Аманда Палмер - The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

I brag endlessly about my real friendship with my fans , I thought, but maybe I’m full of it. Maybe I’m just a fair-weather friend who takes what she wants when she needs it and scampers away .

My inner Fraud Police bristled.

A few nights later, after the show and signing, I was sitting in my underwear behind my computer, answering the last of the day’s tweets and emails and about to retire according to my book-marathon bedtime of one a.m., when I saw some troubling tweets in Yana’s Twitter feed. I read back through her recent Twitter history, and it was clear that something was wrong—she was posting dark, vague, and despairing sentences. I emailed her to ask if she was okay. She sent back a single word:

suicide .

For a moment, all my compassion fled, and I was just pissed . There was no way I could go to bed now. And then I was instantly ashamed of my reaction. I wrote back, and stayed up emailing with Yana and texting with another fan-who’d-become-a-friend, Carolyn, who knew her and who had also seen the tweets. She offered to go check in on Yana at her youth hostel.

I’ve had fans threaten suicide at me. In 2004, back when my personal email was still posted on the band website, there was a girl who sent me a few emails in quick succession threatening to kill herself if I didn’t write back. It was my first foray into that kind of darkness with a fan over the Internet, and I wrote her long, life-affirming emails for several days. Wrong move. That just encouraged her to send me weirder, more intricate threats. I finally figured out that the best thing to do was to send her the phone number for the Samaritans and otherwise ignore her. She kept sending me suicide threats, several a week, for an entire year. I blocked her email.

But Yana was different. I knew her. I’d spent real time with her. We emailed that night about her mom and dad and brother, about life, about death, about needing to be seen. I told her we could grab a quick walk together after the show the next night. I tried not to feel manipulated. Life happens. I finally went to bed at around three in the morning, after getting a text from Carolyn that Yana had come down off the figurative ledge and was also heading to bed.

The next night, after the show and signing, Yana and I left the festival grounds and took a walk to a park. I’d spent time with her, true, but I’d never walked around with her in public, where people stared. I noticed the way people looked at her and her four-foot-six stature as she moved through the world. I wondered what it must feel like to have the gaze of the world fixated on you because of the shape of your body. Inescapable. I remember how I’d been impressed by Yana the first few times I met her. She seemed so absolutely fearless, so embodied, so totally comfortable with herself. I sat and listened while she poured out the stories of the past few months. She’d told me she’d been suicidal since after getting into a scuffle with the management of the hospital where she was working, doing patient intake administration. They’d tried to force her out of her position, but they wouldn’t level with her about the reason why.

They wouldn’t tell me what was wrong , she said, blinking back tears. I was great at my position. I was really good at my job, Amanda. Everybody in the ward loved me. And they refused to tell me what was wrong .

And that’s what made you suicidal? I asked, wiping her teary cheek with my sleeve. There’s got to be more. I know that losing a job is super-stressful. But it sounds to me like it was about something more than that. Why did it hurt so much?

Yana didn’t say anything, but it suddenly occurred to me exactly why something like that would hurt Yana so much. It was the story of her life—and I’d just witnessed it as we walked from the tent to the park, through the festival of people who stared at her body and then quickly glanced away. Who gawked at her, but never said anything. She’d lived her whole life having to cope with people looking at her the wrong way, but never addressing it.

They wouldn’t tell me what was wrong .

They were looking at her. But they weren’t seeing her.

We left the park and started walking along the waterfront, and as Yana spilled out more of the background of her story, we wound up on the topic of government assistance. She’d been eligible for disability benefits for ages but had refused to take them. Her parents encouraged her not to.

Why? I asked.

Because I don’t really have a “real” disability. I’m just short. I can do things that everybody else can do. I can work, I can drive, I’m educated. My parents insisted, when I was growing up, that I was absolutely like everybody else. Short, for sure, but not different. And the way they see it, if I take disability from the government, it’s like admitting failure. Like defeat. It’s like saying, “Yes! You’re right! I’m a cripple!”

Her comment from the park echoed in my head. I thought about all the shit this girl had had to go through in her life, the ten operations, the stretched bones, the medications, the people staring in the park, the bosses and co-workers who wouldn’t tell her what was wrong.

You and I have one giant thing in common, Yana, and I just noticed it , I said. Have I ever told you about my marriage problems? And how I refused to take any money from Neil until Anthony got sick and I had to cancel this year’s tour?

No .

You’re in for a lovely treat. Want to walk me home?

It had been over thirteen weeks of chemo, and they couldn’t tell us yet what the outcome was going to be. There was talk of a bone marrow transplant. And if they did that, an even smaller chance of survival. We all got used to living in the cloud of unknowing.

One day Neil and I were sitting in the hospital on either side of Anthony, who had just fallen asleep because the chemicals had hit him.

He’s out cold , I said.

Yep , said Neil.

I don’t want him to die , I said.

I know , said Neil. Neither do I .

I don’t want you to die either , I said.

I’m not going to die for a while, darling .

Good , I said.

You know, I’m quite proud of you and me. We’ve managed to learn how to take care of each other , Neil said, even if our marriage is a bit of a mess at times .

Yeah .

We sat in silence for a few minutes, looking at Anthony’s chest rising and falling, his head propped up on the white hospital pillow.

You really love him, don’t you? said Neil.

Yeah , I answered. I really do. He taught me everything .

The liquid dripping into his arm from the metal rack above was crystal clear, and I had a hard time looking at it without remembering that each bag, according to the doctor, cost $10,000. It always made me think about my friends without health insurance, and how hard I’d fought my parents when, just getting out of college and broke, I hadn’t wanted to pay for my own. The battle had lasted months. They wound up offering to pay for half of it. I resented it but paid for the other half. God, I was so cavalier when I was twenty-two, so asleep and so ungrateful. I looked at Neil.

I really love you, too , I said. I actually, truly do. You know that, right?

Yes. I think I do .

It’s funny , I said. Anthony taught me that .

What’s funny? Taught you what?

The love stuff. You. Taking your help, so we could be here. The whole deal .