ON HOLIDAY

We’ll be in the forest with human and canine friends for the next several days. We’ll be unable to update or respond to comments, which will linger in the moderation queue until our return.

Forecast is for unpredictable springtime weather, big trees, and the chance to char a marshmallow or two over an open flame.

We’ll be back.

Could it be the weather?

The title is an allusion to a song by Tori Amos, but it does seem like something is in the air. Those spring-time suicidal urges are making themselves known. Not me, thankyouverymuch, but an astoundingly high number of acquaintances and even strangers-we-come-across have mentioned, or elaborated on, suicidal ideation in the past week or two.

Sometimes I say something directly to people about it. Mostly I don’t. I don’t have a lot of wiggle room here.

One of the Roses (the one in charge) first tried to kill us all when we were fourteen or fifteen, desperately unhappy and feeling trapped in a way shown very well in the movie “Dead Poet’s Society.” From my safe distance of many light-years, I can assure us all it was a pretty sad attempt. There was no internet to research painless or effective ways to make the body stop. That first stab was stereotypically childish and naive. We were sick for a couple of days. No one even knew we’d done it.

It was not the last time. Gods no. I never personally perpetrated the violence du jour, but for several years I deliberately baited Rome and verbally shot down any hopefulness or sudden movements toward life she might make, knowing quite well she’d slide down and down again. [Or do I remember it that way to think I had some kind of control?] Life seemed hard and hopeless and pointless, and I was tired, but could console myself that if there was a suicide, it wasn’t my choice. See how clean my hands are?

The fact that we’re still alive puts us in a category many people view with great contempt. Almost everyone, it seems. It was Rosemarie who was interested in continuing to live, all of us continuing to live, and she payed a high price for taking action to perpetuate our survival.

I’m aware this may change, all too quickly, but at this moment I can say quite sincerely that I am glad we are still alive. Our life, my life, is not Disneyland. I get frustrated; I get tired. Our emotional states can be extreme. We have to struggle to reach ludicrously (embarrassingly) minimal goals, and function with any autonomy or mastery. Lately we’ve been having a lot of discussions about whether we really deserve to be alive. What’s our contribution? Ironically it’s Rosemarie who agonizes most over this question.

So my footing to advise other people about suicide is not solid. Philosophically and practically, I have a problem with forcing, shaming, and even arguing strongly to convince people in general to stay alive. I’m glad I don’t have to make those kinds of decisions, because faced with a despairing, suicidal adult human being, I can’t say “You have to stay alive.” That is not my call, and I don’t think it should be anyone’s call but yours, or mine.

Would I be here if people hadn’t forced us to stay alive? No. Hypocritical much?

What I always, always want to say is this: Please don’t kill yourself. Please don’t. Please don’t remove yourself from this world, because we need you. We need people who feel things deeply. We need the wounded; we need the scarred survivors’ strength. We need those voices to speak if things are to improve - or even just not get worse for the vulnerable ones who can’t be heard, and there are always and will always be more vulnerable ones.

Please don’t kill yourself. Try something else, and if you can’t think of what else to try, then wait. Hold on. Whatever it is that has you pinned will change. Everything changes. Everything ends. If I have come to a point where I am glad to be living, even if it’s transient, you may too. I would have told you with great certainty it could never happen. I would have generated a list of reasons it could never happen. And I’d have been wrong.

Life is hard. It’s hard for everyone, I think. It’s a lot of other things, too. We’re all going to die soon. While we’re alive, while you’re alive, live.

I never say this. Sometimes, occasionally, an abbreviated version. It’s complicated. Who am I to say these things? Who am I to bid anyone endure great pain for the hopefully future good of the human race or a single member of it? A passing stranger who hears you and wishes you well, and has no power whatsoever to do anything for you, but wish.

