Saturday, October 17, 2015

What the dead want you to know...

Terminial. We're all terminal. It's not your business what time somebody else's plane leaves. Only they know when they gotta catch that flight. Idk if the plan was plotted before we arrived or if we made it up as we went along or some combination of the two. The way you arrived here may have been planned. You may have been hoped for, prayed for , or you may have originated as a mistake, but the very end is unmistakable. Though I do believe we have some control over when it's time to go. Those who commit to suicide had more control over it than others, but maybe only because everything else spiraled out of control. They saw how things were going down, and they decided to eject. And you can redirect yourself to all those positive things therapists like to say: well maybe things are bad now, but that doesn't mean it's how they are going to be. Tomorrow will be better. Don't take a permanent solution to a temporary problem. But.

But the thing about it is, you have no proof of any of those happy things. And someone who has lived with depression and in chronic pain DOES have daily proof that things continue to be bad and can get worse. People make decisions based on the best information they have at the time, based on the evidence they have. No one else has any way to know another's pain level, and we don't have the right to dictate what they are able to tolerate. Maybe the last rock in the pocket wasn't enough to pull the person under, but this next rock is  a doozy. And the burden of the weight is cumulative, though most of the time outsiders can only see the current rock and may interpret it as a pebble. (And anyone in the person's life is an outsider really, because no other person, no matter how intimate the relationship,  is able to know everything another has been through or how the person interpreted and tolerated the events.)

You wouldn't be angry if your loved one had a crushing migraine and sought the relief of medication. Likewise, you can't be angry if someone was in so much emotional pain that they sought the relief of suicide. And their decision was not your fucking business.

It's pointless to be angry with the dead. They have already left the terminal no matter how they got on the plane.

And don't give me the argument that someone was "selfish" to leave you. If someone is suffering so badly that they chose to leave life, they were doing all they knew to do, given the circumstances. They building was burning,  and they had no parachute. Did you want them to hang out another day and burn alive? If you wanted them to avoid relief because YOU  still needed them around, then who indeed is the fucking selfish one?

Terminal. We are all terminal. We all have different flights at different times, and in this body , as this person, we only have one way tickets.  A person may be at the airport already waiting and not even know it. A flight may be delayed for years. A flight may take off suddenly, but when it's time for your flight, only you know, and it's impossible to miss. At any other airport, if we knew a friend had a one way ticket, we wouldn't stand at the gate after they take off and be pissed that they can't come back. It'd be pointless. And so, here too, you can't  be angry with the dead.

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