Shannon’s Pick: Hysteria

“You could try to get closer to me.”

This song in particular comes from a very dark time in my life. Larry touched on it recently and since I had already planned on doing a write up for this song at some point, I decided to just go ahead and rip the proverbial band-aid off.

Let’s go back to the spring of 1988, life at home isn’t great. Growing up in my house is what I would call chaotic.   My mother is extremely strict and religious, which in and of itself can be a dangerous combination, but her religion of choice was Jehovah’s Witness.  My stepfather has some anger and drinking issues.  Because of my mother’s beliefs I would get in just as much trouble for a minor offense (as Jehovah’s Witnesses dating, school dances and school sports were all considered no no’s) as I would a major one (think sex, drugs and rock and roll).  So, my attitude was go big or go home and I decided I did not give a shit about anything so I was gonna go big.  That attitude got me a one-way ticket to being kicked out of the house, so I moved in with a friend and her mom.

It is now the summer of 1988 and I’m 16 going on 17, secretly dating a 27 almost 28-year-old.  Big surprise, that did not end well.  But only after running away with him to Arizonia in July of 1988 and living in a pickup in the desert for a while.  We finally made our way back to Kansas in August of 1988, a few weeks before the start of my senior year.

By September of 1988 after that relationship ended, I began dating someone else, still a little older but not as bad as the previous 11-year age gap and this time it didn’t have to be a secret.  I was 17, he was 22 and he had called my parents (mom) asking for permission before asking me out.  Part of that was due to the age difference and part of it was due to him having just been released from a rehab facility for a drug addiction.  Even with those strikes against him, my mom decided to give her permission to date him, after all he was from a “good” family.  In reality he was really struggling with life and just needed someone to support him.  Our first date was me attending an AA meeting with him.  He was very upfront that for this thing to even have a chance I needed to understand his addiction.

He was nice and he was kind and respectful and I was not used to that.  We did not date long but he made a huge impact on my life.  We spoke for hours every night on the phone and that was a very big deal back in the 80’s.  Even just living 15 miles away in another town it was long distance to call, so we had to wait until after 5pm for the rates to go down so it wouldn’t be so expensive.  I was just so desperate for someone and something good to be in my life that I got attached very quickly so when he committed suicide it was most definitely the straw that broke the camel’s back.  I was devastated and after his funeral I overdosed on pills in my own attempt to take my life.  Although I did not succeed at killing myself, I did get myself put in the looney bin on suicide watch for a while.

Okay, I know that is a lot to take in at once.  It’s just very important to me that I tell you all of this, so you know that my suicide attempt was not just some young girl sad about a boy.  Yes, that was part of it, but there was so much more to it than just that and to be perfectly honest I am surprised I didn’t attempt it sooner. Where I was in life at that age was not good at all, I was isolated, angry, and broken before that even happened, so that was just the final push over that edge I had been teetering on anyway.

Now that you have some background information lets get back to the song itself.   And why this one in particular, of all the songs I would have heard at that time, was the one that was the most difficult to listen to later.  After our first date we went for a drive and talked about the AA meeting and what it would be like to date a recovering addict.  The Hysteria album by Def Leppard is what was playing in the background, as it was a lot of the time when we were together, but specifically the title song Hysteria itself was something we both liked to listen to.  After he committed suicide and after my own failed attempt I clung to this song like a lifeline, even though it made trying to heal difficult.  It was all I had in the moment, and I needed that lifeline so badly.

Then for a very long time I would not even listen to the song.  If it would begin to play, I’d just skip it or change the station, whatever I needed to do to not hear the song at all.  Larry picked up on it and would just skip the song as well.  He knew a little of the reason why but not all the details and not the emotional side, just the facts. So basically, he knew enough to skip the song without asking why.  But when we had that moment of reconnecting in our backyard in Westerville, Ohio I let him in on the whole story for the first time.  Everything that had happened leading up to that moment and what it was like in the aftermath.  This was the first time I was telling all of this to someone who was not already a part of my life from when it happened.  I shared more with Larry than I had with anyone else because for once I didn’t feel like I needed to keep up the “that was so long ago, I’m over it” or the “I’m so strong I don’t need help” routine with him.  After sharing the details, the song was still too painful for me, and we just continued skipping it. Until that one day I didn’t.  The first time I didn’t, it was about a third of the way through before I realized it was playing. It was still very emotional for me, but the reasons why had changed so much.

Today when I hear it, it just makes me so sad for that girl.  I just want to wrap my arms around that version of me and tell her it will all be ok.  No one really ever told me those things.  It was after all the 80’s and conversations about mental health were not common.  NOPE, not even common for those who tried to commit suicide.  It’s weird thinking about that right now, like really weird. The adults in my life did not try too hard to really talk to me about it and the few who did had no idea what to say.  I was treated as if I was defective or as though enough time would make it all just go away.  I still get angry sometimes when I think back to how alone I felt and how I was treated like a pariah.  It was as if some adults thought my suicidal tendencies would rub off on their own child.   I get the times were different and those adults had their own things going on and maybe didn’t know how to discuss the subject as well but still it was very lonely.

Maybe it was more about the teenage part of it and not the suicide part.  After all dealing with teenagers is never easy no matter what the times are like.  Over the years I’ve heard people say that being a teenager/young adult isn’t easy but it’s not like it kills you.  I just remind them that while being a teenager itself will not necessarily kill you it most definitely can cause you to want to kill yourself and a lot of kids never make it out of young adulthood.  I was one of the lucky ones that did.

P.S This album was release on my 16th birthday….August 3,1987

Larry’s Perspective:

Tonight I waited until I heard Shannon's thoughts before putting pen to paper. Like I said in the Cut Here write-up, it's hard to know that people experience the aftershock of something so traumatic.

For the longest time in the beginning of our relationship, I could never understand why we needed to skip this song - after all, it came out when we were both 16 and Def Leppard was such a global phenomenon. But I knew that deep in Shannon's wells of emotion, there was something that she wasn't prepared to discuss, and that was ok.

I have to be honest in saying I feel like the end of Saving Private Ryan - when he is looking for validation that he lived a good life, a life worth living - given all the sacrifices others made to get him there. I often think about the things Shannon has experienced in her life - and that my life's purpose is to help see her through all of it.