I was reading about the recent death of model and actress Lucy Gordon in Paris. She was twenty-eight years old with, as everyone likes to say, "a promising future." Well, we all do and it's just the normal perspective people take in these circumstances. People forget with depression, death is never the solution, but it's sometimes the answer.
It's hard to realize let alone really understand the smallness of someone's world when they're depressed to the point of suicide. And unless you've been there, you don't have a clue. It's one of the few experiences in life, you really have to have been there to understand. Empathy and sympathy are ok, but they're not understanding. And that's what's always missing in the discussion after their death.
People forget in depression, the person has already been through the litany of alternatives people expect us to consider and even choose. We've long left those along the road. They've been long exploded out of our thinking when we imploded into ourselves. We're down to the choice of life or death. And neither don't seem to solve the problems weighing on us, but death seems the better answer.
It's where everything disappears and we can find peace with the world and ourselves. And as much as we want to be with them and explain life is both the solution and the answer, we can't. It's not that they don't see us, or hear us. It's not about us, and not even about them, but simply our own individual existence. We've striped away all the facades and layers of feelings. We down to the basic choice we all face, death.
And the survivors are always suprised. "We didn't know.", is the common answers. Like all the clues weren't there? Or just that you were blind? And you didn't care enough about what they really felt and thought? Cruel? Yes, but truthful. I get tired of the, "We tried to help them.", response. It's bullshit. They didn't say because they saw you didn't really care about what really bothered them.
Both sides are blind. The person sitting in their own darkness wondering and wanting. And us, afraid to open the door with a candle. That's all you need to do, drop all the pretense and preaching. All they want is someone to sit with them and understand. They'll find their way out if they can, but they don't needs directions, just a companion.
A little light and one hand is everything, always there and always present in their mind.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
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