Stop the 2-by-4

Several days ago, somebody contacted me on Facebook and asked me to sponsor her in a walk to raise money for suicide prevention.  I declined.  Not just because Jack and I haven’t one lead sou until a week from today when the Social Security check shows up.  Rather, when I read it, I had the same feeling I get when Tony Perkins of the Family “Research” Council asks me to contribute lots of bucks to help him fight against something I believe in.  That’s as close as I can describe it, anyway. 

As I recall, the woman who solicited me had a brother or some other close relative who committed suicide and the organization for whom she’ll be walking is one of her big causes.  It sounds like an organization that exists so the guilty feeling feels better.  And that’s fine.  For her.  I’m still of the opinion that if I want to commit suicide, I should be allowed to, and I resent anybody feeling the need to get in my way.  She is of the “suicide is selfish” bent, as if the person’s life is hers to control.  I feel she is the selfish one.  My partner says he considers suicide but doesn’t try it because of what it’d do to me.  That’s sweet.  I do appreciate it, and losing him “before his time” would be difficult to deal with.  Still, it’s his own personal his-only life. 

And it is my personal mine-only life.  Whether I die now of a heart attack or suicide, I’m still dead.  (In the case of the heart attack, that could probably also be construed as somewhat self-inflicted.)  Why are people better able to cope with a death that just happens to a person than with a death that person causes by himself?  That person is dead regardless.

I’ve been thinking of talking to Therapist Jim about this, but I’m afraid he’ll call for the orderlies to drag me to the ER and have me committed so I can be re-programmed.  That’s the problem, of course.  He’s required to do life saving measures when he thinks I’ll do harm to myself and all I really want to do is try to talk about it, to try to understand the big deal.  And if I can’t talk to my therapist about that, to whom can I talk?  If, in fact, I’m reading The System correctly, The System is fairly well fucked up.  Would I be re-programmed so I’d feel better or so others would feel better?  Need I ask?

There’s an old expression about the nice thing about constantly being hit over the head by a 2-by-4 is that it feels so good when it stops.  I’d like it to stop.