no 41

Have you accidentally looked into the sun or bright light and then looked away, and the image burned into your eyelids? That’s an afterimage.

I had an incredibly jarring experience this week. How my body lived through it was as palpable and real as my near-death water accident last August.

Trigger Warning: Euthanasia

This week, I write about some experiences and thoughts related to euthanasia and assisted suicide. Then, you'll read about me practicing Afterimage-- observing what happened in my body as I experienced the event and noticing what's still there after a week. If you’re sensitive to this topic, please skip today’s installment, offer yourself something gentle to do, and join me again next week.

Here's what I saw, heard, or sensed that’s stayed with me over the past week. Let’s begin.

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No Love from Thanatos

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2023 March, last Thursday. Home at 4:07 AM

I decided to undergo euthanasia.

Minutes after the injection, I could tell where the interior walls of my veins were in my arms and legs. With each pulse, my limbs thrashed. My heart moved into my head, my pulse fast and loud, drowning out all other sounds around me.

It was time.

I took one last look around the room, a storage space that had once been a bedroom. It looked like some linen closets I've seen in mid-sized family-run hotels in Japan. Steel shelves towered over me. Tidying those shelves was on someone’s to-do list. The fluorescent lights hurt my eyes.

The bed wasn't as comfortable as I thought it was. It wasn't even a bed; it was folded futons in a heap. I wasn't in the room I reserved.

I was alone. This was not how I imagined I'd go.

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I noticed I had motricity. Did they get the dosage wrong? I sat up.

Why am I having these thoughts? Shit. Is it not working? It's not working.

Could I rebook? Get a cozy room with a view of the mountains? Make sure my family’s with me?

If I survive this ... ugh: severe neurological damage. Will I survive? Do I want to survive?

I clambered off the heap of futons and went downstairs. I joined my parents at the kitchen table.

Curious about what happened, my dad silently opened a pdf document, A Guidebook for Families. My mom suggested I shouldn’t complain. My nephew came to fist-bump me. My daughter walked past me to grab a glass from the cupboard. We locked eyes.

I told them the euthanasia drugs weren’t working. But it’s just as well because I didn’t want to spend the last moments of my life in that sad closet alone.

I wanted them with me. And could I get a better room? An actual room with a nice comfy bed?

The kitchen table started to disappear. Then, like house lights coming on inside the theater, it signaled the end of the nightmare.

Fade out: I'm alive.

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Across the River Styx

I woke up, this time in real life. It was just after 4 AM.

In desperation, I climbed out of bed to outrun the nightmare chemicals still in my body. I stood up and let my hands guide me along the wall, using them for eyes in the darkness.

Touching the walls called me back to Earth, reminding me I was here and alive on Thursday morning, in the waking world.

I took deep, slow breaths and fumbled for a glass of water in the dark. I took deliberate sips, conscious of the cool smooth rim of the glass on my parched lips. “I’m awake. I’m not dreaming. I'm in my real bedroom. It's Thursday. I am safe.”

My heart crossed over with me from the nightmare. It was still racing and loud. I tried to pee the euthanasia cocktail out of my body. It didn’t work. I washed my hands for a long time, then washed my face. After that, I had another glass of water.

I came to. And I remembered another nightmare.

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1978, The Hilton San Antonio at 3 AM

In my sleep, a mean witch told me I would never, ever, ever come back, at least not to this exact coordinate on Earth. Not ever again. I woke up crying when a wave of sadness was about to swallow me up.

I sat up and climbed out of bed. I led myself into the bathroom as the rest of my family slept, using my hands to guide me through the darkness. The wall and the bathroom mirror were cool to the touch. I hiccuped goodbyes to the walls and the mirrors through my sobs, “for I shall never, ever see you again.”

My mom woke up and whispered, asking me what I was doing in the bathroom. She offered me a small glass of water and gently guided me back to bed.

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Wisdom from My Body

Later that morning, still slightly hungover from the nightmare, I had a lightbulb moment and had two pieces of wisdom revealed to me:

Wisdom 1

- I’ve had a consistent routine for self-regulation after nightmares since I was five years old

- How I ground myself from a nightmare is precisely how I self-soothe when triggered: I move immediately into my body
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Wisdom 2

Over breakfast, I typed “euthanasia, meaning, dream, interpretation” into Google. I skimmed the very first result:

The thought of dignified endings and new beginnings with agency gave me hope, energy, and comfort. But, it quickly waned when I remembered it didn’t work: I'd resisted.

Then I understood: I want more for myself.

The nightmare gave me something essential to practice in my waking life: choosing life on my terms and, with it, commitment to safety, dignity, comfort, beauty, honesty, connection, and care. Things I only sometimes felt I was worthy of until I came out of the long shadows of a childhood with unmet needs and relationships in adulthood that reinforced my unworthiness, so diligently learned.

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​Afterthought: Do you dream or have nightmares? How do you move out of the stress and anxiety from a nightmare and ground yourself when you wake up?

Do you have a specific routine for this? Have you ever done a break down of it?

Mine is always some combination of:

• Moving away from where the nightmare/trigger happened
• Using my hands and sensory touch to bring me out of perceived danger and back into the safety of the present moment
• Using or drinking water: drinking it, washing my hands or face
• Vocalizing, talking to myself, hearing myself
• Engaging in maximum tactility, registering texture and temperature
• Crying or peeing

I'm curious. How does your nightmare escape plan inform or mirror how you self-soothe/self-regulate in your waking hours?

I'd love to know. We have so many answers inside of us. Imagine. What if we simply made time for them to be heard?

Thank you for reading this week’s Afterimage—our mental health and how we deal with pain matter. If you or someone you know are thinking about self-harming or attempting suicide, please tell someone who can help immediately.

In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted at 116 123. Other international suicide helplines can be found at:

​www.befrienders.org​

​https://www.suicidestop.com/suicide_prevention_chat_online.html​

​https://www.nytimes.com/article/suicide-prevention-helplines.html​

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