Sleeping Pill Overdose Awakens Hope
(Part 1 of 2)
By Erica Kamara, 2.2.06

He sits near the rear window of a partially empty Starbucks coffee shop sipping hot chocolate. His green eyes hide behind square shaped optical lenses as he searches for words to describe the early morning of Sunday, June 26.

“I go through periods where I feel very alone,” said John Bayer, 30, as he tried to explain the recurring depression that recently drove him to attempt suicide. “I have friends, but not that close friend, that best friend. Then the thoughts just spiral out of control. And it becomes not just that I’m lonely, it’s that I’m unworthy to be that best friend.”

Saturday—the day before—was intentional for Bayer. He began the day with a cold glass of white wine. Then he traveled about a mile on foot to the local Walgreens and bought two bottles of sleeping pills.

But he didn’t take them right away.

He spent the rest of the afternoon deep in his melancholy waiting for the late evening to join a group of friends to watch Graffiti Gray, a local band, perform. Bayer said he’d already decided this would be his last time hanging out with friends.

“I was so depressed that I had already decided I was going to do it that night,” he said softly. Bayer, who has struggled with depression since his adolescent years, spent most of his life unaware of the illness.

“I kind of developed these masks of ego, and the masks were how great I was and how modestly brilliant I was,” Bayer said. “And the truth is I’ve just had a really bad sense of who I was—a really ungodly sense of who I am.”

The illness comes in phases. At times, he is open and gregarious. Other times, pessimism and guilt affect his mood and thought patterns, causing him to withdraw. At the concert with his friends that night, Bayer became very isolated and quiet.

“It was like I was hoping someone would see I was going to do that and that they would somehow stop me from doing it,” he said.

But his friends had no idea something was seriously wrong.

An Early Trace
Trails of poor self-concept go back to Bayer’s childhood in Tucson, Ariz. where he was born and raised. It was there that he remembers his first feelings of guilt.

“I come from a tradition where it’s very important that you remember when you were born again,” he said.

According to Bayer, every year his home church in Tucson hosts a large event called the ‘Spiritual Birthday Party.’ They set up tables, and each month of the year has its own spot.

“You would go to that table of the month when you were saved and celebrate your second birth.”

Not able to pinpoint an actual day of his spiritual conversion, Bayer felt left out of the celebration each year. To cope, he said he isolated himself, feeling guilty for not having remembered a time when he did not accept the Christian faith.

“You can [come to] believe a lot of lies about yourself from childhood,” he said. “In terms of head knowledge you can know that that wasn’t true, but it can still be very much embedded in your feelings [in adulthood].”

Grappling with negative thoughts, Bayer’s mood remained unaltered for the rest of the night as he listened to the band. He returned to his apartment around 12:30 on Sunday morning. After settling down, Bayer sat by his bed with a bottle of water and began taking handfuls of pills.

Check back Thursday, Feb. 9, 2006 for the rest of the story.

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