Stories of life

You never know what’s going to happen to you on short notice.

I got a ride home with my friend, they were going to come over anyway, and from their house, my work was on the way, so they said they could give me a ride.

We jump out of the car running inside away from the cold, my dog jumps up as we get inside, startled by the abrupt awakening.

We walk to my room across the house, and when we get in we talk about the randomness of life. We got onto the subject of her possible sister from her “sperm donor”, I went onto my phone to pull up his Facebook to show her the pictures again. As we are talking and scrolling through the photos, I get a message from one of my friends Baylee.

I was concerned about her cause of a recent breakup between her and a mutual friend of mine and Ann’s. (Ann is the friend who came to my house)

I opened the message to her asking if she could trust me not to say anything. Me concerned, said she could trust me with anything.

She said “After we got off the phone yesterday, I wrote a suicide note, left it on my desk, and then took a whole bottle of pills. I then went and took a shower and went to bed. I woke up at 2 am and started crying because it didn’t work.”

At this point I showed Ann what was going on, we were scared of what was going on. We knew that she was self-harming, but we didn’t know that the breakup was that bad. I had no idea what to do.

“My head was hurting, and there was so much pain in my stomach”

I asked if she wanted me to go with her to talk to someone, like a professional, but she said that she didn't want to talk to anyone and that she didn't want to go to the hospital.

She said that she felt guilty for being alive and that she didn't know why she was here. How her mother didn’t even want her, and that her dad should’ve been there for her, but they never were.

At this point, we were already on a call with 988, the suicidal prevention hotline. He was telling me and Ann that if we thought that she was in danger because of herself, we should call 911.

We kept talking to her and Baylee said that she was upset that she didn’t have the pills to do it again, that she wants to die, and that she was just so fucking tired, and didn't know where to go.

At that point on my phone, I called 911.

“Where is the location of your emergency?”

“Umm, I have a friend who tried to commit suicide, and she is saying that she wants to try again”

“Okay, do you know her address?” The operator asked.

At this point, I didn’t even notice that Ann already pulled up snap-map, and saw that she had her location on, and she pulled it up on Google Maps.

“Yeah, it's 1517 __ Ave”,

“Did you say that it was 1570__ ave?”

“No, it's 1517__ Ave”

“Alright, do you know if there are weapons in her house? Like guns or anything?”

“Not that I know of,” said Ann.

“The last time I was there with her sister, I'm pretty sure she said something about her stepdad having guns in his room but they are locked up all the time,” I cut in.

“Alright, do you happen to know who would be in the house?”

“Yeah, her stepfather and her brother,”

“Okay, I already have some officers on their way there. Do you know what pills they were? And do you know if she has tried to do this in the past?”

“We think they could have been an antidepressant, or anxiety medication, but we’re not that sure, it could have been anything. I'm not sure if she has tried to do this before, but we do know that she self-harmed a lot”

“Okay, thank you for calling, you did the right thing”

During all of this, Ann was still on call with 988, and he was helping with responding to Baylee. She didn’t know that we called the police, or what we were doing.

I was shaking from how scared I was. This was the first time; 1) I’ve ever called 911, 2) had a friend so close tell me that they tried to kill themselves and want to try again and 3) I didn’t know how to comfort my friend in a way that they need. I was always so good at that.

Ann looked at me and saw how bad it was for me, she hugged me, and I swear I almost started crying. Ann knew what she was doing, she was the one who urged me to call 911 and call 988. She has been dealing with this since 4th grade. But I'm overwhelmed for it's my first time.

“Alright, can I get your name?” The operator asked.

“Yeah, Rebekah Clark.”

"do you spell that R-E-B-E-C-C-A?"

'No, its R-E-B-E-K-A-H, C-L-A-R-K."

“Okay, thank you for calling, we might call back for additional information”

“Okay”

Baylee messaged me one last time, “What did you do?!”

Baylee's sister finally messaged back after we asked what her address was, we told her what happened.

She said that Baylee was probably faking it all and that it was not that serious. A little while later, she said “I hope you know the main reason why Baylee is so upset all the time is because of our stepfather. He nags her about her choices till she's literally crying begging him to shut up. Screaming to the top of her lungs begging for him to stop. It's the reason I left. I told her to get out as soon as possible.”

The cops eventually called back, Ann was still here at my house. They asked for my full name, my date of birth, and my address. And asked if I had any more information for them. At this point, Baylee's sister hadn’t mentioned anything about their stepfather, so I just told them what I knew, and what Baylee said.

This was all over in a matter of an hour.

From the time she asked if I could keep a secret, to the point when we hung up the phone with the operator was almost 30 minutes exactly.

It was over, just like that.

Baylee is on the way to the hospital, and Ann leaving less than 60 minutes later.

I got home from work, less than 20 minutes later got a message, called 988, then called 911, made a police report, told them everything that happened, and then an hour later, Ann left.

I’ll update you when more info comes in.