The Trip - Part 1

He lasted four hours until he needed to go to a psychiatric hospital.

After picking my father up from the airport, getting his rental car, and making a pitstop at the grocery store for wine and cookies, we went to his hotel. Living in Vienna, Austria, means everything is generally costly, especially hotels. Before my father came I told him how expensive it was, but he assured me he knew and was experienced in traveling to Austria. Because of the expense I suggested that he stay for five or six days at a hotel in the city in Vienna. We would be closer, he would have more things to do, and I could take a few days off so we could have about four days or so to hang out together.

But he needed a break, he claimed, from the stress of his long list of surgeries. It would be better for him to come for three weeks and take it easy instead of coming just for one week. Hotels in Vienna were too expensive for him to stay at for four weeks so he decided to stay across the border at a hotel across the border in the countryside in Slovakia, which would be cheaper. He was able to get his flight, car rental, and hotel for three weeks for just over $2,000, which wasn't too bad even though November was off season.

I dropped him off at his hotel at 2 in the afternoon and we agreed that I would pick him up at 7pm for dinner somewhere in the city.

At 5pm I got a call. He was going to kill himself. He needed to go to a psychiatric hospital. And not one in Slovakia, but one in Austria. I got ready, went to pick up my car at the parking lot, and drove to see him at his hotel. He was a mess.

Seeing my dad at the hotel reminded me of my childhood. From the earliest time I could remember, my dad would have bouts of seemingly depressive despair. He would usually be in bed in his bedroom, crying and wailing as he talked about how terrible everything was, how his life was over, how he was a failure, and how nothing could make it better. During these episodes he would usually threaten to kill himself or just say that he wants to die. I recall more than one occasion when I was six or seven years old and he asked me or my older brother Alex to get his gun so he could shoot himself. He would continue to threaten suicide and complain and wail about how bad everything is while my mother, Alex, and myself would be in the bedroom consoling him.

The scenario would usually play out with us spending hours trying to make him feel better and tell him the thing that he wants to hear - including things that we would do for him because of his state. Eventually in the early morning he would be better and I would go to my room feeling more exhausted physically and emotionally than I had ever been. It was hard to be in this position at six years old. My mother would come to our rooms usually to talk to Alex and I and try to help heal the emotional scars before we fell asleep.

When I was young I truly felt bad for my father and felt that it was my duty, no matter how young I was, to help him. It was even more my duty to help him because he was a man of God, as he would so frequently tell us. I didn't really understand what was going on and didn't realize that most first graders were not staying up until three in the morning to talk their fathers down from suicide.

As I got older I became less sure if it was really depression or if it was his way of trying to get sympathy. If you read suicide help books or websites they will all tell you to take any threat of suicide seriously. They will tell you that even if a person has done it before and even if you feel that they are just doing it for attention you should take it attention. I've read lines that say that maybe the attention they are looking for is what they need.

I can understand this and think there is truth to it. But not always. Sometimes manipulative people without empathy are able to use threats of suicide as a tactic to get what they want. It might be sympathy, attention, financial help, or help with doing something for them. Whatever it is, they are looking to get something from you and are manipulating you with their supposed despair and threats of suicide. This view is based largely on my experience, but knowing we live on a planet with six billion people and knowing there is a person like my father, I feel like he cannot be alone. His tactics must also be used by others as well.

Wether or not my father was knowingly manipulating his young children, spouse, coworkers, and other acquantances is something that is impossible to really know, I think. After watching my father for over 40 years, however, I think I have a rather good data set. He has made more threats of suicide than I can count. He has tried zero times. He has always gotten sympathy, love, support, and financial gain, among others, from his episodes.

The hotel room was small. If you have ever been to what is known as a business hotel in Japan you will know the type of room. Just under 200 square feet (20 square meters) with a largish double bed and accompanying bed lamps, a small table, a chair, a TV, a unit toilet/shower comboniation, one window overlooking some trees, and curiously no telephone, it was small and by no means luxurious. It might not be a very comfortable room to spend 24 hours a day in, but it was new, clean, and a fine enough place to spend the night.

My dad was sitting in the chair, hunched over and facing the wall. The drapes to the small window were closed and there was only one bed lamp on. Light from the bathroom seeped into the room. The bottle of wine we bought earlier now sat on the table in front of him, empty.

"I need to go to the hospital," he said when he saw me.

"Umm, well, okay, why don't we talk about this. What's the problem?"

"I feel like killing myself and need to go to the hospital. If I don't go to the hospital I'll take all my pills and kill myself."

My father's tone was his usual serious and forceful tone. He speaks very aggressively when he is saying something that he believes is correct, which happens a lot. I remember always being afraid of his voice when I was growing up.

"Okay, well, what's the problem? You were fine four hours ago when I dropped you off and we were going to meet up for dinner. What's changed since now and four hours ago?"

"Ethan," he said, in a particularly forceful tone, which he always did when he called his children or spouse by name, "I'm going to kill myself! I need to go to the hospital! I can't stay here!"

His voice grew louder and more determined. When he told me he couldn't stay there, I started to think that maybe he didn't like the hotel. Maybe this was all a sympathy ploy for me to let him stay at my place or get him a nicer hotel. What a terrible thought to think of someone, you might ask. Normally I would say yes, but there is precedent.

My father has done this before.