Flirted With You All My Life: My Nuçi’s Space Story

Teri Drake-Floyd

“I flirted with you all my life,” Vic Chesnutt sang of death. “I even kissed you once or twice.”

And while I always liked that song, and love Vic, I filed it away in the “don’t play often” box in my brain (with “All Apologies”, which whisks me right back to a certain day in 1994), because it pinged a little thought. I knew what Vic meant. Those of us with wayward thoughts, we know. It is neither comfortable nor uncomfortable. Neither good nor bad. It just is. I flirted with you all my life.

I’m not unique in being touched by suicide. Friends, family. Most of them men. And while plenty of women in my life have also struggled, those flavors of the not okay were often quieted and hidden; silenced. My great-great grandmother, Dolly Shelton, was a patient at Milledgeville Asylum from 1910-1945. Her “madness” (postpartum depression) got her “sent off to Milledgeville”. Back then, they called it hysteria. Melancholy (both this and hysteria are romanticized ways of saying mental illness) lives in my family tree; it’s my birthright, as it was for many women before me. We’re taught to value ourselves through what we (silently) endure. And so it has always been my quiet shadow, an imaginary friend in the upside down.

Besides, it was just a feeling, you know? A fleeting thought in the wind, a random spurt of wordless imagery while driving down the road or in moments of dysregulation. A thought…then gone. Always in control, my grip on my reality wouldn’t allow for anything more. I was wound too tightly, like twine around a cardboard cylinder. I knew my thread would never snap; wouldn’t break. I am, after all, an overachiever. And I was fine…until I unraveled.

2021. We made the most of quarantine – baking bread, reading, bingeing Netflix and dancing alone in our living rooms to dusty vinyl. Drinking too much. Pretending we were okay. Most of that year is a blur. That Christmas, my papa gave a speech about my late grandma, his voice uncharacteristically cracking with emotion. He’d taught himself how to make her pecan pie because she no longer could. But, he said, his voice cloaked with tears, “It ain’t quite right, because her love was the secret ingredient.”

Teri Drake-Floyd is the Communications and Special Events Manager at Nuçi’s Space.

On New Year's Eve, he came over. His voice was hoarse as he sat on my couch, chatting about history, something we did often. He said his throat hurt and a knot of fear curled in my belly. Less than a month later, on my grandma’s birthday, after suffering more than any mortal should, Papa died of COVID and took my heart with him. He was my person. I will never be the same.

I coped. Went through the motions. But a shadow loomed, a ghastly purple mirage just behind my eyes. Deep grief mingled with past traumas, threatening to overtake and pull me under like the final line of my favorite poem by T.S. Eliot, “Till human voices wake us, and we drown.”  

 I couldn’t hold on. The voices crept in. I began to drown.

I don’t know when I realized I was not okay. I remember everything being very gray. Waking up every morning thinking, “I have x amount of hours till dusk, then I’ll white knuckle it until morning.” Things lurked in the dusk, things that beckoned. I could only ignore the call for so long. I was so tired. Nothing felt like anything and anything felt like nothing. I told nobody. I didn’t want to burden them. I figured they wouldn’t care anyway. 

Flirted with you all my life, Vic said. I wasn’t flirting; it was a full-fledged romance. I made lists of reasons not to. I held on to those reasons like I was falling off a cliff and the reasons were the rope. I held as tightly as any person could—but I wanted to let go. 

Then my friend Amelia, seemingly out of nowhere, came and tethered me.  

So much I can’t remember. The mind is kind. But she reached out, and said, “You seem different. I can’t explain why, but I’m worried. Can I find you some help?”

It took every bit of energy and bravery I had—the impulse was to deny, use that fine-tuned independence and desire to be invisible to deflect, say “I’m fine”—instead, I said “yes”.

Amelia, who is in healthcare and trained in what we call QPR here at Nuçi’s Space, recognized the signs that something was wrong. QPR stands for Question, Persuade, and Refer, and it teaches you the skills necessary to recognize when someone you love is struggling, and reach out to them in a non-threatening, safe, and effective way. It is triage. The urge is to say something like, “You wouldn’t do anything stupid like killing yourself, would you?” Not only does this phrasing hold an air of judgement, but it has an “out” baked right in. The hidden question within the question is, “please say no”. Amelia knew to be direct. And that’s what she did — ask directly if she could get me some help. And then—most importantly—she followed through.

Amelia put me in touch with a therapist, who helped me climb out of the dark hole. In those COVID days, we had to do sessions through Zoom and phone calls, but it was a lifeline. It wasn’t immediate, but after a while, I began to feel something like okay. Later, I felt like I might be okay for real. Little by little. The year that followed was full of personal highs, goals I’d dreamed of for years but never had the energy or gumption to try. I went back to school. Made the Dean’s List. I published another book. In 2023, I began working at Nuçi’s Space. As of this writing, thanks to the Health & Wellness team and their support, I’ve been in therapy for two years and recently started EMDR. I credit my Nuçi’s Space family with saving my life and setting me on a path to healing. Every day when I come into the office, I say hello to Nuçi.

If you know me, you’ve heard me talk about how Nuçi’s Space has helped not only me, but several of my loved ones. Here, there is no stigma around depression or brain illness, and we speak of Nuçi, Vic, Carl, Marti and others we’ve lost with empathy and understanding. They are our friends; friends that struggled with a feeling so many of us can relate to. Our mission is simple: to prevent suicide. We do that through not only subsidized therapy and counseling, health clinics, low-cost rehearsal rooms and equipment, and QPR, but through simply being here to lend an ear to whoever walks through our doors. A safe place to land.

For those who suffer from depression, the flirtation never goes away. It’s always there, the old dance. But when you speak openly about brain illness and equip yourself with the skills to intervene compassionately and effectively when someone is in trouble, you can help. You can help them stay in the here, as our founder Linda Phillips said. You can save a life. I’m living proof! 

For more resources and information, please visit our Health & Wellness page, or call us on (706)-227-1515. #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth