Life on the Ledge

I’m sitting on the floor of my ex-boyfriend’s spare room, rummaging through my forsaken knick-knacks, when a vintage toy poodle emerges. Her faded velvet body feels soft and clean, the black boucle loops of fur on her head and paws are rough and scratchy. Her cartoon eyes look at me inquisitively and though the tip of her nose is missing, she appears content. Cradling her in my hands awakens warm memories of my sweet, funny grandmother who gave her to me. I smile at my poodle and am equally content.

Suddenly screams emit from another room: “Isabel, hurry, hurry, now!”

I had intermittently lived with Guy, my ex, for nearly a decade and until now I had never heard him scream. Fearing the worst I run to the living room, poodle securely pressed against my chest, adrenaline palpably rushing through my veins as my mind serves up images of Guy bleeding out on the floor. Instead, I find him sitting rigid on the couch, his eyes glued to the TV, nothing unusual. Both relieved and annoyed, I wait for him to explain himself, but he’s mute, his mouth agape and his index finger violently stabbing the air toward the TV. I glance at the screen — a man in a baseball cap is talking about photography, while in the background images of the Golden Gate Bridge appear. I don’t understand why this is so important. Before I can utter one syllable, Guy shushes me and barks, “Listen!” I oblige.

As I struggle to focus on the man’s words, I know or at least suspect who he is and what he’s talking about, but I don’t want to believe it.

This is what the man in the cap said:

“I guess I was just waiting for her to jump, ‘cause I thought there was nothing I could do, it was too late. I started yelling out to the girl, you know, asking what was wrong, she seemed to be speaking in a different language and basically, like, tuning me out, like really not thinking about what I was saying, so I got up on the rail and I reached out, I really didn’t know I was going to be able to grab the back of her jacket, but once I grabbed it I just lifted her over the rail and got her down on the ground. She started to fight me a little bit, so I just sat on her chest and called 911 and they were probably there within a couple of minutes.

When I was heading back to my vehicle I happened to look over and it kind of looked like she’d turned back and she looked right at me and it freaked me out for a second, I just didn’t expect her to like, look back. I don’t know if she actually saw me and was thinking ‘You son of a bitch, I wanted to jump’.”

When images of myself climbing over the Golden Gate Bridge’s unmistakable red railing appear on the screen, I clench my jaw and am dead silent, a frenetic jumble of thoughts and feelings forming a lump in my throat.

Questions shoot through my mind:

“What is this? Where did this footage come from? Why is it on TV? Why didn’t I know about this?”

I hope that for once I really am hallucinating.

Desperate for reassuring answers, I look at the back of Guy’s head with intensity, hoping he can feel my urgency without seeing me. He doesn’t budge. Impatient, I open my mouth to ask for clarification, but once again he shushes me. The man in the baseball cap and the footage of me are replaced by another man, who begins to speak while facing the camera dead on, as if addressing me personally. I recognize him as the host of some news magazine show. He introduces a man named Eric Steele, the director of a documentary called “The Bridge,” which is reportedly now playing in movie theaters everywhere.

Being eaten alive by panic, I’m only able to process snippets of information: Eric Steel spent all of 2004 filming the Golden Gate Bridge, capturing footage of people as they either jumped or attempted to jump off of it. The man with the baseball cap is a tourist and photographer who Eric Steele had interviewed for the documentary.

Memories of being on the bridge come to life. I recall feeling excited and even joyful as I stood on the ledge, that is, until an invisible hand grabbed the collar of my coat and pulled me up and over the railing onto the pavement. The next thing I knew, I was flat on my back with a large man sitting on my chest.

Before being sucker-punched by this footage, I’d never truly seen the face of that man, nor did I have the faintest idea I was being filmed, let alone that the recordings would be part of a movie.

The realization that my actions of that day are now made public and viewable on TV as well as in movie theaters leaves me shaken and speechless. Up until this moment I felt safe in the belief that the people I know have been oblivious to it all, never expecting they would find out and certainly not like this. My first concern is my father, who goes to the movies at least once per week. I imagine him happy, munching his popcorn while watching previews, when suddenly he begins to choke at the unexpected sight of his daughter standing on the ledge of the bridge. I will have managed to simultaneously ruin his love of movie theaters, previews, popcorn and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Panic, guilt and shame reduce me to a quivering mess. Eventually my shock and shame turn to anger regarding being filmed without my knowledge or permission. When I speak with Eric Steele years later, I recognize he had good intentions and even tried to contact me through the hospital, but wasn’t able to for confidentiality reasons.

