Last Moment

I was lying in bed the other night when the thought occurred to me that when we die we may not even know we die, we only know the last moment before we die and that's only if we're awake. Otherwise, if we're sleeping or in some other state, unconscious, etc., we wouldn't even know we've died.

I've read some of the "near-death" experiences people report being medically dead but coming back to life. They all reported a white light consuming their mind and thinking, like it was some sort of revelation from God or whomever.

I think it's not that but simply evolution's way of protecting us from the pain of death. Death is painful as the body stops and everything dies. It's seems to me a reasonable adaptation that evolution gave the human mind an escape from the pain.

So in the end there is no pain, just white noise and then nothing. And all we know is the moment before we die.

Dreams of Emptiness

Recently I finished the routine monthly work on my Mt. Rainier NP for February, not only ahead of schedule, usually saved for the last week of the month before, but before the first of the month in over a year, always posting it late in the first week or two of the new month.

I then set to finish some edits of seasonal Web pages before planning to work on the last of those for winter and look to write the spring seasonal Web pages, but that's for another time in the future. Then suddenly my mind went blank.

I've had problems since the Siatic nerve issues last July, the infection last September, the realization of the digestive issue was from drugs I was taking for another issue where I had to choose between them but not both, which killed a lifelong plan.

That left me mentally drained of almost all my motivation, inspiration and discipline to do anything. And then after last week's work I started having dreams of emptiness. Dreams of rooms in a house, blank of anything discernable on the walls or ceiling and devoid of anything in the room.

Just emptiness, and try as I could in my dreams I couldn't add anything, nothing, not even a plot let alone objects or people. Just empty, blank rooms. I'm not sure where it relates but the walking, now up to 5-6 miles 4-5 times a week is leaving me exhausted every day, and eating is becoming a chore.

I've discovered the farther I walk and the more days I walk, the less I eat, even the days I don't walk, I eat far less than I used to eat on non-walking days. I know my body is adjusting to the walking as the leg muscles fight over their weakness from the pinched nerves to get fit.

I'm not walking as far or carrying as much as I did a year ago when I easily walked 6 miles with 20-25 pounds of groceries (including 1 or 2 half gallons of milk), and discovered 6 miles seems to be the physical limit the legs will walk as farther just leaves the muscles too tired to do much for the rest of the day.

But it's the dreams that are bothering me as they're occuring successive nights since last week. My mind  during the day just seems blank of much thought and memories to put into dreams, or something else is happening that I don't know and won't know until the dreams change.

Until the emptiness ends. So I wait.

Smarter than Therapists

An article released in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found 55% of people, mostly young people, successfully attempted or commited suicide after or while in therapy, noting therapy isn't the answer to preventing suicide.

Like any teenager, young person or any older person seriously depressed or seriously thinking of suicide couldn't have told them, their therapists and especially their parents, that?

Their findings are a statement of the obvious, therapy won't work and therapists don't get it. They don't realize with all their education, knowledge, experience and understanding they can't change people thinking of or determined to attempt or commit suicide.

My nephew fooled a number of therapists, his parents (my sister and brother-in-law) and friends before he took his life when the family went on a weekend trip and left him alone in the home, only to discover his body when they returned home.

No knew? Really? I won't argue or say anyone was wrong, they weren't. They tried and tried hard to help him. Sadly it wasn't enough. And sadly he learned to hide what he was really thinking and planning behind a wall of silence and pretend.

Pretending to be ok. And that's what everyone missed. The silence and the acting. I know this because I've been there, twice before not going through at the last minute the first time and more so the last time. As I tell people now, there won't be a third because I will succeed.

And all the therapy won't stop it. That's the reality and what therapists miss. People are smarter than therapist and will only speak about what they really and truly think and feel if they want, otherwise, therapists, parents, friends, will get either silence of okspeak, ie., "I'm ok."

And it doesn't take a study to tell anyone that, just human understanding. What don't they get about that?