"RIDING THE RAPIDS RAW"

truthfully, only because you ask...i have been feeling desperately inadequate, ashamed that i cannot function in ways i used to; but even in the day to day responsibilities, i have difficulties with simple tasks. this is worsening of my depressive state, my anxiety, my feelings of genuine hopelessness, despair. one day last week, i actually visited suicide.com. (anonymously, of course.) minute by minute, it succeeded in stabilizing me, keeping me in session with their psych behind the curtain. i guess i was contracting for safety. i was better after about an hour, still sad though, crying, very anxious and miserable, but at least i wasn't planning anything serious.

i ordered a book, you remember, man against himself. i was so deeply involved in it when you approached me on that park bench in boston common almost forty years ago. i was studying it to gain some understanding why i wanted to do away with myself, other than the fact that life was too unbearable. menninger couldn't have possibly had any answers for me then. i was too young and vulnerable, so impulsive.

there are nights when i think i will wake up the next morning without this dreaded cloud of doom, and that i will be able to actually enjoy even a few minutes of being awake, looking forward to what the day ahead will bring, and that's when i become anxious and panicky; sometimes it takes more than an hour to pass. i realize i've lost all resources to cope, and i don't want to participate in life this day, or the next. on and on it goes, loss of interest in everything and everyone, fear of everything and everyone.

i see no way out sometimes. no way out. i just want the pain of living to go away without taking life from me. but that's not possible, is it. there are life cycles each of us must face.

some of us (and i think of you when i say this) some of us have the ability to ride the rapids without being tossed out of the canoe. i don't even remember having been in a canoe...all i remember is hitting the water hard, grasping onto branches, hugging a boulder for a brief rest, and then sucked back into the water, raw, spinning swiftly down the river again.

i am barely keeping myself alive. but i'm drowning anyway, just from the effort.