Today my ex-boss asked me if I’ve ever felt suicidal.
I told him, no, there has never been one moment in my life that I’ve considered what comes after would be a welcome or necessary relief to what is now. I told him many of my friends and relations have felt that way (my brother, uncles, childhood friends, college friends, current friends), and I’ve been there to help them through it, but, no. Not me.
I wanted to list all the good things in the world, all the reasons that I know of that could possibly be the root cause for why I’ve never felt that the pressure or pain would outweigh the good possibilities to come, but as I looked in his eyes I knew that there wasn’t some experience I could help him towards or a phrase I could remind him of that would help him today.
No amount of reason or optimism or mental health can be given in a moment when a friend says he may not make it through the weekend. Whatever ground work that could have been done before, whatever chemical that is underproducing now, whatever actions that could have been avoided, are all too little too late when a person tells you they’re hanging on by a thread.
All I could do was tell him to please check in somewhere that would take care of him for a few days, to please not do anything rash this weekend, to remember how many people he has that are here to support him. All I could do was sit with him until he decided he needed to leave.
I don’t know how I’ll feel tomorrow, but today I’ve been fairly numb, the opposite of how I’ve felt when other people in my life have confessed the same things. Other times I’ve been hyper active with worry, overly sensitive and attentive and self reflective – what else can I do, feeling like it is my responsibility to stop anything bad from happening. With him today it was different, it was so clear that there wasn’t anything I could possibly do to help. All I could do was be there, be kind, and hope he gets through it.
This is all stemming from a long-standing tough year he’s had. While we were selling the company last year his long time girlfriend broke up with him and once we had new owners he lost all his daily support from employee friends like me. Suddenly we all had different bosses, worked in different spaces (from home or on the road), and he wasn’t a CEO, but instead a full time traveling salesman, on the road more often than home and his injury/disease/disorder prone body didn’t take well to it. By December it was clear he wasn’t happy or healthy, but it came as a shock to all of us when they fired him out of nowhere a few weeks ago.
From there things have spiraled, his attempt to counter their severance package rejected, his annual bonus and expected tax help voided, and most recently the expected first annual shareholder payout wasn’t approved, meaning he as the shareholder representative has to either go back to his investors and say they get less than promised or he has to fight another battle with our new company. Whatever the actual originating details are for why he was fired, as we talked today it is clear he thinks it is a large conspiracy against him and everything to do with punishing our original company. “They’re evil,” he said. “They’ve taken everything from me.”
I know from talking to other shareholders and his friends that a larger conspiracy to screw him and everything he loves isn’t the case, and the new company is very clearly still supporting and relying on the rest of us. And as I reviewed their newest denial of the annual shareholder payout today I told him it was an understandable different interpretation of a vague agreement; it made sense that we had made conflicting assumptions in our calculations and it just means we have to figure out a way to align.
But he wasn’t interested in my attempts to convince him to call the company, tell him the full context of how hurt/confused/broken he is and see if they’ll meet him halfway. His mind is set on fight or flight, and the fight meaning lawyers and lawsuits and national, public smear campaigns and the flight meaning quitting earth outright. No middle ground.
Another piece of information which has thoroughly confounded me and really made me realize how utterly powerless I am to help or give advice is that part of the conditions of his firing state that he cannot work in our field for the next two years and also cannot work with any organization that he has previously worked with or considered working with. That means his entire network, skill set, career path is essentially blocked for the next two years, making getting a well paying job that much more difficult. And according to him today, he was misled on how much to withhold on his taxes this year and without the company’s help to cover the difference, he is currently fully broke. Any stock/assets he has aren’t liquid since the new company is months (years?) away from theoretically going public, so if he sold now he’d miss out on a ten/20/300X pay out. He put all his savings and time and life into the company he started from scratch ten years ago and didn’t have a backup plan for something like this.
He’s screwed, in all the ways, not even able to start over because he’s still got all these open battles that he feels he needs to fight. Do they know they’ve done this to him? Do they understand the context, the situation, the psyche of the person they’ve done this to? Why didn’t they just demote him to an advisor that “consulted” on some low priority project? How could they, at the 11th hour before going public, do this to the founder of the company that their entire platform is relying on now? Are they evil? Are they plotting something even worse? Or are they just looking out for the rest of us, treating him as the volatile, expensive, liability he is without taking ownership of the damage they’re doing to an already fragile person.
I genuinely think it is the latter, and without even trying I can think of 50 reasons he could have been fired. He isn’t made for a corporate world and wasn’t happy there which made his actions even more erratic and problematic. When he was fired last month I thought, this is gonna suck, but he’ll be happier for it eventually. Starting over can be a blessing.
Now I’m not so sure. And as he cried today on my shoulder and showed me his swollen hands from the furniture he threw around his house and spoke to me in a pained, horse voice from yelling into the void, and admitted to me that even on four Zanex he couldn’t sleep, I had nothing to say that could help.
All I could do was look right at him and say I’m here for him and I love him and I think the world is worth it. I hugged him goodbye and watched him walk out, knowing he wouldn’t look back but not knowing if I’d ever see him again.
This is so intense, Lupine. I want to say that you are an incredible friend for sticking by him when he hasn’t always deserved it. It sounds like he doesn’t have a lot of support, what about his family? I think you are right that you did everything you could do and just being there and talking with him was probably what he needed most. This is so scary. It sounds like so much of this is the consequences of his own inappropriate actions and attitude, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t also have some valid points, and it certainly sucks all around, especially not being able to work in the field, I mean what?? I’m praying he pulls through this.
I asked if he had talked to his family, he said no. I’ve texted and called him many times in the last 48 hours, but no response. A mutual friend of ours asked if I would go to his house tonight to check on him since he hadn’t heard anything either but was out of town and worried. I went, his car is in the driveway but he didn’t answer the door. I got his neighbor/landlord to let me in and we searched his house together. He wasn’t there, but neither was his cat as far as we could tell. But his computer was, I forgot to call his phone while we were in there, too freaked out to think.
The neighbor couple is older so they’re going to keep watch and let me know if they see anything change. If we don’t hear anything by tomorrow night I’ll go back and probably more aggressively search his house or call his family. I’m fully numb I think, all my actions are on behalf of others at this point – doing what I can to help them feel less guilt/worry. I’m honestly really grateful that I feel so helpless, I know there is nothing I can say or do that will change his actions or state of mind in the next few days/weeks. I can help with long game, but short term – it is all in his court.
Woah! Intense post. Intense situation. Sounds very scary. It is extremely strange that he was not there but his car was in the driveway.
I completely sympathize with not knowing what to say or do to help someone. One of my friends mentioned to me a few weeks ago (over skype) that they sometimes feel suicidal. They didn’t use that exact word but it was the same sentiment. I had no idea how to respond. I think I said something about how much they mean to me, but then the conversation just changed somehow. I don’t really think this person is a real risk… but I have been worried about what if I am wrong and that handled the conversation in the wrong way somehow. Probably we should have talked more- I just kind of got scared and let it drop. But ever since then I have worried about her a bit on and off. It is a very tough thing to know what we can do to help people who feel like this. I sure hope everything turns out okay for your boss 🙁