on your own or somebody else walks you in.’
I think the bigger issue is that the feelings never went away, that I was never really able to talk about them. I never really trusted anybody. I had a very good therapist, but I had the hardest time telling him my deepest, darkest. It was just too painful.
Once we would get to that certain level, it was like, ‘okay, but the 45 minutes is gonna end and then I have to go home and live with this,’ and I couldnât live with it. So I figured, why bring it to the surface? Keep it suppressed.
That’s how I lived most of my life until finally, my therapist and I were playing Chutes and Ladders. He was a child psychologist. What can I say? I noticed all these games, and so I asked him one day, âcause I wasnât talking, I asked him if we could play Chutes and Ladders. I had never played it before.
He said, “Sure,” and so he taught me how to play and we sat on the floor.
They have the little cardboard pieces.
He got ready to take a little boy piece and I said, âNo, take the girl piece.â
I made him take the black girl piece and I took the white boy piece. In that way, every time the girl did something, I was able to talk about what the girl did on the game board. I was able to tell the story that way. Every time she would do something, I would say it was either crappy or sheâs not good enough, or âNo, thatâs not how it works in society. See? Iâm gonna roll the higher number because I rule.”
I was the little white boy kind of moving around. Thatâs how we began to untangle a little bit of what was going on, by game play and me being able to talk through the game, so it didnât have to be me. I could put it on the game. I donât know how to explain that. Thatâs the best way I can explain it.
Over time, I think itâs gotten better. I have a psychiatrist whoâs now my therapist, as well. Itâs very rare that a psychiatrist will do therapy, but he does, and I think heâs quite good. Now Iâm able to talk a little bit easier without the games and stuff. I mean, not the games but the game boards and things like that.
He finally said that I have this…I want to say “habit,” but I donât know if thatâs the right wordâŠbut when things get really stressful or overwhelming for me, I beat myself up mercilessly.
I think, ‘Iâm not good enough. I fucked up. Why the hell am I on this earth? Itâs so stupid to make me struggle like this, and Iâm never gonna be good enough.’
I habitually go to, âI need to end my life.â
Maybe for the past ten years or so, that was an everyday battle, an everyday battle of trying to get up and know that I had something to live for. That’s the cool thing about my little dog, Steinbeck. I have to get up and I have to walk him. I have to play with him. He makes me laugh. Heâs the most hilarious dog on the face of the earth. Heâs cuddly. He likes to sit in my lap. Heâs a lapdog.
Once, I got in a car accident and I had to go to the hospital. They pulled the records and saw that I had [attempted suicide] before. They immediately had someone come and assess me to see if I had [attempted] suicide. I said that I hadn’t, that these people ran into me in a corner. The police said they couldnât figure out who was at fault, so it was a no-fault accident. At the end of the day, I ended up in an involuntary commitment in a psych hospital because they used my past experience [against me], even though I said that’s not what was going on. I was on my way to school, why would I [attempt] suicide on my way to school?
I was like, âNo, I was going to school. Going for a meeting at school. People were expecting me.â
If I have a commitment and people are expecting me to be somewhere, Iâll put my suicide on hold. Have always done it. Thatâs why I always keep busy. So if I keep busy, I have to be at work, I have to do this obligation, I have to do a speaking engagement, I have to be at a conference, I have to be at a board meeting, I have to do whatever, I donât have time for suicide. I donât have time to take my own life because other people are depending on me. I know that sounds really weird, that it should be me depending upon me. I feel like I should learn how to just do it myself, but this is the way that it works. I just keep busy. I keep commitments.
Iâm like, âNope, canât do that today. Gotta be here.â
It doesnât happen these days as much, maybe for the last three or four years but, if I wake up and I have that feeling of doom and dread, Iâll look at my calendar and go, âOh shit, canât do it today. Got that meeting. Letâs see. Got this going on. Howâs tomorrow looking? Well, I wonder if I can move that.â
Iâm just sitting there, trying to figure out where I can schedule it in. I donât schedule it in, so thatâs my plan. My plan is just to keep busy. My plan is not to have that kind of plan but to have another kind of plan, so I just keep busy and make my work worthwhile.
[…]
My first therapist would tell meâwhich was very helpful, I donât understand whyâhe would say, âIâll hold the hope for you.â
I was like, âOkay, thatâs nice. You do that. I donât know what the hell that means. You just hold that hope for me. Iâll be over here killing myself. Have a good time with that hope. Youâll be holding it, Iâll be dead. Itâs all good, itâs all good.”
Then I’d be in the act of, and I would hear his voice saying, âIâm holding the hope, Iâm holding the hope.â
Then I’d think, âI donât know what that means, but it must mean something important for me to try to see if I can put this off for another hour, another two hours, another day, another whatever.â
It was something that resonated, I donât know why.
She told me about the day I was born, how much she wanted a daughter and how, when I came out, it was a little girl.
And my mother told meâeventually, when I told her what was going onâshe told me about the day I was born, how much she wanted a daughter and how, when I came out, it was a little girl.
She just broke into tears, and she said, âThatâs what itâs all about. Youâre supposed to be here. Youâre my little girl, and I wished you into this world.â So she could be the only person who could wish me out. So whenever I [start feeling that way], I try to think of my mom telling me the story of the day that I was born.