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| Category: | Essay Fiction |
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Posted: | January 24, 2021 Views: 6 |
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A short look at depression.
"Suicide: To Be or Not To Be"
by LE Krahling
Depression has plagued me most of my life. In high school the book "Day Break" by Joan Baez started the pattern. The woman not only wrote songs, she wrote philosophy as well. Up until then, I had stumbled through life unaware of the important questions like; what is the meaning of life? or why were we created? My existence consisted of getting through the day without getting beat by my father.
Another event that triggered my depression: biology class. Reading about the humongous number of intricate processes it takes to sustain a blade of grass astounded me. All that effort, all that chemistry, for what? So, something I just cut down with a mower every weekend could live! What a waste.
Suicidal thoughts claimed my brain space. What was the point in living? You got up, ate, went to school, ate, came home, ate, did homework, ate, brushed your teeth and went to bed. The next day, the same thing and the next and the.... Why? That crummy Joan Baez got me asking the question. What was the point? Without a point, I didn't want to keep it up. At seventeen, I had another seventy years of it. No thanks!
I managed to stay alive through high school, then college. I didn't have the means to kill myself. Without money for a decent weapon, the substitutes proved ineffective. An entire bottle of extra strength aspirin: (couldn't afford sleeping pills or booze to wash them down) immediately vomited. My dad's TechMatic razor couldn't get deep enough to cut an artery. Our house consisted of only a single story, not high enough to cause adequate harm. We had an electric stove. Admittedly, I didn't put in a full effort. Life had yet to provide a definitive reason for the deadly choice.
Then, after my first year in teaching, an event pushed me over the edge. My one true love who swore to love me for the rest of my life told me that the rest of my life was way too long and we were over. The end.
I decided to end me too. My brilliant plan consisted of "accidentally" falling off a cliff. That way my one true love could collect double on my life insurance. (at least my one true love could get something from the relationship). With one foot two-hundred feet above nothing and the other making its way to the same location, I clearly heard a voice say, "it won't do any good." Startled, I nearly fell for real before grabbing a tree trunk and pulling myself back to safety.
I asked the voice to repeat itself, but heard nothing more. However, a knowing came over me as I sat on a boulder and contemplated the voice's words. I knew, without a doubt that if I ended my life, I would just have to come back and do it all again. I also realized that I had done this before in some previous life. (long before the idea of reincarnation had become part of my thinking). I went home and kept on living.
Over fifty years later, depression still plagues me. Still days when I think, "What's the point? I don't want to be alive anymore." But suicide never enters my mind. In fact, I realized that killing oneself doesn't really make any sense. Suicidal people assume that death will be better than living in the misery of their lives. But nobody knows if this is true or not. No body knows for sure what happens after life. I can see it now; I kill myself and wake up in a parallel universe where I'm even more miserable than I am now. It's possible. The point is, no one knows! Another point; as long as I have life, I have the possibility of learning to enjoy being alive. I think I'll get started on that right now.
Non-Fiction Writing Contest contest entry
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© Copyright 2016.
LE Krahling
All rights reserved.
LE Krahling
has granted FanStory.com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work. |
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