Masking a Troubled Soul

The first time the thought popped into his head, he was in high school. Seth never was the “cool kid” in school, and was frequently targeted by bullies. They would make fun of him for his glasses, his hair, his gangly, thin frame.

His teachers constantly tried to drill into his head that drawing cartoons would get him nowhere, only causing him to become more determined to make it as a cartoonist because he was so stubborn.

He thought once Family Guy became popular, that he’d finally get the respect he’d so desperately wanted all his life. But he couldn’t have been more wrong.

People constantly criticized the show, saying its humor was too raunchy, that it pushed the envelope too far. They even attacked Seth personally, calling him a racist, a misogynist, a homophobe, one who hates Christians and Jews. But they didn’t understand the point of the jokes in Family Guy; they were merely meant to point out that racism, misogyny, and homophobia do exist. If someone made fun of their own religion, would that be considered offensive?

He thought writing and directing a movie would garner him some amount of respect. Countless movie critics flamed the movie Ted, saying “what more did you expect from the creator of Family Guy?”

So when the opportunity to host the Oscars came about, he was hesitant to accept at first. Another opportunity to embarrass himself like he did during the Emmys? No thank you! But the more he considered it, the more he was leaning towards doing it. The Oscars were a big deal, and if they wanted him to host, it must mean they hold him in some regard, right?

He (somewhat reluctantly) accepted, and spent the next several months working his ass off to try and become the best host the Oscars had ever had. Maybe this would finally get him some respect from his critics.

Oh, if only he’d known. If he’d had even the slightest idea of the media shitstorm that would follow, he never would’ve accepted. He would’ve been perfectly content to spend the night at home watching TV with his cat Chester.

This had been the worst week of his life. First the critics flamed his hosting of the Oscars, saying his jokes were “offensive” and the song he sang was downright disrespectful, objectifying women. Then his girlfriend broke up with him, claiming their long-distance relationship would never work. He’d loved her, and he’d thought she’d felt the same for him, but he was wrong.

He wasn’t sure what to believe anymore; he was assured hosting the Oscars would help his public relations, not hurt it. Those people had lied to him. His girlfriend had told him right to his face that she loved him the day before she broke up with him; she’d lied, too. So many people had lied to him, about things of varying importance.

So those thoughts he’d years ago pushed to the back of his mind had started to surface once again. What if he just ended it all? Would anyone care? People had told him to kill himself too many times to count, so what if he did it? Would that make them happy?

At first he’d wished the thought away. He had plenty of things to live for: his TV shows, his family – including his three year old niece. He couldn’t give up all of that.

But then he remembered that just a month before he’d had even more things that were important to him. He’d had a girlfriend he’d loved dearly, who he would’ve done anything for. Even though they hadn’t seen each other much in recent months, he’d been fully committed to her. He’d almost been ready to take the next step with her. That’s right – when she came back to visit, he’d planned on asking her to marry him.

He’d planned out the perfect evening for it: dinner from their favorite take-out restaurant, then he’d sit through some unbearable romantic comedy that he’d hate every second of but knew she’d love. After that he’d lead her outside, where he’d set up the whole backyard with candles and flowers. He’d sort of planned out some long speech, but knew he was going to end up winging it after all.

Instead he’d been left standing in shock at his front doorstep, broken-hearted. All that work he’d put in was for nothing. Just like the Oscars. People still hated him, maybe even more people than before.

And of course his Twitter had been full of nothing but hate in the weeks following the Oscars. There’d been a few nice messages, but all the bad ones definitely outweighed the good ones.

“You’re a talentless hack.”

“You’re a perverted pig to sexualize a 9-year-old girl.”

“Fuck your misogyny, fuck your racism, and fuck you.”

“You’re the worst piece of shit human being and I hope you die a slow, painful death.”

“You should just kill yourself and save everyone the trouble.”

“You’re going to burn in hell, you atheist prick.”

“I hate you, you misogynist pig. You just proved to everyone that you’re as much of a douche as they thought.”

And that was just a sampling of the hate. He’d tried to just laugh it off like he knew he should, but after a while it started to get to him. Everything just kept swirling around in his head until he was actually contemplating suicide.

