Suicide attempt

So the woman, the one who was shot in the stomach. A lot of folks believed it was a suicide attempt, but I didn't. I was the one who knew her best, after all. Not her.

Her husband owned a lot of guns. I thought for sure if he didn't intentionally shoot her, then at least there was a scuffle over the gun, and the shooting was accidental.

I was just so sure. And I got mad at her lawyer who "diagnosed" her as suicidal from just one phone call.

I went to see her today in the psych ward at the hospital, after she finally survived intensive care. There was a security guard posted outside her door. Her husband--ugh--was seated inside, waiting for her to get back from X-rays.

She had always been tiny, but now she seemed frail. So old beyond her years. The first thing she said was: "I did it. I shot myself."

It hurts so much to hear someone say, "I have nothing to live for. I'm going to lose everything," and to know that, in some ways, it's true, and nothing I could say would change the fact that her life is really, really hard, and really, really sucks, and doesn't have much chance of ever getting easy, and fun, worth living for and beautiful.

The first thing Tim said was, "It's not your fault."

I know that. I wouldn't be so self-centered to blame her suicide attempt on some failing of mine. I never thought that I did less than the best that I could.

It just hurts. That kind of despair hurts everyone it touches.