There are few things that I wish more than to be able to go back in time to May of 2009. Carly, my sister and only sibling, took her own life on this very day five years ago. I wouldn't go back in time to try to stop her because I know she only wanted to end her pain and struggles and to be honest, 25I probably would not be able to affect the outcome. Truth be told, I respect her decision and understand that it took a great deal of courage to do what she did. I would go back just to let her know that her brother loves her and that I would always love her, no matter what happened.
Carly had Borderline Personality Disorder and was an endstage alcoholic by the time she entered her early 30's (most likely due to her personality disorder). At least that is what the current theory is (one I subscribe to). Mental illnesses have an infuriating habit of being nebulous and undefinable so during the 17 years of Carly's struggles, we never really had an asnwer as to what the nature of her disease really was. Carly wasn't born with her disorder (as I wasn't either), but a genetic predisoposition to mental illness and addiction, along with a very troubled upbringing resulted in Carly becoming a very ill and unhappy person. I'm not going to delve into the specifics that made her they way she was because it was a very gradual and long term process......not to mention, I can't remember much of our childhood. I will say this, we both played roles in each other's diseases, albeit small ones, I don't hold this against Carly and I hope she would feel the same way about me.
When Carly was 16 she made her first attempt at suicide via overdose. During emergency attempts to pump Carly's stomach, some contents were aspirated into her lungs and she went into respiratory failure. Carly's situation was dire enough that she was flown to the University of Minnesota hospital in Minneapolis. She eventually made a recovery after a number of months. She would wear the prominent tracheostomy scar from her tracheotomy for the rest of her life unfortunately. During Carly's recovery in the hospital, placing her in a long term pediatric mental health facility was recommended (which I supported). Carly was adamant about returning home to Helena for her senior year of school and was able to convince my parents to let her do so. Now this is not an indictment of any of the decisions that were made regarding Carly's wellbeing, I am merely pointing out that it was clear she was very ill from a mental standpoint early on.
Carly went home for her senior year and began drinking socially at that point. This began a seventeen year long battle with alcohol addiction for her, one that she was never able to beat for more than a few months at a time. My father and mother did their best to help Carly get well and she spent time at numerous rehabilitation programs and high level mental health facilities. Nothing ever seemed to work and Carly fell further and further into despair as time went by.
I was too busy making my way through college, finding my place in the world, and slowly coming to the realization that Carly wasn't the only one who was very mentally ill to really have a whole lot of contact with my sister. I was a much different person back then than I am today. I harbored a great deal of resentment toward Carly regarding our childhood, all the time and resources my parents devoted to her, and her inability to stay sober or out of trouble for more than a few months at a time. In short, I had little compassion for my sister's plight. By the time I had entered my career in the early 2000's it became clear to me that Carly most likely was going to succeed in a suicide attempt in the future at some point and I did my best to make that known to my parents.
I can only imagine what it was like for Carly to struggle all of those years while she watched all of her friends and her brother move on with their adult lives while she remained trapped within the prison of her illness and alcoholism. Shame is a subject that I am extremely well versed in and I feel very sad for how she must have felt. Carly kept trying her hardest to make things work, but the cards were stacked against her by the time the mid 2000's arrived. Her drinking binges became so severe that she had to be hospitlized for detoxification each time and she had more than bout with acute pancreatitis, which became a chronic ailment for her in the last years of her life. Worse yet, the increasing intensity of each incident placed a great deal of strain upon her relationship with my parents and myself.
Carly became more severely depressed, ashamed of herself, alone, and miserable by 2008.....which was not the best of years for me either. I had been in Hawaii for 18 months at that point and the slow, downward spiral I was in began to accelerate rapidly enough to the point I became suicidal myself. It was clear that I needed to move home to the mainland, which was no small task at the time. Carly offered to come visit me during those last few weeks on the island to make sure that I was going to be safe and okay. While she didn't really help much with my moving activities, it was nice to have her there with me, even if we did have a squabble or two. I think this was the first real vacation Carly had been on for many years and I think she genuinely enjoyed herself, which is something that gives me great comfort now.
By the time 2009 arrived, things had been steadily getting worse for Carly and her incidents (meaning her drinking binges, for lack of a better term) became more and more severe. She even went so far as to get married in secret to a man she was in a rehab facility with while no one was looking one day. Dad came out to Montana to try to fix this mess and it was at this point that I told him that I thought we were looking at the end times for Carly. Then, one fateful afternoon, Carly appeared in the ER here at Community Medical Center while I was on shift. I believe her pancreatitis was bothering her so mom brought her here to see if they could do something for her pain. In hindsight, I wonder if Carly came to this hospital, the very hospital she was born in, to say goodbye to me. Sadly, at this point I was more than fed up with her "antics" and was only filled with anger and resentment. Though I was downstairs in the lab when she was in our ER, I did not go up to see her because I knew if I did, I was going to release over 15 years worth of resentment upon her. Though it meant that I didn't get the chance to see her days before she took her own life, I am thankful every day that I didn't go up to see her and unleash my fury upon her. I wouldn't be able to live with myself in the aftermath. Knowing there was nothing they could do to help Carly, she was released from the ER and mom took her home to Helena. Whether unwittingly or by choice, Carly had come full circle in her life with that visit to this hospital. Two days later she took a fatal dose of painkillers, left a note, and fell unconcious in her room at mom's condo. Alone. She died several hours later in a hospital in Great Falls and I got the call sometime around 5:00 that morning.
