1 North

On self-medication and ideation

The sun hung a little above sunset as I carved my way north on Highway 1. To the left, out there in the space between Santa Cruz and San Francisco, farmland fell directly off the cliffs, and, to the right, more symmetrical lines of agriculture led to the rolling hills of Bonny Doon. The woods there hadn't recovered from the CZU Lightning Complex fires, which had ravaged 86,000 acres of land, swallowing people’s homes and turning the sky an apocalyptic amber that lasted a week. Everywhere smelled like burning and the thick air in my backyard tasted like ash. What was left of the trees were pillars of charcoal stuck up in skeletal rows along the ridges of the hills. The charred terrain stood sharp against the brighter shade of blue the sky became just before it turned to the oranges and reds of the ending day.

Every few miles, I drove by hand-painted signs on weathered slabs of wood that pointed the way to pumpkin patches and hay mazes. Humble barns and modest houses sat lonely on the small acreage farms, and the whitecaps in the distance looked like blurred cursive on the rippled navy of the ocean. The two-lane highway was sparsely dotted with other travelers. They drove slowly, and took in the view of the California they'd imagined before visiting.

I'd spent the day pacing my family home as the walls closed in around me, the whole structure seeming to shrink with each passing hour. My blood felt itchy in my veins and the thoughts and images I had no control over slapped against the inside of my skull: pictures of my wife with another man, the ring I gave her tangled in his sheets. The only option was to leave before my head collapsed from the pressure that squeezed between the walls. But I had nowhere to go. My home was supposed to be my refuge but my wife had snuffed the safety of the place like my father had done when I was a kid, though she’d used different methods.

I escaped into my car and sped toward the highway on-ramp.

Hunched and anxious behind the wheel, I drove as if the house had sprouted legs and was chasing me out of town. I stopped at the last 7-11 in Santa Cruz, which sat at the final stoplight that would grant me passage to the stunning desolation of the farmland and ocean beyond. I bought a six pack of beer – cans, so I could crush and dispose of them discreetly. I also got a blue pack of American Spirits because vaping wouldn’t do the job. I needed the horrid burning sensation in my lungs. I wanted to taste the tobacco, spill ash across my arms, burn my fingers.

I kept all the windows down except when I needed to light cigarettes, which paraded in a chain, each one smoked tip to filter and dropped in the first empty can in my cup holder. I turned the music up loud enough to hurt, and it raged in the wind tunnel of my cockpit. The sun sank as I passed through Davenport, past a small stretch of buildings that looked like a slice out of an Old West town. The intrusive thoughts weakened with each finished beer. I drowned myself in stimuli, drenched myself in the salt smell invading my car, choked the sound in my brain with the sound of the music, made myself cough, made myself dizzy.

I kept the wheel straight with a knee and crushed my fourth empty between my palms, tossing it in the paper bag behind the passenger seat with the others. It took four beers to reach an equilibrium, to find enough peace to exist without feeling like my sanity was slipping out of my ears. I pulled to the side of the highway and the dirt shoulder crunched as I slowed to a stop. There was my gate, across the road. I always stopped there to turn around – It always took the same amount of time to drain four beers.

The gate was three flimsy panels of wood that begged to be busted through. A dirt road ran toward a cliff and disappeared beyond a low hill. The roofline of a house or barn sat far off to the right and, logically, this is where the road led. But, in my fantasy, that road kept on straight as a guitar neck and ended in finish line streamers and confetti over the ocean. I imagined gunning the engine, fishtailing on the dirt and shooting across the highway. I saw the fence explode in shards across the hood, clouds of dust shoot out behind my car in cartoonish plumes, and the weightless victory I’d feel for a brief few seconds as I sailed over the edge. After that, there would be the terror of my windshield filling with the sight of a rapidly approaching ocean but, then, there would be nothing.

The fantasy was relieving to imagine, like turning a release valve. It felt good to live on the edge of that decision and feel the power I had to make it. Suicide is often portrayed as the darkest moment imaginable, all hope gone, nothing left. We imagine someone in a dark closet or alone in a bathtub. But staring at that gate, four beers deep, the sun setting over the wild Pacific with music destroying my eardrums and nobody having any idea of where I was or what I was doing, I felt a unique freedom – the only one I could access. The gate offered silence and release.

After staring at the gate for a song or two, I whipped my car around and headed back toward town. I finished the last two beers, prolonging my peace for a little while, and stowed them in the bag with the others. I pulled back into the 7-11 parking lot, tossed the rest of the Spirits in with the empties, and threw the whole thing in the trash out front. 

When I got back to the house, it had temporarily stilled its shrinking. The waves of hurt and madness would return but I’d successfully self-medicated with beer and ideation. I’d found a brief window of stillness. 

Now, four years later, I don’t want to die. I want to be a happy person. I am one, a lot of the time.

But I still think about those drives up 1 North. Sometimes, lying back in that same family home, in a bed I now sleep in alone, the impossibility of life presents itself as the perpetually expanding web of choices and consequences that it is. I see the complexity of each individual human being as if from orbit, each one with their own web growing outwardly from their body, entangling in others. I see the unavoidable chaos and damage and it makes me want to pull the covers up over my head and never come out.

On those nights, I remember the gate and the farmland falling off the cliffs and the calming rumble of my engine beneath my body. I think about the peace I was able to find out there. 

The comfort it gives me sits warm and low, a sweet secret for myself, because I know the gate is still out there at the end of a four-beer drive up a beautiful stretch of highway. 

I think the thought is enough.

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If you’re struggling, please please please reach out to someone. You are not alone. This is my story but I know there are so many people out there who have or have had these feelings and experiences. I called out in my darkest moment and I am grateful every day that I did.

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline

SAMHSA Substance Abuse National Helpline

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Eternally grateful, as always, to

Dev

for editing and feedback.