Depression and Suicide

I've been thinking more about my visit to the ALS clinic yesterday. One of the sessions was with the clinic's Social Worker. It was more of a counseling session this time rather than any discussions about finances, AISH, or other social services. The bulk of discussion focused on depression and suicidal thinking.

It should come as no surprise that I struggle with depression. I'm terminally ill with a devastating disease; that would depress the hell out of almost anyone. It's no surprise that I think about suicide; I'm going to have to deal with the end of my own life fairly soon, at least that's how it looks. I will need something in place. Thinking about is just what happens.

I don't think of it as suicide. I think of it as end of life planning. Yes, I will likely have to take some sort of action to end my life, unless something happens which takes that action for me. However this is not the act of some angst ridden twenty-something, nor the action of someone struggling desperately with clinical depression or schizophrenic voices. This is the logical action of a person dealing with a perpetually declining physical disablement.

I regularly wake up, or have moments in the day, or go to bed asking myself why the hell I am still fighting this disease, why on earth I want to keep going. Yet I do keep going. It depresses me sometimes, plenty of times, when I contemplate what I have to do to keep going, what will happen if I keep going. Yet I keep going. I think about how much easier it would be if I just finished it all. Yet I keep going.

There is a lot of difference between thinking about suicide and actually doing it. There is a lot of difference between being depressed and clinical depression. There is a lot of difference between wishing I would die in my sleep and actually taking action to cause my death in my sleep. The simple fact of the matter is that I am ready to go, willing to go, but not wanting to go.

I'll be here for a while yet.