There was a time, during my forties, when I wanted out. Caring for someone with extreme depression is exhausting and I didn’t want to be a burden. It was my sense of helplessness which I found more devastating than any other emotion. No way out. No end to the pain.
There is physical pain: the kind that starts at the toes and screams up the legs and throughout the whole body from inside out and steals your free-will, your ability to think clearly and choose life; pain that brings thoughts of death and quickly erases the memories that make life worth living; pain, the devil, the serpent in the Garden, tempting you to eat of the fruit of death. And there is mental pain; the total lack of control over life because some other force has taken over. Suicide is the ultimate act of control, the ultimate expression of the desire for order. In the mind of the one who wants to die, it is a well-thought out, justified act of selflessness. My loved ones will be fine. I won’t become a burden to them. Suicide comes to symbolize peace. It all seems so normal. Except the one considering suicide is suffering from an illness so overwhelming that her decision making is not functioning. I was at that moment, mentally ill.
Listen to Episode Three. A mother talks about her son’s desire to commit suicide.