Zoe

LEATHER look I’m standing naked before you don’t you want more than my sex I can scream as loud as your last one but I can’t claim innocence oh god could it be the weather oh god why am I here if love isn’t forever and it’s NOT THE WEATHER hand me my leather I could just pretend that you love me the night would lose all sense of fear but why do I need you to love me when you can’t hold what I hold dear I almost ran over an angel he had a nice big fat cigar “IN A SENSE” he said “you’re alone here so if you jump you best jump far” … Tori Amos

Shaken

Our world shook this week. Dad went into the hospital for a surprise surgery. Not quite an “emergency” surgery, just unforeseen and sudden. He was frightened; the whole family was frightened. But they were all also together, while we Roses are out here alone. We were so afraid — in utterly selfish ways. We felt bad that he was ill and scared, but the main issue was terror at the prospect of losing him. Please don’t go.

Rosemarie said afterward — dad is doing better post-surgery — that she was too paralyzed to pray. Not this girl. I was sending a constant stream of pleading heavenward. Please don’t take my father. Please, please, je vous en prie. But this would be the same God I’ve petitioned for mercy hundreds of times in all kinds of situations, wouldn’t it? I haven’t noticed The Animating Principle of the Universe giving a crap about our stated preferences before this. Rosemarie believes and couldn’t pray; I prayed constantly and hopelessly.

I love my father. It doesn’t go without saying. He can be quite frustrating to deal with, and he doesn’t understand us at all, or make much effort to do so. I love him. He is also the only member of our blood family who hasn’t decided we are already dead. When he dies, not only will we be deprived of his company and presence, we will lose something larger he anchors and keeps for us. I didn’t realize that second part until all of a sudden it looked imminent. Until he was sending us messages through mother not to be afraid, everyone dies. Until the last time I’d said “Love you, dad” might really be the last time.

The impending emergency is over, but I can’t shake being shaken. We don’t have a lot of solid things (that aren’t us) to hold on to. The list fits on a post-it. The whole world is uncertainty: unpredictable, unknowable. A time of relative peace and stability in our world can be obliterated in seconds, if those seconds contain a large enough loss.

It’s been many months since we last fell hard. I was leaning into that, thinking the longer we go, the safer we are.

It could happen again just like that. *snap*

Tracy

where there is darkness, light

There have been times in our life when I would come up from slumber smiling, and so glad of life and this lovely world I would turn my head to kiss the pillow.

I scarcely recognize myself of late, waking so dispirited I have no real desire to move or be. I want to curl up as tightly as possible and return to Dream. *sigh* The world doesn’t seem so lovely right now.

I need an attitude adjustment.

Maybe it’s the news? Maybe it’s the way society seems to be rapidly fraying. Maybe my foolish optimism is just wearing off. Or maybe I’m wearing grey-tinted glasses. It gets confusing, all the second- and third-guessing. I’ve felt so strange in the last few weeks.

The chaos is quieting, I think. It does that, all on its own. “Yo-yo goes up; yo-yo goes down.” I’m so glad. I need a lull. I need some quiet.

Next lifetime, I want to be a tree.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Amen.

~ Rosemarie

This version of the “Prayer of Saint Francis” is a common one, snagged from the Web some time in the past heady year.

Welcome to your Civil Commitment

Two policemen come for you at the psych ward where you’ve been hanging out for the last handful of days. They handcuff you and put a leather belt around your cuffed hands and your torso, which one of them will keep hold of as you walk through the halls of the hospital to the cop car in which you will be ferried to the courthouse. People will startle and stare at you, but you’re a crazy, so you won’t notice. People who know you may see you in the back of the cop car on your ride to the heart of the city. I guess if you don’t want people to think you’re dangerous, you shouldn’t be crazy, should you?

The officer (who will never say a word to you unless you do something really stupid) will keep hold of your binding as you walk down the street and into the courthouse, through the halls and a tense ride in a crowded elevator, and then to the locked room where the crazies are held. You’ll be unbelted and uncuffed. While you’re waiting, trying to ignore the things you’re overhearing that really ought to be said in confidential spaces (you’re a crazy, everyone knows you can’t hear speech at normal human levels unless it’s directed at you) another policeman will go through your things. Even though you’ve just been on the psych ward, and at least one person has already been through all your things, they’ll go through every single thing you have with you, comment on it to the other cops at their table, note it down on a form. I hope you were wearing your nice underwear when you went into the hospital.

