“You never know what the future might hold” is something a mental health professional, parent, spouse, or stranger on the internet might say to someone contemplating suicide. Perfectly good advice to a 20-year-old and in fact when I was 20ish, I took it. It didn’t work very well but I like to think I gave it a good try.
But 50 years later, the inescapable fact is that there’s not nearly so much future left. I’ve been low-energy depressed ever since 19; now, I’m too weak to do physical labor (or much of anything physical) and the recent cognitive tests I took tell me that I’m losing those skills anyway. The only thing that I enjoy in life any more is Mexican food and cheap margaritas and even those in moderation—too greasy, too acidic.
And if I were interested in making a better, happier rest of my life, I would like to think I’d be more energetic about seeking it—traveling the world to see what there is to see, making new friends, making better margaritas—but none of those things have any interest.
I simply don’t care if I live or die. There are fewer than five people who might have some emotion about my death; I suspect my wife and my “grandchildren” are not in that group. And that fact doesn’t bother me, so the old trope about what would they say about me at my funeral holds no power. I’ve already left permission for whoever might want to pay for a funeral to save their money.
(and as for cures or alleviations, I’ve tried 11 different depression meds, ketamine, TMS, and ECT; the latter may have played a role in my cognitive loss, or it may have just been decades of corrosive depression)
But 50 years later, the inescapable fact is that there’s not nearly so much future left. I’ve been low-energy depressed ever since 19; now, I’m too weak to do physical labor (or much of anything physical) and the recent cognitive tests I took tell me that I’m losing those skills anyway. The only thing that I enjoy in life any more is Mexican food and cheap margaritas and even those in moderation—too greasy, too acidic.
And if I were interested in making a better, happier rest of my life, I would like to think I’d be more energetic about seeking it—traveling the world to see what there is to see, making new friends, making better margaritas—but none of those things have any interest.
I simply don’t care if I live or die. There are fewer than five people who might have some emotion about my death; I suspect my wife and my “grandchildren” are not in that group. And that fact doesn’t bother me, so the old trope about what would they say about me at my funeral holds no power. I’ve already left permission for whoever might want to pay for a funeral to save their money.
(and as for cures or alleviations, I’ve tried 11 different depression meds, ketamine, TMS, and ECT; the latter may have played a role in my cognitive loss, or it may have just been decades of corrosive depression)
