Randall and Salt had responded to my last post of Saturday afternoon which detailed the latest episode of exhaustion I had on Friday/Saturday. They asked some good questions about what may happen to the mind if a person chooses to take their life by jumping from a height. I was grateful for the honest and kind way they approached the subject and respected my spiritual beliefs. Below is my response to them. I am hoping others (or the two of them) will continue to respond, because their words, questions and observations, really did make me think. And with the large number of posts on the site, many posts only a day or two old get buried quickly.
To clarify, my chosen method has been to jump from the Golden Gate Bridge. But I no longer live in California. I have promised myself that I will not take my own life violently. If I decide the time is right, I will cease taking my heart medications and let nature take it’s course. Those decisions helped frame their comments.
“Therapists tell me the same thing when I ask “Why am I still here? With everything that happened to my heart, I should be dead.” – “You aren’t done with this life yet and there is something you are supposed to do.” Well, where’s the damn job description or email about this “task”or “mission” I still have to complete? I am too old for this shit.
I have, at least once a year, a dream about my best friend from high school, who died from leukemia when we were in our 20’s. He was the most popular guy in our circle and he was the only one in the group that we ask me to do things. Although there was a period in our senior year when he shunned and avoided me. In these dreams he suddenly comes home. He’s not dead but had to go away. He can’t tell me why this is all so and when he suddenly disappears again I wake up and just dissolve in tears. No one has been able to tell me what the dreams mean. His sister (who is MY sister’s best friend to this day) tells me Jim has message or a lesson I need to learn, but that I’m not ready to hear it, and that’s why he leaves again. She doesn’t know what the message/lesson is.
I don’t believe in hell in the traditional sense. I believe that what happens to my soul is what I choose to have happen. Hell, for me, would be an eternal limbo. I don’t believe in Heaven in the pearly gates sense. I believe that God will want me to acknowledge my faults and achieve true, compassionate sorrow for any harm I did on earth. My soul will not be complete or whole until I can achieve that level of peace. It can’t be done on earth, no one is perfect and everyone will, at some point in time, hurt someone else, damage someones peace. And we have to make some sort of reparation in the form of true humility of spirit before we can know true peace on the other side.
I’m very sensitive and take things too much to heart. I’ve always been a misfit and outsider, even within my own family. I’ve never had the charismatic personality my siblings have that allow them to draw people to them.
I’m tired, lonely and just want to go to sleep. This 15 hour nap was a bit unsettling but it really got me thinking that, perhaps, the end is not too far off and lies in the course of nature for me.
For the life of me, I can’t think of any altruistic or society benefiting reason why I should still be alive. I know one of the warning signs of suicidal ideation is feeling like a burden. I have felt that way for many years. A burden and quite useless.
Anyway…………..”
1 comment
Hey bay, it’s great to see you’re alive man (your last post had me really worried), and I’m also glad you started a new post because you’re right, old posts get buried fast and for some reason my subscription notifications only work half the time.
“Well, where’s the damn job description or email about this “task”or “mission” I still have to complete? I am too old for this shit.”
You & me both :/ I think the job description for our lives got mixed with those spam emails with the subject “thicker and longer” (ooh hair care products?). Actually in some weird backwards-ass cosmic bungle, I believe our job description comes at the *end* of our lives. With our letter of termination. Saves a stamp I guess. But I really do believe when we’re at the point of death, that’s when we suddenly realize everything we were & supposed to be.
If that’s true, wouldn’t it be awesome if you realize that your “guess” at your job description came pretty close? And you did a half decent job of trying? If I could achieve that 1 simple feeling on my deathbed, I think that would be as close to heaven as my slimy soul will get.
Altho I gotta admit, it would suck if my job description ends up saying “You were supposed to be an accountant like your mom told you. Dumbass”
I’ve read in your past posts that you’ve had experience in the theater, a dream you’ve had your entire life despite your alternate career path. Dude, without hardly knowing you, I think that’s your job description. First of all, any strong personal interest that hangs with you over your lifetime *must* be part of the reason why you’re here. Secondly, I’ve always felt that the arts (theater, painting, writing, music, photography, acting, etc) are humans’ best way of communicating ideas and preserving what we’re about. If an alien race wants to know what humans are worth, don’t send them to the friggin U.S. Patent office, give em Shakespeare instead. End of story.
The beauty of your talent is that you can work on it anytime, regardless of age, infirmity or general pissy attitude. I read that Marlowe was a pretty screwed up dude, a total misfit possibly involved in criminal activities who finally got himself knifed to death in a dark pub. But damn, isn’t “Dr. Faustus” one of the greatest pieces of spiritual drama ever imagined?
Even something like the dream of your friend… I have no idea what it means, but the way you told it evokes powerful thoughts & images in my head.
You have a rare talent. And jeez, as long as we’re all sitting here waiting for our job description/letter of termination, might as well pass the time with something fun?