Live And/Or Let Die

Posted by fxckfeelings on October 29, 2009

When people feel most powerless, they instinctively attempt to exert as much control as they can; even—especially—when they have less control than ever. In those situations, they go to the one thing over which they feel they’ll always have control, which is their own life, or the lives of those closest to them, but the more they discuss whether or not to continue life, the more they make that life difficult. Ultimately, it’s best not to ask “should I live,” but to admit—you guessed it—”I am fucked.”
–Dr. Lastname

I can’t seem to make a decision about the life/death issue. I want to want to live, or have the balls to call it quits. Shit or get off the pot. It takes too much damn energy vacillating.

“To be or not to be”—that’s still the question, right? Well, it’s also a question I never like to answer or hear.

Shakespeare or no, it’s a bad question to ask, because most people who ask it don’t really want an answer; they want an antidote to their hurt or someone to blame for not providing it.

It’s similar to the way Boston taxi drivers ask the passenger whether to take the Pike or Storrow to Logan airport — to have someone else to blame when, either way, they inevitably run into heavy traffic.

I know, the question expresses your deepest feelings. It also wears out friends, drives them away/proves that no one can help, and confirms your right to be very, very unhappy. The whole cycle sucks and it’s unhealthy. Keep asking it, and somebody will go ahead and hurt you more.

Hamlet, after all, was once a nice guy, A-student, and highly respected politician-in-training. Then some anguish over loss and hard decisions pushed him to ask his famous question and become increasingly self-centered, murderous, whiny, paralyzed, and dangerous to his friends until a couple of them tried to assassinate him, which shocked him back to his good old self just in time for his death scene, which would otherwise have been a relief. Goodnight, sweet recovered asshole.

And that, for whatever reason, is what I usually encounter when people ask me this question, often telling me they’re traumatized by something they don’t want to talk about, have a suicide plan they’re ready to implement, and are speaking into a phone at a location they refuse to disclose. They’re not just deliberating life vs. death, they’re challenging me to reduce their despair; otherwise, it’s my bad.

They can’t help feeling angry and despairing—their feelings are authentic, and I never buy the idea that the question represents nothing more than a plea for help or attention—but by channeling their feelings into an unanswerable question and posing it to others, they invariably make a bad thing worse.

So I won’t tell you to live or not live. But, until you decide to end it, try to forget about your pain, make a living, and be a good person. Pursuing your usual goals will distract you from pain and navel-gazing and protect your from becoming a full-time victim to whom more trauma and bad things will happen to happen.

And yes, if you stop measuring your pain and challenging others to respond to it, you’ll have more energy to consider how to make it better. Like trying various therapies and medications, and giving yourself enough time to recover from loss and depression.

Ask people, including me, how to make things better, and we’ll offer suggestions and heart-felt support. Ask us whether you should live or die, and we’ll stop a conversation you shouldn’t be having, even with yourself.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement you can use on yourself to stop poisonous rumination. “I feel despair and death is starting to feel attractive, but thinking about suicide will make the pain worse and ruin what I value about my life and what I respect myself for. Sure, I’m fucked, but as long as I’m living, the best thing I can do is live according to the values I’ve always had, and not let pain stop me, unless or until it does.”

My son drinks too much, and when he’s drunk, he gets into serious trouble, like fights, arrests, or both. My husband and I have done all we can to keep him out of jail with a clean record—this town is small, and the cops know our family—and also get him into rehab, residential and otherwise, or just on probation, anything to try and keep him clean without jail-time. He just got arrested though (again) for violating his probation (he was high and violent), and I don’t know what else I can do. I keep waiting for him to hit bottom and turn his life around, but instead he keeps falling further and further down, and unless I try something new, he’ll definitely end up in jail and probably wind up dead. I don’t want to give up on him, because that’s the same as killing him, but I feel like I’m out of options. My goal is to figure out an alternative to letting my son die.

The sad news is that you don’t have much power over your son’s life or death, and trying to exert a power you don’t really have will make him worse. That’s why, unless your son is presently choking on a sandwich and you know the Heimlich, saving your son’s life is a bad goal.

Since you can’t save it, your efforts will do nothing more than make him think you’re in control, and allow him to forget the sad fact that no one is in control until he finds the strength to control himself, if he can.

Also, you might have noticed by now that would-be saviors usually wind up madder than shit and ready to murder the person they want to save; it’s one of life’s little paradoxes that happens almost inevitably.

You can’t save him so you try a little harder, get a little more tired and frustrated, encounter a source of resistance that you’re sure you can overcome by becoming more forceful and, voila, you’re ready to murder the kid yourself.

Then you feel terribly guilty and more responsible and resume the saintly approach, so being part of a cycle that generates a big source of my business.

[There are a couple books that illustrate how to do the difficult but supremely worthwhile task of continuing to show love to someone you know is dancing on the edge of a precipice while accepting that loving them is the only thing you can do; George McGovern’s Terry, My Daughter’s Life-and-Death Struggle with Alcoholism and Norman McLean’s A River Runs Through It.]

If it’s not in your power to let him live or die (unless you have secret powers/a deadly sandwich), then your goal isn’t—can’t be—to back away and let him die . It’s to keep your fear and anger to yourself while encouraging him to do better next time, to keep on loving him, knowing that you’ve done your best and that, despite all of that, he may not live much longer.

STATEMENT:
Write a statement to protect yourself from false guilt and dangerous over-responsibility. “I love you and I see your wonderful strengths, but I haven’t found a way to protect you from a life-threatening weakness that isn’t getting better, and I know you haven’t found a way, either. I’ll never give up on you. I’ll always love you and offer help if you find the strength to use it. Many people have found a way to control themselves when it seemed hopeless. Meanwhile, I want us to share good times when we can and not think about the bad times any more than we have to.”