Posted by Adam on December 3, 1999, at 14:15:13
In reply to Re: Non, je regrette..., posted by Judy on December 3, 1999, at 11:55:35
Thank you, Judy.
I do understand how you have felt. I lost my mother when I was very young. I don't advocate suicide because of
stories such as yours. There can be hope, there can be help, and if we are lucky, no matter how unhappy we may be,
there are some who will still love us and try to help. My mother was very ill, both with cancer and depression,
before she died. My father rather callously commented once maybe it was for the best in the long run, that she
died not by her own hand, and we were spared the trauma of watching her decay in other ways. I don't know. I do
know that she loved me, and told me so whenever she could (more than he had the courage to do until I was in my
twenties and obviously ill). She held me, she read to me, she cooked me dinner and put me to bed, as often as she
could. I know now that she fought, just as you are fighting, not so much for herself, but for me. I imagine she
knew when the ambulance took her away that she was not coming back. I believe she worried about what might become
of us.Your children love you, I'm sure of it. It will be hard for them, I won't deny that, but they do need you. You would
be mourned.
> I very rarely attempt to write a long, coherent post here because the 'word retrieval' problem which accompanies my depression is so bad that completing one sentence usually has me running for the thesaurus. However, I've thought so many times about your beautifully written Thanksgiving memories since I read them that I had to comment.
>
> By the time I was halfway through your post, I found myself weeping - for your 22-year-old girlfriend who never truly understood your inability to cross the threshold of the door she held open to you; and for you, feeling better now, but left to sadly ponder how different your life might have been if not for your illness. Were the two of you 'meant to be'? Maybe. Maybe not. But the point remains that you will never know.
>
> After reading Noa's and CarolAnn's responses to you, I was literally sobbing - for all of us! How cruel is this disease that we are all regretful, bitter and even angry at the lost dreams, the opportunities missed and never knowing who we could have been if only... To add insult to injury, we also seem to be lacking the mental ability to make lemonade from the lemon that fate has handed us.
>
> I guess I was lucky that my depression didn't become severe until after I was married and my children were very young; but that doesn't lessen the sadness I feel every day that I have not been able to be a better mother, wife, daughter, friend. I can't tell you how many school events and family and social gatherings I've made it through on auto-pilot if I was able to attend at all. I once told my doctor, when my children were still small, that I would rather be dead than to subject my family and friends to the way I was. He vehemently cautioned me about how traumatic that would be, especially for my children. To this day, I wish I had gone with my instincts and left them way back then with only a dim recollection now of my untimely 'accidental' demise rather than have them forever clearly remember my sometimes mere vegetative existence here, unable to offer or show them the love and support I felt for them. (Hopefully, they don't judge me as harshly as I do myself...but I seriously doubt it.)
>
> One final comment - which is off-topic and actually in response to another post on the current board: I couldn't help but think, while reading your thread and the responses to it, about Dr. P. Breggen's assinine theories. I haven't read his books, and I have absolutely no desire to, but I guarantee there is no chapter in them describing his years of suffering from a disabling psychiatric illness and his miraculous cure brought about by a brisk walk around the block and a rousing talk-therapy session. Statistics be damned! If he hasn't personally walked a mile in our shoes, he is absolutely ignorant as to what this is all about. Not a clue!
>
> Thanks, Adam, for your moving words and for letting me know that I'm not alone.
>
> Judy
poster:Adam
thread:15903
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19991123/msgs/16153.html