"What Have You Got That's Worth Living For?"

That is what Miracle Max asks the mostly dead Man in Black (aka Wesley the poor and perfect farmboy, aka The Dread Pirate Roberts) in The Princess Bride.

"What's your dream? Ev'rybody come to Hollywood got a dream. What's your dream?" asks the guy on the street at the beginning and the end of Pretty Woman.

"You're no nice guy, Larry!" (to Larry Underwood from many people in SK's The Stand.

"It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." Everyone knows that one.

And of course, arguably the most notorious contemplation of all: "To be, or not to be: that is the question:/ Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer/ The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,/ Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,/ And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;/ No more; and by a sleep to say we end/ The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks/ That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation/ Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;" (Hamlet 3/1)

So here's my own: Is it better to live for others than to not live at all?

Maybe it's just because I'm so damned tired and my head hurts so damned much but right now none of this seems worth it. The only reason I'm still living is because of the damage that would be caused if I intentionally stopped. I know that's not how it's supposed to be but it is the best I can do right now. And I am sure from everyone else's point of view, that my being alive for whatever reason it takes, is better than the alternative.

"What have you got that's worth living for?"

Everyone else. Not because they make me feel happy or because I get satisfaction knowing that I am making a difference in their lives, but because I don't want to be the ultimate screw-up and ruin lives their lives forever by donating all future oxygen consumption to a worthier cause.

The only thing that I remember from my initial round of hospital visits in late 2001 - early 2002 is the one leader-type guy asking the question: "If this is as a good as it gets, is it enough?" I still have no idea why he asked that or where he was going with it or how it was supposed to help a group of mentally disturbed psych ward patients, but his question haunts me because the immediate, resounding answer then is still the immediate, resounding answer now: NO!!

The first time I heard someone call suicide the ultimate act of selfishness, it baffled me. How could this person (and apparently everyone in the room) not see that suicide is sometimes for the good of everyone around the suicidal person? I have always thought the world would be a better place without me in it. The people around me could be happier, more free, less stressed, less burdened, and generally better off. I cause so much pain in others that it's hard to see how my death could be a selfish act when it would deliver them from that pain.

Another time that someone in the psych ward setting had a profound impact on me was when I was trying to explain to my case manager the depth of the guilt I feel at lending a reverse Midas touch to everything around me. She looked at me and she said, "Do you really think you have that much power to have made any difference at all in most of those situations?" Wow, that was a shock. She's right - I didn't mess those things up; I'm too insignificant to have even the smallest impact on them.

But the thing that had the biggest impact on my decision to stay was from my last hospital stay. One of the psych nurses told me that the suicide of a parent would permanently destroy a child and they would never be able to heal from it. So basically, I'm screwed on that front. Actually, my kids are screwed. They have to live with me and the failure that I am, or be destroyed by me.

How I wish I was dead. And I can't talk to anyone about it because all they can think about is how to keep me from killing myself. I'm not going to. I hate every thing about myself and am acutely aware of the damage I cause just by existing, but I brought those kids into the world and I won't destroy their souls by killing myself. But I think about it all the time. It would be so easy to just slip away, to let go and move away from this pain, both the pain inside me and the pain I create. And ultimately, I wouldn't be around to see their pain from my action. I would just be gone, into peaceful nothingness. I want that!! And it is out of my reach. I have to keep on breathing, every moment of every day, in silence to protect those I love.

"Somebody save me from this nightmare; I can't control myself!" (Animal I Have Become, Three Days Grace)