Ali Watson: 911 • Cleaver Magazine

Flash Nonfiction by Alison Morris Watson
911

In May of 2001, I swallowed a bottle of Depakote, one of the medications that had been prescribed to me for my bipolar disorder. I had looked it up in my parents’ Physician’s Desk Reference and concluded that, of all the drugs I was on, this was the medication that could kill me.

After swallowing the pills, one by one, looking at myself in the bathroom mirror and feeling absolutely nothing, I went out on the deck to smoke my last cigarette.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the ICU of a hospital, tubes coming out of every orifice, machines beeping all around me. Apparently, my mother had found me on the deck, losing consciousness, and called 911.

I woke up just in time to hear a doctor telling my parents I might be permanently brain damaged.

I had been battling mental illness my entire adult life. In and out of hospitals. One lost career opportunity after another. One failed relationship after another.

I was exhausted.

Surprisingly, the psychiatrist at Fairfax Hospital decided not to admit me to another psych ward this time, and sent me home with my wary family, who were still reeling from my suicide attempt and afraid of what I would do next.

One morning, not too long after the suicide attempt, I was sitting out on the deck again smoking another cigarette when my sister called.

“Turn on the news,” she said. I went inside and turned on the television.

The Twin Towers were burning. There was smoke coming out of both of them. People were rushing up Broadway trying to get away from the buildings.

And then, one of them fell, as if in slow motion. The news announcers were unable to hide their horror and fear.

“Oh my God,” the man said. “Oh my God.”

Was this really happening? Was I hallucinating this, like I had hallucinated dead cows hanging from telephone poles during my disastrous trip across country a few years prior? Like I had hallucinated people’s faces melting like atom bomb victims on the street when I lived in New York?

My mother came home from work. She had driven by the Pentagon just moments after another plane had hit it. Her hands were shaking when she engulfed me in a hug as soon as she walked in the door.

Like everyone else in the world, I sat there that entire day—that entire week—watching the Towers fall over and over again on television.

I became obsessed with watching people jump from the flames.

“Is this really happening?” I kept asking my parents.

“Yes, this is really happening,” they said, over and over again.

The good news was, I wasn’t hallucinating; my new medication was starting to work.

The bad news was, the worst terrorist attack in US history had really happened; thousands of people were dead; an event worse than anything I had ever dreamed of while psychotic was all too real.

I wasn’t sure whether to be terrified, or relieved.

In the months that followed, people seemed to regain their footing, and return to “normal” life.

I eventually found my footing, as well. Thanks to my supportive family, a good psychiatrist, and modern medication, I have found relief from my severe psychiatric disorder and have been stable for many years.

But I don’t think anyone is ever quite the same as we all were before witnessing the horror of 9/11. Our innocence as a nation that had never before experienced a direct attack on home soil is gone. We will always feel fear in the pit of our stomachs whenever we hear multiple sirens on the street.

My friend Michael, who was a firefighter, pulled out of the rubble of Tower One, has never fully recovered from having one of the biggest buildings in the world fall on top of him as he tried to help a disabled woman down the stairs.

The new World Trade Center, rising toward the sky in defiance of what happened, is rooted on the same ground where the original towers burned.

The same can be said for me.

Alison Morris Watson is a memoirist who writes about overcoming mental illness, addiction, and being an adoptee. Her full-length manuscript-in-progress, “Finding My Mentally Ill Roots,” explores her twelve psychiatric hospitalizations and her reunion with her troubled birth family. Alison’s work has been published in numerous literary journals; to read more of her writing, please visit her website, alisonmorriswatson.com. In addition to writing, Alison feeds her soul by working in an animal shelter. She publishes a Substack page entitled “The Animal Shelter Life.” Alison is proud to call Brooklyn, NY home, where she lives with her husband of 24 years and their shelter mutt, Cindy Lou Who.