2:10 p.m. - 07/12/02
the pisces and the cancer...
Elisabeth says in The Tunnel and the Light, "[Depression is] worse than nothing. It's total vacuum. There is absolutely no way of getting out into the sunshine. And for the depressed person the only solution is to end it all like this, because it has become unbearable.
"You understand that at the end, when you do the life review after you die, that will be evaluated as if you had died of cancer. That form of depression and suicide is an illness that you are not held responsible for."
So of course, I was glad to read this; no matter what I thought of the rest of the book, I was glad to hear someone say *something* other than, "Suicide is selfish, it's a crime, and people who kill themselves should be punished after death." I mean, Jesus, would she ever have done it if she hadn't been so punished by her own brain during life? My question now is, what's the *difference?* Between she and I? Between Sara and Silje and I? What is the *difference?*
I asked this question after Paul died, and I didn't like the answer- that he had just failed to use the support I utilized. How many times in my depression was I completely unable to ask for help? How many times was I completely unable to make decisions that would be healthy long-term? How many times was I desperate, impulsive, in search of five seconds of peace no matter what the cost? And this sort of outcome is justified by the coverall of "free will"? Our choice is to take full responsibility for our lives or be slaves to God and destiny? I don't understand this. I don't believe it's her fault she's gone, and I can't put the rest of us off the hook so easily. Where is the line when someone is no longer alowed to make decisions for themselves, when they are in too much pain to know what's good for them? And if there is no line, shouldn't we be expected to help change the *circumstances* that are leading them to be so desperate? They *shouldn't* have to survive in such a horrid, depressed state, but they also shouldn't have to not survive at all. Right? So why doesn't it happen this way?
I know it wasn't my job to keep tabs on Tracy (well, I kind of know) and to make sure she was ok every moment of every day, but somewhere between her doctor looking after her and no one, there was me. Somewhere between the people expected to take care of her and suicide, there was me. And I didn't listen to my cue, I didn't do what I was supposed to, I wasn't fucking there. So what are you telling me? That I'm supposed to be upset because she didn't ask for help. When I know - I know- how impossible asking can be?
This says that I might feel like an impostor; yes, that's true. I feel like I had no right to survive over her, and I feel, also, like I lied about having this illness. Like I was not possibly sick. Because *tell me* how I could have the same illness they did and be surviving so much more easily. *Tell me* how I have "suffered" equally and am so less destroyed.
It isn't *choice,* for Christ's sake. No one chooses to feel like their head is crashing in, and their bones are banging against the wall of their skin. So, why? Why didn't we fix it? What did we miss? What didn't we know to do?
And how do we keep going knowing that if we'd looked a little more closely something could have been done? How does anyone sleep with that, or really- how does anyone wake up?
chord
�
�
