Life, Death, and In-between

I am grieving the loss of my nephew - a sudden, death of a young man. I am coming out of the deep darkness of a months long depression, a time when my own hold on life was precarious, and I pause to ponder the tragedy and gift that is humanity. He and I went a few times to some NA meetings, and had meaningful conversations before and after. I don't know yet if his death is related to chemicals, but I know we shared something in our personalities that revolves around using. He is gone, and I am here, and I don't know why some people 'make it' and others simply don't. Death has nothing to do with who deserves it, as I can point to many who deserve death and live long lives.

During my own depression I spent much time debating with myself whether or not death was a viable option. Logically it seemed like a reasonable choice. One of my doctors once said to me "sometimes medicine is a good choice, especially if it lessens the chance of suicide. Suicide certainly isn't of use." I looked her straight in the eye and said "suicide is an effective means to end the suffering." And I can't argue with that even when I feel good. But death affects the living. Death rips a hole in the fabric of a family. Death leaves a circle of friends incomplete. Death is the loss of a meaningful life, no matter whose life, no matter how the meaning is formed. So I grieve my nephew and watch his mother and father weep, his siblings weep, and feel an emptiness where his presence was in our lives.

I know the meaning of my own life in some contexts - mostly in relation to others. I do not understand the meaning of my life in relation to me. I know I used every coping skill I have developed over the past 30 years of therapy and perhaps I kept myself alive, with the help of all the supports in my life, but suffered nonetheless. And suffered deeply. So deeply I stand in amazement at me - and a little sadness - because I have worked so hard to create a meaningful life and the price I pay for being who I am is almost insane. My nephew suffered, I know from our talks, and his approach was to be simple and carefree. He lived a life of unrealistic hope and optimism, never working terribly hard to overcome his 'situation' and instead just played a lot of Xbox and drank. I think in a way I envy him that, as I contrast his coping with my own - unrealistic hopelessness that propels me into constant personal growth and change. He was loved deeply by all the same people that love me deeply. I wonder if he understood the meaning of his own life, or simply accepted, or lived in denial. I knew him well, but there are some aspects of our lives that others are never privy to.

No one will ever 'get' the suffering I experience, or the relief I feel when 'it' is over and I can laugh and think and live without impediment. No one will ever understand how deeply satisfying and pleasurable it is to walk in the woods those first weeks out of the shadow of depression. Our lives are so very personal, and the meaning we construct and the way we build that meaning and the very paths we walk so unique and individual.....yet there is something we share. I know we share it when we laugh together, or exchange an eye-to-eye look, or when there is death. Sometimes what we share is most poignant in it's absence.

Good-bye, nephew. I will plant flowers around the hole you left in the fabric of my life and every now and then when I hear an AC/DC song or run into a foolishly optimistic soul, I'll visit the hole and wonder about you.

Crucified

Not with nails, not to a cross, but I am crucified nonetheless. The little scratch I made with the utility knife is a tardis - much bigger on the inside than on the outside. Inside that little, pathetic cut is myself, stabbing at my arm repetitively, digging out chunks of flesh, screaming. I am treating myself "cruelly," causing pain and suffering. I am hurting myself. I engage in sadistic self-torture because I feel shame and the result is more shame. SHAME on me. Heaped upon me. Burying me with its heaviness. I wish I could dig out of this shame but it is a tardis - much bigger inside.

I wish I had not given the drugs to my therapist. I wish they were on the counter where they have been sitting for months, calling me seductively but quietly, with class and tact. "Eat me, and float for 12 hours, on a couch of soft nothing." Now they are miles away, on his counter, screaming at me with vehement, white trash rage "you fucking BITCH! You left us and now instead of floating with us we sit in the dark, unconsumed, while your FUCKING rage consumes you! SHAME!" Instead I take the psychiatrically condoned anti-psychotic tranquilizer that I won't float upon, rather I will be smothered with. It is oppressive, not fun, which is why I can take it. But FUCK the doctors, I took a non-sanctioned lovely pill I got from a pharmacy from India, fair and square right off the internet. Does that make me a drug addict? Is this a slip? Did I just stab my sobriety in the back? Is it so wrong for one of my selves to take one pill to calm me down, while another one of my selves takes a pill to keep me awake? 

Maybe "crucify" isn't the right word. Maybe "sabotage" is more fitting.

It's been a hard fucking day, people. I dare anyone who has never been sadistically tortured by another to attempt to understand (i.e. crawl into the head of) someone who has been sadistically tortured by another. 

The mind itself is a tardis, transporting its soul to the past to relive, relive, relive. 

Jesus was crucified. For my sins, apparently, and the sins of the bad people of the world, so that we wouldn't have to die. But I want to die. I am sick of crucification and I can't seem to stop the shame and the rage and triggering that gets me to this place. I am dangerous like this, so much more dangerous than when I am simply "depressed." I am alive when I am like this, so much more alive than when I am depressed. I am lethal when I am like this, alive and deadly. I could jump off the cross and save myself, I suppose, but my purpose is a tardis, so big inside that I cannot see it from my vantage point here on the precipice of shame. I crucify myself, so that the little one inside can live without the heaviness of the sins of the bad people of the world. I rage so that I can feel alive, and even if the rage ends in my suicide then at least for awhile I felt alive. I bet right before Jesus died he felt the most alive. 

Zero, Nothingness, Suicide, and Buddhism

I have struggled with "suicidal ideology" for years. And years. My therapist has never said my suicidal thoughts and wishes and fantasies were delusional, but I think they are. I just have never been able to formulate a logical and convincing argument against suicide. All the pablum usually offered up by self-help and programs and Oprah sound nice, but never touch the deep truth that I believe suicide would end my suffering. Tonight I realized that suicide is a "flat earth" option - a delusion.

If someone believes that the earth is flat, they might ask "will I fall off the edge of the earth if I reach the end? Or will I run into a wall of sorts?" The questions themselves are silly to those of us who believe the earth is round, but to a flat earth believer the questions are valid. So it is with suicide. My belief that that suicide will end my suffering is based on a grasping notion of both "self" and "finality." I grasp at this idea that "I" suffer and that death will bring an end, but that's silly. "I" only exist in this moment and this moment ends. Then this moment ends. Then this moment ends. My suffering is endlessly ending.... The delusion is that I believe in both a self and an ending. But that is flat earth thinking. Perhaps the earth is round.

Zero is nothing is round. I had an algebra teacher that spent an hour once discussing the concept of zero as an assumption and as such was proof that God existed. Buddhism, in my limited understanding, is all about nothingness but not at all about God. Wouldn't it be ironic if nothing was proof of God?