One of the many, many things~
Very, very important notes: please read this first. This is an essay I wrote 2 years ago. I no longer feel like committing suicide. Also, some graphic illness descriptions. Some of the other problems are better, some are worse. Overall, though, my spouse and I are doing all right.
Is It Time To Go?
It is, first and foremost, completely our faults. We both received modest inheritances, amounts which if we had saved them, would in all likelihood have kept us out of our current predicament. It is a small comfort that it is apparently somewhat common for people to instead, do what we did — live the high life for a little while. And I cannot deny it — it was a huge amount of fun. Memories that still make me smile. It was a blast.
But then our health started to go south. Again, from preventable problems. But I have a lifetime of enjoying food way too much, and she [privacy redaction]. I have ended up with leg ulcers, she with bleeding ulcers (beware of aspirin and ibuprofen). She almost died a few weeks ago from an internal bleed; we made it to the hospital just in time. And I am plagued with a health problem that is very hard to get under control, especially in our current situation. It will never go away.
So I had to miss a few months of work. She had been laid off some months before, so the financial situation quickly descended into desperation: evictions, lawyers, and then homelessness. When I went back to work, out of shape from my very long recovery time, I was quickly fired from the company I had been with for 27 years, because I ‘couldn’t do the job’.
People— friends, strangers — have been so generous. But even substantial gifts cannot overcome the loss of jobs, health, savings. The government, both federal and state, have given us much; she now receives disability and food stamps. But we only have a roof over our heads because of one person’s generosity, and that cannot be endless. Subsidized housing is a many-year wait. And even though I would not hire me: my affliction is smelly, messy and disruptive — I am having a struggle being considered disabled. There is minuscule aid for an older woman in such a situation; I lost my food stamps because I did not report my change of address soon enough.
Is this essay a bid for sympathy or help? Yes and no — sympathy, and prayers, and good thoughts, are wonderful things; they have been uplifting and helpful.
No, I write this as a love letter to this world that I love and value so much, that has given me so much pleasure and delight.
I always swore, after a preteen bout with anxious depression, that I would never consider suicide. “I’ll just walk off into the sunset,” I’d say — find a new place, a new name, a new reality. But I was foolish, because I did not realize even the possibility of there being one thing; the one thing that is throwing up a roadblock, silencing my vow to never give up.
Pain. I have not before felt pain like this, randomly, every few days, that cannot be chased away using the only drugs my doctors are either willing or able to give me. Pain where you sob, and beg saints that you supposedly do not believe in, for it to stop please stop. That keeps you from sleeping many nights. Pain that makes you yell and scream in anger at the person you love the most. Pain that keeps you from walking, breathing. Living. Pain that keeps you in terror of the next unpredictable round. Pain that keeps you from changing your dressings because it feels like you are tearing a layer of your skin off.
How can I be contemplating, seriously contemplating, suicide? I never thought I would get here. But we are already talking about methods, places, timing.
The little bits of family we both have left are either estranged or in no position to help. God bless health insurance, but if doctors can’t really help you, it doesn’t matter so much that the care is free. When you can’t lie down to sleep, or put your legs up because it hurts too much, then your leg ulcers will just get worse and worse. Shelters do not accept couples of any kind, and besides, they all have limits on how long you can stay, just postponing the inevitable. Living in your car is an option for some, but she views that as an even worse nightmare.
It is strange to know that many of the people on this planet live with everyday deprivation that makes our situation look like a vacation. I have always admired them, and even more now, now that I have discovered that I cannot do what they do. I have reached a limit, where every possible road ahead is bleak and terrible.
How can I? This is such a wondrous existence — exquisitely beautiful, achingly touching; sunsets, smiles, art that can stop your breath, kind people, cats, cotton, ketchup sandwiches. Perhaps I should just fill up the rest of my time here with lists, of all the things that have made my stay here on earth into something that makes me smile and laugh and cry, all at the same time.
But then I feel the pain, which this night hurts a lot, but not enough to gasp, curse, and sob all night long, like it did last night. But I fear its licking fingers, and what it does to my soul — robbing me of comfort, hope, peace.
I am so sad when young people kill themselves. “Wait! You haven’t seen a big waterfall/felt a great love/ been touched to your heart, and beyond.”
But this is different. I have done those things. And I don’t want to die sitting in a street somewhere, too sick and sad to move. So choosing my time of death is beginning to look like, is looking like, the right idea.
There is always much to live for in this world. The problem comes when you cannot see a practical, doable way to stay around. And if you are in so much pain that even the beautiful seems brittle, loud, and too much, hanging on no longer seems a good idea.
Postscript: First, eternal thanks to Lahey Hospital. They found a way, and the gods bless’em forever. Second, the best rebuttal to my essay, is that I am still here. Lesson-KEEP TRYING to find a way. It is a world of astonishing possibilities; there may be one for you.
copyright2016