Then you meet “your lawyer.” This person has scanned your file or information for perhaps fifteen minutes, if you’re lucky. She’ll probably get your name right, though. She’ll ask how you want to plead - do you want to fight this, or stipulate that everything the commitment investigator has said about you is true, you’re nuts and dangerous and should be kept confined? It doesn’t matter what you choose. Either way you have to do the next part.

When it’s your turn, fifteen minutes or two hours after your ten seconds with the lawyer, you are taken into the next room, the courtroom, where everyone else is already seated, waiting to get this over with. “Everyone else” is the judge and two psychologists you’ve never met, and an assistant district attorney, and “your” lawyer, all seated around a big table at which you must now also sit, and the policeman who will stand near you because you are so dangerous and unpredictable. AND whoever is here to present evidence about your alleged craziness/lack of control, AND whoever is here to watch. Included in the last category could be anyone. Your distressed family or friends, your co-workers, your worst enemy, other lawyers, reporters, people there for other civil commitments, and anybody else who wants to be there. It’s not a small room, but all the spectating seats will be full, and there may be people standing at the back wall as well. That’s entertainment!

Now for the main event. The evidence against you is presented by a commitment investigator who works for the county, and anyone else the ADA thinks is necessary to nail you in your coffin. People speak about the intimate details of your life. They get some of them wrong, maybe all of them but your name, and you can say so later if you want, but no one will believe you. “Your lawyer” will make token objections to any really blatant hearsay, but everyone involved knows this is just form and everything said will be heard and considered. The judge, perhaps because it’s less confrontational than if the ADA does it, will question you about your life, past experiences and alleged behaviors, how much you drink, or whatever seems relevant to him. Don’t get flustered. We’re all professionals and strangers here.

Now the first psychologist will interrogate you for a couple of minutes, perhaps questioning more deeply into your life and your psyche, but for certain attempting to get you to say something flagrantly crazy and pushing you for emotional reactions. Normally interactions with a psychologist are under a seal of privacy and confidentiality, but not today. This is not about knowing you or helping you, this is about confining you, you dangerous freak. Should you become angry or hostile at being assaulted publicly this way, well, there’s another nail in your coffin. No sane person would protest! And now the second psychologist will interrogate you. If the first psychologist was “nice,” the second one will be abrupt and pushy, or vice-versa. Jump for the lady, there’s a good crazy.

Your lawyer calls you to speak on your own behalf. Or, if you wish, you can stipulate that everything that’s been said is exactly true, hoping that will end this faster (it won’t). It doesn’t really matter. It might be a little unpleasant to remember there are forty-some people watching and listening as you try to salvage yourself and your life, or correct the *cough* misrepresentations that have preceded you. Whatever you say or don’t say will probably make it worse, but eh, everyone’s heard it before. If you have any witnesses, which you don’t, even if you knew before they told you ten minutes ago that you’re allowed to have witnesses, they too can now speak and will be cross-examined and made foolish by the ADA.

Then the judge will talk to the psychologists about you. [If you aren't already, get used to people talking about you this way in front of you, nutjar.] The psychologists will tell His Honor (and onlookers) what they think your malfunction is, based on their observations in the last fifteen minutes and whatever the commitment investigator has said and written about you, and make recommendations. They won’t agree with each other, but this doesn’t matter either. They’re only here to lend appropriate color to the proceedings.

The judge will now very likely pronounce you officially crazy and unable to handle your bad self. [Not always -- His Honor is the only person in the room who didn't get the memo that this is mostly for show, and he may decide you're not a threat to anyone and should be freed. But don't count on it.] Your life is no longer your own. You’re taken back to the crazies’ waiting room, your fully inventoried stuff put back in its paper sack, and when all the hearings are over (an hour or two at most), you’ll be cuffed and belted and publicly humiliated again, stuffed back in the cop car, driven back the psych ward you just left, where they are, what do you know, expecting you.

You’re thinking, but what if I’ve won? What if they don’t commit me? Oh, well, that’s much better. Then they take you back to the crazies’ room, hand you your stuff in a paper bag, and show you the door. You’re free, congratulations! No money or transportation and twenty miles from home? Well, tough break. I guess you should have thought of that before being allegedly crazy. Maybe you can bum busfare from passerby, just to round out your day.