No one really needed him anymore. The shows could go on without him; they would find people to replace him for the voices and as the head honcho. His ex-girlfriend obviously didn’t need him anymore; she’d made that perfectly clear. And he was sure Rachael would take care of Chester for him.

He’d considered just putting a gun to the side of his head; but that was too messy. Hanging himself sounded too painful and long. He wanted a quick, easy way out. So an overdose of painkillers seemed like the way to go.

Trying to act normal when he felt dead inside had become quite difficult. He had to fake smiles all the time, and act like he still cared about everything. In reality he couldn’t care less what happened in the next couple weeks; he’d be long gone by then.

He found his sister in the American Dad studio on his last day at work, wanting to just say goodbye to her one more time. He wasn’t sure if he could bring himself to see his niece Bella again. It would be too hard to look into her big brown eyes, so full of hope and love, all the while knowing he would never see her again.

When Rachael went to hug him he froze, not sure if he wanted to submit himself to that pain or not. But he realized it would be the last time he would get to do it, so instead hugged her with all his strength, nearly squeezing the air out of her lungs. “Jeez Seth, what’s going on with you?” she asked when she pulled out of the hug.

He shrugged it off, “Nothing. Just trying to let you know that I love you.” He said quietly, avoiding her eyes for fear his would betray him and give something away about his intentions that night. But Rachael tilted his face back to hers, “I love you too, okay? And if you ever need to talk about anything, I’m here for you.”

He felt his stomach drop. Was she suspicious of him? “Talk?” he clarified. She nodded. “I just feel like you’ve been getting a lot of bad press lately, and as much as you say it doesn’t affect you I can tell that it does. Even if it’s just a little. So if you need someone to vent to, you can always talk to your sister.”

And he almost took her up on that offer. Almost. But then he just shook his head, flashing her a fake smile that he’d grown accustomed to using, and brushed her off. “I’m fine. But thanks sis. It means a lot to me. If I need to, I’ll come and see you.”

He was too deep into this now to back out like a coward. People had ignored his cryptic pleas for help for far too long. If someone were to read into some of his Tweets enough, they would see that behind the jokes, he was damaged.

A tweet of “Tennis, no one?” was not poking fun at the fact that not many people enjoyed tennis. It was rather to say that he felt like no one would want to play tennis with him after the Oscars. But people just took it as him making a joke, not a cry for help.

And now his sister had an idea. But it was too late. He couldn’t be saved anymore. He was beyond hope, broken beyond repair. No one or nothing could fix what was wrong inside his head. Once Seth got an idea in his head, it never went away. It may get pushed to the back of his mind for a bit, but eventually it would reappear. Whether he wanted it to or not.

When he arrived home, he let out a deep sigh, partially out of relief. No more dealing with people. He was finally going to do it. Then he wouldn’t have to hear anyone tell him how much they hated him anymore and how much they wished he was dead. They would be getting what they wanted.

He was snapped out of his thoughts upon feeling Chester rubbing against his legs. Normally Chester wasn’t one to ask for affection, so this was new. It was like he knew his master was about to do something stupid. Seth dropped to his knees in front of Chester and grabbed the sides of his face in his hands. The cat looked back at him with huge green eyes, purring softly.

Seth felt hot tears forming in his eyes. It was as if Chester was, in his own way, letting Seth know that he loved him. He smiled a real smile for the first time in a while, rubbing behind Chester’s ears, who purred louder in approval, rubbing his head against Seth’s hand. Seth sighed, using the back of his hand to wipe away his tears and giving Chester a final scratch on the head before standing back up.

Instead of going straight to his room to do what he would inevitably do that night, he decided to head into his backyard first. Just take in his surroundings one last time. Maybe just be alone with his thoughts for a while.

His mind was swimming right now – so many thoughts going through his head he couldn’t properly sort them. Instead of doing something productive, he just lounged outside, covering his eyes with his hand to block out the sun, which had started to slip over the horizon. He wasn’t sure how long he lay out there; maybe it was an hour or two, maybe it was only ten minutes. But he decided it was time to do this.

He noticed as he was getting things ready that he kept stalling, finding any excuse to delay his actions. Oh, I should pick this up off the floor. Maybe I should feed Chester first. Did I remember to close the back door?