The next week was a huge blur, though I had predicted her suicide many years prior, I was still rocked to my very core. Preparations for her funeral in Helena were made for the next week and I made the decision to speak at the service. Speaking at her service has easily been one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life and I still can't talk about it without bursting into tears. I have never been one to prepare speeches when called upon to speak in front of people, I've always just been able to convey what I wanted to without the need for notes. There must have been 200 and 300 people there in attendance and I was being called to the podium far too soon for my liking. I stood there and sobbed for 5 minutes before I could speak anything intelligible. It was so hard, but I had to do it. I had to try to convey what a beautiful person my sister was and despite all of the resentment I had held against her, I loved her very much. Just writing about the event has brought me to tears again.
Carly's tale may only seem to be about misery and sorrow, but that wasn't the essence of who she was. Carly was an extremely intelligent, charming, and witty person. She was always very kind and she loved animals (very much like her brother loves his Dingoes). She was so brilliantly smart and so witty though. She remains the only person in the world who actually grasped the complexity of my sense of humor, mostly because it was very similar to my own. She was such a beautiful person, so many people told how Carly had touched their lives at her memorial service. So much so that it became too overwhelming for me and I had to hide in the recesses of the church until the reception was over and everyone who wasn't going to the grave side service left. She loved music so much, even more so than I do. She read a lot of books and was reading Hunter S. Thompson way before I ever considered doing so. In high school it appeared to everyone that she was destined to go on to great things in adulthood, something that must have weighed heavily upon her heart in the later years of her life.
Carly's suicide five years ago today has become the most influential and transformative event of my entire life. Before her death I was always so cold and clinical all of the time, I wasn't capable of near the compassion that I am now. I've spent a great deal of time trying my best to make sense of it all and gain a greater understanding of who she was. I've seen what it's like to live too long without hope and what that does to a person both on the inside and outside. I try my best to learn as much as I can from her experiences so her death won't be in vain. I understand why she did it, why she took her own life now. Odds are that I will follow in her path some time in the future because I understand that sometimes people just aren't equipped to live in the world and that the brightest lights burn the shortest (not that my light is necessarily very bright). I've see loss from a unique perspective now and it has made me a far more compassionate person. I've spent time at a facility with other people with mental health and substance abuse issues, I understand her far better now that I ever did when she was still alive. It's extremely sad, but it has to count for something. I wouldn't have been able to be there for mom in the final month of her life if it weren't for things that I had learned from Carly's death. I realize that she was the only other person who knew what we went through as children and was maybe the only person who could have helped me make any sense of it. In the back of my mind, I always thought we would be close later in life and that we would both help each other find the answers to what we were looking for. I love and appreciate Carly far more now than I ever did when she was alive and that fills me with such great sorrow. It bothers me so much that she essentially died alone and that she didn't know if her own brother loved her or not. Earlier this month, I got tattoos of our favorite X-Men character on my forearms to represent the two of us. One of the character as a hero (in memory of her) and one of the character after she had succumb to the darkness of her soul (to represent me). I put them on my forearms so I would see them and be reminded daily of her.
So I would go back if I could, not to stop her because I wouldn't want her to suffer any longer in life than she already had, I would go back to tell her how much I love her and how we aren't as different as we always thought we were. I would show her how much I've learned and changed because of her death. Most importantly, I would make sure that she wasn't alone when she passed. No one should die alone and in misery like that. Interestingly, one of the greatest compliments that anyone has ever given was from Carly. When Jack and I crash landed back on the mainland I had very hard time finding a place for him and I to live at here in Missoula, so Jack spent a couple of weeks with mom and Carly in Helena. I came over to Helena one weekend to see him, because I can't stand to be away from him (or Carter, but he wasn't with us then) and really needed some comfort from him at the time. We were rough housing on mom's couch when Carly came down the stairs and said, "You really love your dog." I don't know how long she had been watching us, but I think at that moment she saw the essence of who I am and just how much love I am capable of. It may not seem like a very important thing, but it has come to mean so much to me over the years. It's important to me that she could see just how soft and gentle I can be. Jack bonded with Carly while he spent time with him and mom, sleeping snuggled up against her under the covers like he has with me since he was a puppy. He was there with us at her grave side service as well.
I miss my sister every day and I will miss her every day until the day I die. I will always remember her for the beautiful person she really was. I will always be sad that I wasn't able to show her love while she was alive and for the loss of any possible future we could have had together. I spend a great deal of time trying to learn from her suicide and take meaning from it. I hope it would make her smile in knowing that her suicide helped her brother to change as much as he has and that there will always be a place in his heart dedicated to her. I love you, Carly. I always will and I'm sorry.
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