DIED 2006
THE BOY WAS IN a coma for several days before he died. He had taken an overdose of his antidepressants, which caused the seizures he was having when his mother found him in his bedroom. The propensity of Wellbutrin to cause seizures is greatly increased in combination with other drugs, so the psychedelic mushrooms were surely a factor. But whether he took the handful of Wellbutrin to relieve the visions produced by the psilocybin or to relieve himself of consciousness permanently is a matter of disagreement among his sister, his mother, and other survivors. A matter of silent disagreement, since who can possibly talk about this?
His sister, a tall dark Semitic-style beauty, was my stepdaughter’s best friend. They had brothers the same age, former pipsqueaks now on the way to becoming moody, substance-abusing Jewish teenage boys, the kind I went crazy for back in the day. I watched my stepdaughter press her nails into her hand, talk on her cell phone, lay her head on the table. She watched her friend close up like a mollusk. Then open again, raw and slippery and gray.
In clinical studies, my stepdaughter told me, antidepressants increased the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in adolescents with depression and other psychiatric disorders. Isn’t that like getting pimples from your acne medicine or gaining weight on Slimfast shakes? He had actually stopped taking the Wellbutrin, though, she mentioned, which makes it even more maddeningly unclear what his intention might have been on that April day, after the mushrooms and the Family Guy and the spaghetti.