The edge of life

This is a hard thing to understand if you haven't been there or don't live there. I live on the edge of depression and life. I've lived with Dysthymia all my life and have suffered two severe double depressions, both almost leading to suicide. I say almost because in all the expressions of suicide there comes a moment you decide to step over the edge of life and then act on that decision. Some decide and act, and some decide, then in beginning to act, stop.

In stopping for that one moment in time, you face your very existence, deep in your soul and spirit, you discover the reality of your life if you want to live or die. It's the last vestige. It's not a decison. It's innate. It's your intuition about yourself. Many find it, and stop. If you don't find it, you don't stop. And your loved ones know the result as you've left us and your despair.

I don't judge people about suicide, and I condemn those that do. If you haven't found yourself there, you have no right to criticize, and if you have been there, you have the obligation to accept and the responsbility to help. But in then end, we all decide our fate by ourselves. No one can make the decision. It's the right of being human, to decide our last heartbeat.

And as I grow older the edge gets closer as I look at my health and life. It's why depression and even suicide increases past 50 and especially past 70, even among those who identify having lead a satisfactory life. It's the reality of our being as we age, seeing the past, present and future. Some are lucky to ignore the signs, some are lucky not even to know the signs, and some are lucky to never understand the signs exist. The rest of us aren't so lucky.

Some people find it hard to understand. Dysthymia is where the level of your view of life is below some level of happiness, and try as you will, it's hard to maintain some measure of satisfaction. It's not that we like living at this level, and why many use anti-depressants or therapy to cope or feel happier. It's not that we don't want to be better, it's the nature given us by our genes. We're just trying to survive and find something better.

It's the lifetime struggle to keep our spirit up while it wants to be down. It's the line about Townes Van Zandt, "The terror and sorrow of a sensitive man who looked into the abyss, and saw, the abyss." While most people only see darkness, some see the abyss, some know the depth of the abyss, and some have been in the abyss - some of whom don't come back. But all of the "some" of us stand near the edge of life.