Close Glenn - Resilience: two sisters and a story of mental illness

Kill yourself! Kill yourself! Kill yourself!

I couldnt stop the voice. It was stuck in my skull like a bad song, playing over and over and over again.

Kill yourself! Kill yourself! Kill yourself!

Those commands were being screamed at me by the Creature. It was pure evil. It was in my head, just behind my left ear. It was terrifying. Worse, it would not stop screaming.

Kill yourself! Kill yourself!

The Creature was relentless, 24-7.

I had to silence it. I had to kill the Creature, and there was only one way to do that. I would have to kill myself.

Id already thought about different ways to commit suicide. I think most people who consider it put a lot of thought into the best way to end their lives. I knew a handgun would be the quickest, but Id also considered getting stumbling drunk and lying down in the creek that flowed near my house in the Montana foothills. If I did this during the winter, I would freeze to death. Pills and booze were another possibility. Id imagined myself driving my truck to Meadow Lake or Hyalite Reservoir or Sureshot Lake, armed with a bottle of muscle relaxers and a fifth of vodka. Id sit on an inflated inner tube, paddle so far away from shore that I couldnt possibly swim back, and begin gulping down pills with swigs of booze. When I began feeling them kick in, I would slide into the cold water. In that inebriated state, it would be impossible for me to climb back on to a slippery tube or even hang on to it.

Id drown. The Creature would finally shut up.

Id thought about each method in intimate detail, going over each scenario repeatedly, carefully refining each step. I could see myself raising a pistol to my mouth and squeezing the trigger, leaning into a shotgun and squeezing the trigger, lowering myself into the freezing stream in the winter, or floating dead in the lake. Each time I conjured one of those images, it seemed less frightening. Even comforting. Until Id reached the point where the idea of killing myself seemed inevitable.

Kill yourself! Kill yourself! Kill yourself!

SHUT UP! Im thinking about it! I silently screamed back.

Kill yourself! Kill yourself! Kill yourself!

When will the Creature stop?

My thirteen-year-old daughter, Mattie, had no idea the Creature was tormenting me. Mattie was a beautiful girl with curly long blond hair and a sweet face. Would she understand why Id killed myself? I couldnt tell her about the Creature. She wouldnt understand. I also was afraid. I didnt want to risk making the Creature even angrier.

Mattie had just walked to the main house to say good-bye to her grandparents. I was waiting outside near a two-bedroom guesthouse on their property a few miles outside Big Piney, Wyoming, a town of about six hundred people. Big Piney is a ranching community, and the number of cows, horses, and dogs is much greater than the number of humans. Mom and DadBill and Bettine Closelived on a ten-acre plot, much of it sagebrush and tiny cacti growing in sandy soil. The Wyoming Range runs north to south, the Wind River Range runs east to west, and both ranges lie far away from the treeless high desert that is Big Piney. I love these wide open spaces. There is room to breathe.

Mattie and I had come to visit my parents and my two older sisters, Tina and Glenn. Tina is an artist who lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Glenn is Glenn Close, the actress, whod flown to Wyoming for a short break after doing voice work for a Disney movie. To others, Glenn is a Hollywood icon. Glamorous. Brilliant. To me, she is simply Glennie, my big sis.

As I waited for Mattie to return, the Creature began yelling so loudly in my head that I simply couldnt take it anymore.