Its Kind of a Funny Story Ned Vizzini

EXCERPT

Hello. Hi, is this the Suicide Hotline? This is the Brooklyn Anxiety Management Center. Oh, um We work with the Samaritans. We handle New York Suicide Hotline calls when they overflow. This is Keith speaking. So the Suicide Hotline is too busy right now? Yes its Friday night. This is our busiest time. Great. Im common even in suicide. What seems to, ah, be the problem? I really, justIm very depressed and I want to kill myself. Uh-huh. Whats your name? Ah Need-a-fake-name, need-a-fake-name: Scott. And how old are you, Scott? Fifteen. And why do you want to kill yourself? Im clinically depressed, you know. I mean, Im not justdown or whatever. I started this new school and I cant handle it. Its gotten to a point where its the worst its ever been and I just dont want to deal with it anymore. You say youre clinically depressed. Are you taking medication?

I was taking Zoloft. And what happened? I stopped taking it. Ah. Thats probably, you know, a bad idea. Keith sounds like hes just getting started with this whole counseling thing. I picture a thin college-age guy with wire-rim glasses at a desk lit up with a small reading lamp, looking out the window, nodding at the good deeds hes doing. A lot of people run into problems when they, yknow, stop taking their medication. Well, whatever the reason, I just really cant handle it right now. Do you have a plan for how you would kill yourself? Yes. Id jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. I hear Keith typing something. Well, Scott, we arent the suicide hotline, but if you like, we have a five-step exercise for managing anxiety. Would you like to try it? Umsure. Can you get a pen and a piece of paper? I go to the drawers in the dining room and get a pencil and paper. I take it to the bathroom and sit on the toilet with Keith. The lights on. First, okay? Write down an event that happened to you. That you experienced. Any event? Thats right. Okay I write on the piece of paper Ate pizza last week. Do you have it? Keith asks. Yes. Now, write down, ah, how you felt about that event.

Okay. I write: Felt good, full. Now write down any shoulds or woulds that you felt about the event. Like what? Things that you regret about it, things that you feel would have made it go better. Wait, uh, I dont think I have the right kind of event. I furiously erase my first statement, which is marked 1. Instead of Ate pizza, I put down Threw up Moms squash and then for 2, I write Felt like I wanted to kill myself, all the while telling Keith to hold on, I just messed up. Just put down shoulds and woulds, he reassures me. Well, I should have held down the squash and I would have been full if I had. I put that down. Now put down only what you actually had to do in the event. What I had to do? Right. Because there are no such things are shoulds and woulds in the universe. There arent? Im starting to suspect Keith a bit. For someone in Anxiety Management, hes giving me an exercise that is fairly confusing and anxiety-provoking. No, he says. There are only things that could have turned out differently. You dont have any shoulds or woulds in your life, see? You only have things that could have gone a different way. Ah. You never know what truly would have happened if you had done your shoulds and woulds. Your life might have turned out worse, isnt that possible? I dont see how its really possible, seeing as Im on the phone with you.