The day after watching the interview in Guy’s living room, I’m at home obsessively thinking about “The Bridge” when my father calls. I’m too nervous to answer and let it go to voicemail. In his message he asks if I’m OK and with a halting voice explains that he’s upset about seeing a preview with me on the Golden Gate Bridge. If there’s anything I know about my father, it’s that he’s averse to and possibly afraid of emotional discomfort. Not wanting to drive my father further away, I decide it’s best to just let him say what he needs to and leave it at that.

The man in the baseball cap understandably, yet mistakenly believed my intent was to jump off the bridge. Though I had been struggling with suicide ideation for years, it wasn’t suicidality, but rather reckless curiosity that brought me there that day. I’d visited the bridge countless times, but never contemplated jumping off of it.

During my time in various San Francisco psych wards, I overheard other patients as they shared stories about surviving a jump from the Golden Gate Bridge (GGB) or knowing someone who jumped and died. I was surprised to discover that jumping off the GGB isn’t always lethal and I became obsessed with the idea of personally eyeballing the drop. I wanted to determine if I could add it to my list of potentially effective suicide methods for future use, just in case.

Preventative suicide vs suicide prevention

Since December 24th of 2000, exactly one year after my grandmother’s passing, I had gone to the GGB many times. I discovered that when standing in a specific spot for an extended period, I could smell my grandmother’s sweet perfume and feel the warmth of her soul. I returned whenever I felt the need to be comforted or encouraged.

On the day that I climbed over the railing, it was sunny and the temperature relatively warm for San Francisco, ideal conditions to visualize the drop. Downtown I boarded a bus that stopped at the parking lot adjacent to the bridge. Before disembarking, I pulled my hoodie halfway over my eyes and hoped the Bridge Patrol wouldn’t recognize me.

While walking on the bridge’s footpath amongst hordes of tourists, a thick fog rolled in and I had the impression of being obscured from view. Feeling invisible instilled the confidence needed to push myself up onto the railing, swing my legs over and drop down onto the ledge. Climbing has been second nature to me since childhood, when clambering up trees and fences fulfilled my need for exploration and respite from people.

Standing there on the ledge gave me an unobstructed view of the distance to the water below. I could clearly see that jumping from this height carried too much risk of surviving with severe injuries, which could render me physically incapable of committing suicide by any other means.

The thought of being trapped in life when I want out has always been significantly more terrifying than the thought of death or dying. Dependence on others for survival is bad enough, but being so dependent that I can’t even die on my own terms is more horrific than I can bear.

At age 11 I asked our family doctor to sign my handwritten letter, declaring my wish to be euthanized if ever I became unable to think or care for myself. When he refused to sign, an insurmountable, all-consuming sense of panic had spawned. That’s the moment I began contemplating what I called “preventative suicide.”

What often kept me from going through with more dangerous suicide attempts wasn’t fear of death, it was fear of surviving.

Some assumed that I really just wanted attention when I panicked halfway through an attempt and sought medical care. Although it could have initially been part of the truth that I wanted help more than I wanted to die, that ceased to be the case after discovering what that “help” entailed.

While I’ve been obsessing over “preventative suicide,” everyone else seems preoccupied with “suicide prevention.” Psychiatry’s idea of suicide prevention is frequently “helping by force,” involving locking people up and drugging them against their will. By all indications that type of “help” only serves to increase the risk of suicide.

In my experience, being imprisoned in a hospital, my ankles and wrists bound to a bed while being injected with sickening drugs is a far cry from “help.” I wasn’t a willing recipient of this kind of psychiatric help, yet I was regularly told it was all in my control.

I’ve been detained and ultimately locked up on the justifications of “danger to self,” “gravely disabled” and occasionally for “danger to others.” Those determinations are up to the subjective interpretation of my anxious helpers more than the objective facts of what I had done or said.

