“Your perspective on
life comes from the cage you were held captive in.” – Shannon L. Alder
I’ve been struggling a lot lately. My guess is a potent
concoction of several factors that landed me in another deep, depressed state.
My own frustration compounded what I was already feeling – I just feel like
giving up sometimes. I wondered how many false hopes I’d stumble across that
would make me think I had somehow found something that would take away PTSD
entirely.
I have to accept that PTSD never goes away and it’s simply
my lot in life to live with it. I imagine the sooner I accept that I will never
truly feel whole again the better off I’ll be. I’d like to think the journey
will get easier from there once I can accept that there is no cure and no amount
of my failed attempts to bring closure to and make sense of my own past will
make a difference, either. It’s a harsh truth, yet I think it’s an honest one.
Even though others don't like what you're saying - sometimes I have very dark thoughts. I'm not ashamed of that.
I know people hate to hear me say things along those lines
because I make it seem hopeless. I don’t see it as a form of hopelessness,
merely looking at the situation objectively and accepting an unpleasant truth.
My mind went to some very dark places for a while and I
struggled to find motivation to do even the simplest of things. I was down for
too long in my dark apartment with a nasty virus. It seems that what was
trudged up during that downtime has affected me even though I struggle against
it. I’m thinking the worst of it was when I called Donna, my grandmothers’ best
friend and my childhood babysitter. I felt like I was on a ledge and I couldn’t
think of anyone else who would understand the pain I was feeling. Donna lost
the same people I lost, the only difference being she was an adult and I was a
child.
These two women have a special place in my heart. My grandmother on the left and Donna on the right.
When I was a little girl, I often came home from school
crying. I was teased for many things, mostly for being chubby. Donna would
stroke my hair and tell me not to worry about what the other children were
telling me because I was well on my way to being a Marilyn Monroe look alike.
Fast forward to my adult years, I called Donna crying and asked her how she got
through it. Her response was this: Sometimes
I drink, sometimes I accept it, and sometimes I pray. I suppose that’s all
we can do.
In the end, I guess what really matters is that I'm moving forward.
My conversation with her lifted my spirits. She told me
about how my grandmother loved to dress me up when I was younger and that if
she had a daughter she’d want her to be just like me. Having felt worthless and
low for several weeks, her words were just what I needed to hear.
Our conversation resulted in a new project: I must find her
a laptop. She was amazed that I could call her from the internet. Donna is low
income and in her 60’s. Not too long ago she damaged her back so badly that she
is unable to work. If I can repay her for her comfort and kindness, it’s in my
new mission of laptop hunting.
Struggling as much as I have over the last several weeks
made me think of the Death with Dignity Act – I think this should apply to
mental illnesses as well. Before you balk at my words, Dear Reader, please hear
me out. I’m not talking about a temporary bout of depression or anxiety because
one has just gone through a divorce or is under a severe amount of stress. I’m
talking about the chronic conditions such as schizophrenia and PTSD. I view
them in the same light as I see cancer. No amount of love, medical care or
money can prevent these things, particularly when it’s terminal.
I think this should extend to everyone.
I feel that there are vast mountains to be climbed for the
societal acceptance of how severe these conditions are. From my conversations
with others, I have found that the people who genuinely understand where I’m
coming from have either experienced it themselves or have experienced mental
illness with a loved one, watching helplessly as that person withered away from
their own self destruction or ultimately took their own life.
When someone dies from suicide, it’s seen as weakness.
Unlike death due to a physical illness, there is anger directed at the person. How could she?! I think people view
these types of death far too personally. We wouldn’t be angry at someone who
died of cancer, and what most fail to see is that suicide is a last resort.
Suicide comes when the person just wants to escape the pain.
I have the answer: absolutely nowhere. It's a harsh truth. We just have to ride it out. That's really our only option.
Provided that a person has made an effort, if the mental
illness is terminal the Death with Dignity Act should apply. Take me as an
example: I’ve been in therapy for at least 5 years now. There is no cure for
me.
I’m not saying I want to die, I’m only saying I should have
the option – and I should have the option of a dignified death, not one that
results in suicide and further compounds the stigma that’s already been
attached to my life. Additionally, those who suffer from more severe forms of
mental illness often turn their frustration and anger towards themselves. We
have a tendency to be self-destructive and self-medicate. The self-medicating
results in substance abuse and this is often so severe that it leads to death
as a result from overdose or massive organ failure.
For most of the mentally ill, this is what happens in the end - or we commit suicide.
So I wondered about the more compassionate option. Knowing
the destructive nature of mental illness, why force a person to live with it
and give them only suicide as a way out? Using myself as an example again, I
think I should have the choice to choose death when I can’t stand the fight
anymore. I’m an organ donor and those parts of me could go to someone who will
live a happy life. As things stand with our current laws and statistics on
mental illness, I’d be more likely to develop an addiction, die from it, and my
organs wouldn’t be viable because the substance abuse would ruin them. Or, I’d
commit suicide in a manner that didn’t preserve the organs and no one would
benefit from my death. I just don’t see the logic in the way things are with
this now. I try to see all things as objectively as possible. Perhaps I’m dead
wrong on this subject, but I’m finding the more I talk about it, the more I
find people who are in accordance with my own views on this matter. I think we
all deserve a dignified death.
I'd wager that if we were given the choice, we'd be able to save lives with our organs by relinquishing our own life.
Maybe I’ll change my mind. Either way, I refuse to join the
masses who refuse to see mental illness as a very real thing. This is something
that we should talk about more, not only to understand how it impacts those who
suffer from it, but also the blatantly wrong stereotypes applied to those who
have a mental illness.
I’m making more effort to not only understand myself, but to
protect myself as well. I’m a naturally empathetic person – and I imagine why
this is the main reason I so easily connect with others. The part of being an
empath that wrecks me sometimes is absorbing other people’s pain, often making
it my own. Not only their pain, but their issues. I’m trying to retrain myself
so that I learn to observe rather than absorb. For as long as I can remember, I’ve
been sponge-like towards other’s emotional states. Seriously! There have been a
few occasions, where I’ve made someone laugh because their sadness was
overwhelming me.
I'm thinking this personality trait may also explain at least some of the peaks and valley in my life.
With that in mind, I nixed some people from my life. Not
because they were bad people, simply because I felt they were bad for me. I can
only absorb so much negativity in any given day. Because I am dealing with so
many scared, anxious, and sometimes angry people in my life of work, I simply
don’t have anything left over when the day is done. My goal is to have
something left over, particularly for me because I’m tired of feeling so
drained all of the time. When I can learn to observe instead of absorb I can
work on reestablishing connections with others who consistently tap into my empathetic
energy. My heart needs to be closed off for a while. I find that difficult to
do because it goes against my nature.
From reflection, I’ve learned that there are personality
types that are just downright dangerous to me. I’ve nixed people with these
personality types, too. I’m sure they don’t intentionally mean me harm, but
they can’t fight their true nature and that’s just the way of it. If I can quit
blaming myself for what’s going wrong in everyone else’s life because my
purpose in life isn’t to fix anyone. That’s their choice, not mine.
Truth be told, feeling any emotion to the depths that I experience them feels rather lonely.
I just keep going in circles, don’t I? I’m thinking of a
friend’s words said to me several years ago: I will pass the same face of the
mountain on my way to the top. I hope I’m at least evolving and moving upward.
I doubt myself sometimes. I’m also self-doubting and have no sense of
direction. These are also truths. I imagine I’ve been on the most indirect path
up this wretched mountain: one with no foot trails and entirely uncharted.
Don't even ask me for directions. I will undoubtedly get you lost. That's also a harsh truth.
