Death

Hello, 

I was just trawling through blogland, because Kelly suggested a link between Alice in Wonderland and bipolar, and of course that turned up a heap of bipolar blogs with people expressing their take on the subject.

Now this post isn't actually about Alice in Wonderland, although I may save that topic for another post down the line...this is about a video I saw on The Trouble with Spikol . Basically Spikol was talking about the allure of having a terminal illness since it would wrap up her life nicely, and that the way people view life and death is highly subjective due to their experiences.

Now here are my thought's on the subject:

I have never thought about wanting a terminal illness, but that is probably because I'm the daughter of a nurse...although I can certainly understand the appeal of it as it was described as "wrapping everything else up nicely". A huge benefit would be to surviving family, knowing that you hadn't taken your own life. Thereby circumventing all the ill feelings they would have to reconcile as they dealt with you actively choosing not to be in their lives any longer.

Now as you know, I'm fairly well medicated and live an almost stress free life so that my mood swings are mostly under control...but that doesn't mean that the very first thought 98% of my mornings isn't "I wish I was dead.". I've also lived though enough depressions now that I know that if I can make it through each day, eventually the depression will lift.

I joke about life with my family, and that I'm aiming to be 125 years old...they all think I'm crazy for wanting to be a decrepit old person for that long. However I look at it as make up time for all the crappy bit's that I haven't been able to live because I haven't been able to enjoy my life.

I have a Do Not Resucitate order known to my family if my brain or organs are damaged enough to not function for whatever reason. lol, but i'd also like to be stuffed with movable limbs, so that my family can keep me around forever.

So I suppose I'm stuck half wanting to be in this world and half not wanting to be here. I've done my best to limit the impact I have on the world, so that my ups and downs create as little mess as possible. I'm not having kids because that's unfair to them, although I love my neice and nephew to bits, and would miss them if they stopped coming to stay every week. All of which I've expressed many times before. I certainly try to live a full life within the limits I've set for myself. There are things I regret, but there have also been many unexpected pleasures that have resulted from the way I live.

So, Spikol has an ongoing thought in her head about how nicely things would be wrapped up if she were to die that way. Myself, I can't combobulate terminal illness as an answer for my life...the accompanying pain for a start throws up a flag, and has me asking do I really want to make things worse before they get better? Personally I can think of far more pleasurable ways to spend the last days of my life, and then round it all of with a quick death. That of course has me putting my own needs before others...Spikol's tidy death put's others needs before her own, but if you're going to go down that path then you may as well bite the bullet and keep on living. Which defeats the purpose of an early death.

I know that occasionally in the depths of a depression I've thought that everyone would be better off if I wasn't around, but the fact is I'd be depriving all the people I know of my wonderful presence. I have friends and family who actively seek to spend time with me, so therefore there must be something about me that they see as being beneficial to their lives. So, even if I can't see the point in me being here, they can...which I suppose is the ultimate reason for me still being around.

The only other reason, could be that there is something I'm meant to discover and share with the world, lol, but I hardly see that happening any time soon.

Hmmm, I wonder if I did discover something and spread the word about it, if I'd up sticks and die the next day? My purpose in the world having been fulfilled, and all that? I wonder how many people die thinking that? Maybe I should go and hang out in terminally ill wards, just so I can hear the pearls of wisdom that tidily wrap up other peoples lives. I may discover the meaning to the life the universe and everything. Although most of the nurses i've listened to in my life, probably wouldn't recommend that...and I can't say that they have any more answers than the rest of us.

Did you know that combobulate isn't really a word? Discombobulate is, but apparently it came about fully formed. It's derived from words akin to discomposed, discomfit and other words of like. Although combobulate could make it into the english lexicon, if enough people were to use it...such is the beauty of the english language.

Yet again I've waffled on and off topic, as is my wont. So I'll leave it at that...and prepare the easter egg hunt for the kids in the morning (well in a couple of hours time actually).

Cheerio,

Kate