What I Remember

I do not remember how I ended up 35 miles away from school, on the curb outside the house where I used to live. I do not know who called 911. I do not remember buying - much less drinking - the bottle of tequila the police found next to me, or downing the bottles of pills the fire department pulled out of my purse.

I remember laughing, hysterically, that somehow two policemen and two paramedics had been dispatched to me at 3:30 in the morning, just because I drank too much. I remember asking names and station numbers because I was convinced that I was going to send them cookies to thank them for their trouble.

"It's our job, ma'am," they all said, which made me laugh harder, because I was twenty and drunk and found alone on the side of the road and they were calling me "ma'am."

The paramedics both knew my dad. I remember threatening them with HIPAA lawsuits if they told my dad what I had done. They rolled their eyes. The police officers told me they could not comprehend how I managed to get all the way out to the Valley from downtown without getting a DUI. I believe their actual phrase was that there had been a "widespread failure in LAPD and CHP" that night.

One of the police officers sat in the ambulance with us while the other one followed behind. I asked if I was going to have to be restrained, or if they would put me on a 5150. He said I seemed nice and compliant and he would let the psychiatrist decide whether I should go on a 5150 or not. I promised I would pretend to be sorry for trying to kill myself as long as I could get out of a 5150. He looked sad.

At the ER I waved a cheerful goodbye to the firefighters and tried to make small talk with the officers. They played along, I guess because they had nothing better to do than listen to my drunk ramblings, and hey, as long as I'm rambling, I'm alive.

I remember the nurse coming in and saying they were going to pump my stomach. I remember screaming that I'd rather die, and I remember trying to stand, and I don't remember anything else.

I woke up two days later in the CCU, with restraints on my wrists, but my armed guard gone. A nurse told me my heart had stopped. I'd had my stomach pumped, charcoal forced down my throat, been dead for a minute, and completely unresponsive for two days. I had bruises on my wrists from where I'd apparently tried to fight free of the restraints before my heart stopped but after I'd blacked out from the alcohol.

How, exactly, have I gotten to this point in life before I ever turned 21?