Shaking his head to clear those thoughts away, he searched through the medicine cabinet, looking for the right bottle: Vicodin. When he finally found it, he unscrewed the cap and dumped the remaining pills into his hand. He’d had them for about a year, and was told by his doctor to use them sparingly when his back problems flared up again. But there had to be about ten to twelve capsules left; just enough to overdose on.

He’d been reading up on this method of suicide, and knew it wouldn’t take long for the pills to overwhelm his body and mind. So he knew it would be best to already be lying down when he took them. After filling a glass with water, he took that and the pills back to his bedroom, setting them down on the table beside his bed.

After taking a few deep breaths to calm his nervously racing heart, he started taking the pills, two at a time. When he’d swallowed all of them, he finished off the glass of water and put the empty glass back on his bedside table.

It didn’t take more than ten minutes for the pills to start taking effect. He started feeling exceptionally tired, meanwhile his mind continued to race with all kinds of thoughts. His whole body started to go numb, starting in his extremities and slowly working its way to his core. When he tried to pick up his arm, it was like everything was in slow-motion. This was way different than any other high he’d experienced before.

Soon it was a struggle to keep his eyes open. His breathing had become labored and he was only able to take shallow breaths. He felt nausea creeping in, but swallowed to force it back down. His whole body had started to ache; he found it strange that he could be numb, but still had the ability to feel pain.

Thankfully, just when the pain washing over him was beginning to become unbearable, he closed his eyes for the final time. His heart stopped less than a minute after that. Never to be shocked back to life.

Stewie, Peter, and Brian died with him. Quagmire. Tom Tucker. Carter Pewterschmidt. Doctor Hartman. Roger. Stan. All of them were gone, too. But perhaps most importantly, Seth himself was dead. Never again would he say another line for Family Guy, or sing another Sinatra song in front of a crowd. Or play silly games with his niece. Maybe, just maybe, if someone had seen the signs sooner, he could’ve been saved. If someone had told him to not listen to what those idiots on Twitter were telling him, there was a chance he might’ve been able to do it. But everyone had just assumed he’d been fine and left him alone with his own thoughts.

He’d held on for as long as he could while being as close to dead – both physically and emotionally – as one person could be.

But if he’d been able to hold on just a while longer, even a day, he would’ve seen something amazing. All the nasty messages on Twitter were being buried, replaced by messages from his fans – defending him, encouraging him, and some even reassuring him. Recently they’d even started trying to get a hashtag for him trending on Twitter to show their appreciation for him. But he hadn’t seen any of it. Hadn’t gotten to read any of them messages where fans told him that he was their idol, their hero. Would any of it saved him, anyway? Probably not. But no one would know for sure.

If he’d been able to see his family members’ tear-stained faces as they stood at his funeral, would it have mattered? If he’d known how much it would hurt them to have to watch as their 39 year old brother, son, and friend was laid to rest, would he still have done it?

Everyone blamed themselves. If they would’ve done more for him, maybe he wouldn’t have taken his own life. They could’ve shown him all the things he had to live for, convince him it was worth fighting for. His sister had taken it the hardest. She’d seen a few of the signs weeks ago, but thought he would come to her if he needed to talk about anything. It took her a couple weeks to realize he wasn’t going to do that. But why, when she offered him her ears, did he turn her down? Was he afraid to let her inside his head? Was he worried she’d be concerned by what she saw and heard?

She should’ve sat him down and made him talk. She should’ve done everything she could’ve to ensure his health. He was her big brother, and she wasn’t sure how she was going to live without him. Bella was too young to understand what was going on, but someday she would see pictures and ask what had happened to her Uncle Seth. And then Rachael would have to explain that he felt so alone and hopeless that he’d decided his life wasn’t worth living anymore.

She realized just how much she’d taken him for granted when he was alive. She would’ve done anything to have him back for just five more minutes, to tell him everything she would’ve wanted to if she’d known he was on his deathbed. It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d poked fun at her; she would’ve taken it like she always did.

Just to have him alive long enough for her to tell him how much she was going to miss him would’ve been enough. But she would never get that chance. And it was going to haunt her every day for the rest of her life, knowing that maybe she could’ve saved him.