During the days, weeks or months of being confined on psych wards, I’ve been subjected to the abilities, desires, needs and moods of psychiatrists, nurses and social workers. Some staff openly admit to treating me with harshness in the hopes of discouraging me from receiving their help ever again. They ignore the fact that I never asked for their help, I’ve been committed against my will and am fighting to be released.

Although I know many psychiatrists don’t believe it’s good for me to be locked up in a place where I’m handled in nonconsensual ways, they say it’s their only option, fearing I might kill myself shortly after they let me go. I understand there could be consequences to them, emotionally, practically and maybe even legally if I killed myself shortly after discharge and that is why I would never do that.

The majority of mental health providers I encounter appear unwilling or incapable of accepting that harming myself is my choice and responsibility, as it is for any adult who chooses to chain-smoke or do extreme sports. They seem driven by paternalism, believing I’m “mentally ill” and therefore don’t know what’s best for me, that I’m not fit to make decisions or take responsibility for myself.

Burnt out and jaded mental health providers, especially inpatient nurses, don’t miss an opportunity to tell me how much of a drain and a burden I am to them. The sympathy I feel for them is similar to what I felt as a child when my mother cried or screamed that I was burdening her and, in her words, “robbing her of her freedom.” Between 7 and 15, I was chronically ill with severe asthma, childhood rheumatoid arthritis and the sequelae of brain trauma, nonetheless I was “unfairly making her life hard.”

Of course, I’m no longer a sick child, helpless and incapable of independently caring for myself. As a young teen I learned how to live independently out of necessity and I discovered how much I had suffered as a result of previously being dependent on others. I fiercely cling to my independence and if I can’t do so in spite of my best efforts, I consider escaping through death.

I never willingly or quietly give up on life, always putting all my might into retaining my independence and autonomy. This inevitably leads to conflicts with psychiatric professionals who want me to live, but only while accepting a loss of self-determination.

There are rare gems of nurses and psychiatrists who would always prioritize my autonomy, no matter their own opinions and feelings. Nonetheless, they seem helpless to change the attitudes and methods of their colleagues.

Things I’ve done, like my excursion onto the ledge, are understandably concerning and can lead to an assumption that I’m a danger to myself, but it doesn’t justify taking away my right to autonomy, even if I am “crazy.” I prefer the term “crazy” for myself, it’s flexible and can be figurative, whereas “mentally ill” means having a “pathology of the mind,” a concept that has never made sense to me. The mind isn’t something tangible that can be scientifically and clinically contained, measured or examined, no more than one can contain, measure or examine an evolving idea. “Diagnosing” someone as “mentally ill” is to a large extent based on subjective observations, morals, theories and unproven hypotheses.

In spite of the label “mentally ill” holding limited value, it’s been bestowed with immense power to isolate, abuse, oppress, sterilize and even murder people throughout history.

Once I’m labeled “mentally ill,” any thought or expression outside of the norm is at risk of being considered a symptom of “mental illness,” possibly requiring involuntary intervention. I have the strong sense that I am no longer permitted to express sadness, anger or joy without it being pathologized. I’m being reduced to non-human.

Not long after being filmed on the bridge, I was served with an injunction banning me from being on or near the bridge for a period of seven years. The legal proceedings happened without my knowledge, preventing me from defending myself. If I had been allowed to speak, I would have explained how going to the bridge was my “suicide prevention” method, that going there to connect with my grandmother’s soul when I felt hopeless gave me a sense of love, strength and courage to not give up on life.

The official methods of “Suicide Prevention” are not science-based and more importantly, they go against the preservation of dignity and self-determination. At risk of losing those qualities completely, I and many others reach for “preventative suicide.”

Though I didn’t agree with the stay-away order, I respected it, except for once when I forgot about it and was taken to jail. The jail’s social worker decided after several hours that I should be transferred to psychiatric emergency services, which to me was worse — at least in jail I wasn’t forced to take psych drugs and my cellmates were better conversationalists.

A year after the injunction expired, I returned to the GGB on a sunny day, in a happy mood, just for the sake of walking and taking in the view. I was detained, cuffed and driven off because, in the words of the officer: “We don’t want mentally ill people on our bridge.”