The Parachute of Privilege
On being given one final chance to make it out alive and free
Good Morning Beautiful Human,
It’s a joy to greet you here this Sunday morning. It’s been quite a roller coaster these past two weeks. I keep hoping things will quiet and just settle (the motherduck) down but life doesn't have that in store for me right now. Waffle is fighting cancer. I am having more fugue states than usual. QUITE the ride.
But we are still here.
Yes.
We are still here – together.
And even though that doesn't exactly tame the chaos or diminish my daily fight, it does ground me and grow me towards the good. So today, I show up leaning fully into that goodness and I offer solidarity stories from our community and another chapter of Maura and Me.
Just like the last chapter, this piece of writing is raw and intense so I want to again be very upfront:
I write unabashedly about serious mental illness and its heartbreaking realities.
I discuss suicide, self-harm, psychosis, self-hatred, and in-patient experiences like they are normal because, well, they are normal for the 5% of us who live with serious mental illness.
I do this intentionally because people like me – people like us – deserve a place to fully belong in this world and this substack is where I begin to do such work.
That said, I also hold space that it is undoubtedly hard for individuals to read about such experiences. So, first and foremost, please choose YOURSELF today – whether that means deleting this email and prioritizing your well-being OR leaning into the growth and power of discomfort in honor of learning and reading the chapter.
And either way, whatever you decide – I am so glad you are choosing yourself because that – above all – is what this space is about.
So, without further ado – solidarity from our beautiful community and then, the next chapter…
Wishing you a Sunday.
Kindly,
Kate
If you would like to share your story — or a glimmer, big little victory or recent hardship — we would love to hear it. You can do so anonymously by sharing it here.
A few notes before the next chapter
If you missed last week’s chapter, you can read it here.
If you are a new community member (welcome!) and would like to start reading Maura and Me from the very beginning, you can read it for free here.
The next chapter is only available in full to paid subscribers. This is done because I need to convince agents and publishers that my work is worthy of a paid book deal and that serious mental illness really is a subject people will pay to read about. So, if you are able, please help me get a book deal by becoming a paid subscriber today.
That said — and I truly mean this — if a subscription is currently untenable, fill out this form and I will add you no questions asked. I mean it. No questions asked. Being read is an honor and I am not here to create any more barriers in this already broken system.
And now, without further ado, the next chapter of Maura + Me…
The Parachute of Privilege
She was gone. Again. And she had said nothing — absolutely nothing. Only one conclusion could be drawn. She was horrified and I had failed her. I had failed Maura. My self-absorbed fuckery had done it — the greatest insult one could ever weaponize — having everything — absolutely everything and instead of using it to fight to survive — choosing to end it all.
As I lay there in bed, still feeling the warmth of Maura’s body on the now vacant sheets beside me, I reckoned with the realities of the past week — what Atlas had said about failing him and my parents, thinking I finally had an answer to all the pain, my suicide attempt, surviving it, being told I was doomed to a life in a locked ward, and now — now Maura’s utter and complete horror at my suicide attempt.
As I replayed it over and over, I realized that no matter how I looked at the trainwreck of the past week, it was simply too much. Yes, it was definitely too much. Because no matter how much I wanted to fix it — to solve it — to do whatever it took to make it better, I couldn't. I couldn't simply because I was the problem. I was the source of the pain and no matter what I did — the pain of my existence – whether alive or dead – was breaking the people I loved most. And because my very existence was entirely responsible, there was no solution – absolutely no way out that made it better for them, let alone better for me.
~
The rest of the day passed in a malaise of rolling over in bed in detached dismay and rumination.
I’d failed my parents.
I’d failed Atlas.
I’d failed my treatment.
I’d failed my attempt.
And now, I’d failed Maura.
And more than all that — more than failing my beloved people, the tiny tribe of brave fighters who still somehow believed in me after a decade of hell — I had also failed everyone locked in the ward with me and everyone with serious mental illness too. Maura was a testament to that. They all were.
You see, I had everything. I was a girl with every single support my peers could dream of — an intact loving family, a full care team, a countrywide network of health professionals pulling strings on behalf of my parents, health coverage, an accommodating job, an apartment, food in my fridge, and a credit card with no balance – and I had still tried to kill myself when everyone in the ward was dying from the lack of those very resources and realities.
It was official. There was no way to CBT my way out of this one. Because it wasn’t a distortion. It wasn’t an exaggeration. And it wasn’t a psychotic break.
It was a simple fact:
I had failed everyone — even my privilege. And as far as I could see, nothing — absolutely nothing could redeem me.
~
I tossed and turned violently all afternoon struggling under the weight of my thoughts. With each passing hour, I became more certain that there was actually no way out of the mess I had made. And as I pulsed in exhaustion and quaked in fear of the locked residential unit that awaited me, the only solace I found was in the truth that this hell — this excruciating feeling of self-hatred and failure that I would be trapped within for the rest of my life — was exactly what I deserved.
Just as dinner arrived promptly at five, the attending doctor walked in and sat upon the foot of my bed.
Gently, with an unexpected lightness, he tried to rouse me —
“Kate, you awake?”
I groaned and he, knowing that that was the most I’d offer — shared some truly unexpected news – Bob Drake, the doctor who had given me a chance and then a job had made a call and pulled off a near miracle.