Guess what my wife brought home for me today...

[SadLuckDame]

The thing I'm trying to figure out is the whole fascination with death in the first place. Didn't they know about hallucinogenics. If you shroom a few times, you're bound to hit the jackpot and experience death, but live to tell what it felt like.

I would of shroomed it up with Janis, I wish we had.

[Barry]

To be quite honest, I have suffered from debilitating depression during various times of my life and the thought of ending it all has definitely crossed my mind more than once. I understand pain and suffering. I understand WHY a person might choose this route.

Doreen, I deeply appreciate your honesty in this admission. I too have been there a time or two. More times than I'd like to remember, in fact. I've suffered this debilitating depression since I was a little kid. Or I should say I used to. I don't seem to anymore. Maybe it's an age thing. Maybe I just finally grew up, though I'm sure many may beg to differ. I think somewhere along the line my brain got rewired, and I just don't get depressed like I used to. I still get depressed, but it's now like normal depression. It comes and is there for an hour, half a day, a day or two, then it's gone. It doesn't set in and stay, take hold, consume me like it used to. But back when that wasn't the case, I thought about suicide a lot. More than once I had the blade in my hand, was fondling the rope, looking from the high place, etc. If I'd had access to a gun, who knows? I might not be here now. Every time, something held me back from that edge. Mostly fear. Fear of pain. I would think, "I'm just too much of a pussy to even kill myself." And I would hope maybe I could get hit by a bus or something, but feared that too, because, damn, that's gotta hurt. The point of this rambling is, even though I never did it, it wasn't because I was thinking about anyone but myself. Suicide is selfish, no matter what anyone says. It is selfish. Even if you don't leave a visible, physical mess, you still leave a mess behind, don't you? You leave a mess in the lives of the people who love you, even if you think there isn't anyone who does. And when you kill yourself, no matter how "clean" you do it, you leave a mess for those left behind to clean up. It's hard for me to say all this right now because my wife's cousin from Ireland, a twenty year old young man, just this month killed himself. I only met him once, briefly, when he was five and the family was visiting my in-laws. When we got the news, I lost it. I don't know why. I said, "Oh my God! Why?" And tears just squirted from my eyes. It was a more profound reaction to a death than even that of my maternal grandmother, the most profound reaction previously. My wife and I talked all that night about it, about him. Even at five, I said to her, there was a certain "knowing" in his eyes. And that "knowing" can sometimes be hard to take. These are people described as "sensitive," and for the sensitive, life can be hard to live. I'm one of them - you don't know how many times I've heard you're sensitive or over-sensitive or even hyper-sensitive in my life - and I recognized it in this boy's eyes even at five. He was sensitive, and he couldn't take it. He opted out. Some of us do.
I don't know what else to say, except...depression, sensitivity, whatever, it isn't something that has to debilitate a person for a lifetime. I only wish my wife's cousin had had someone to tell him that.

Peace,
Barry

[Doreen Peri]

Well said, Barry. Sorry to hear you've suffered like that. And very sorry to hear about your wife's cousin.

It may not feel that way at the time, but depression is temporary. Suicide is definitely permanent.

Yes, always selfish, always messy, never to be glorified.

[stilltrucking]

I am not going anywhere soon I hope Sad Luck Dame. But thanks for the sentiment.

I tried to hang myself when I was eight years old. I still can't wear a turtleneck sweater or feel anything around my throat. Maybe it was a childhood game gone wrong or maybe I was a precocious child. I remember I was being punished at the time, locked in a closet and feeling unloved The worst suicide I can imagine is the suicide of a child.

More personal crap that nobody probably wants to know. After my father's death I could not get to sleep at night until I imagined myself laying there with a shotgun tucked up under my chin and my finger on the trigger. I never had to pull the trigger in my imagination, it was just a comfort to imagine that shotgun there then I would drift off to sleep... I finally went to see a psychiatrist.
Poor Anne Sexton, the priests of Freud were no help to her, at least not the last guy who cashed in on her case files.


I can relate to ths mushrooms. I was desperate to quit smoking after the cat scan showed that dwitzel in my lung. I tried them and I layed down to die but all I had was an interesting movie showing on the back of my eyelids. The blue snake goddess danced for me.

I like this bit a lot. I sometimes think about Kerouc's daughter Jan as Iphigenia.

"… to gaze upon the light is man's most cherished gift; that life below is nothingness, and whoever longs for death is mad. Better live a life of woe than die a death of glory!" (Iphigenia to Agamemnon. Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis 1250).

Oh well another day another highjacked thread Sorry barry

[Barry]

Hey, Jack, no worries. I love the discussion. And you're right. Whenever a parent outlives a child for any reason, it's simply tragic. It's just not part of the natural order. Or seems that way.

Peace,
Barry

[SadLuckDame]

I've never had a suicidal thought. But, as a child I'd prayed that God would allow me death then and there, only because I'd grown on the Old Testament and believed once I lost innocence, only Hell would come my way.

I don't adapt well to a long drawn out happiness, I mistrust it and only get comfortable on real life madness. Don't get me wrong, I do want things to go well, but not to the point of suspicions.

[stilltrucking]

For years I lived in dread of being my father's son. My sister wished she had never been born. Which is different I think then wishing for death.
The gift of a dysfunctional family that keeps on giving. The sins of the fathers.

More on cigarettes and suicide.
You know Doreen while we were posting back and forth I was thinking about Clay and his Pall Malls.

[SadLuckDame]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYA16z2- ... re=related

I cry, sometimes I do. Another sip of southern.

[Barry]

Yeah, I know what you mean here. I only saw them three times: in '90 at Autzen in Eugene, a month before Brent died; in '93, same place; and in '96 at Portland Meadows, just under two months before Jerry died. You should have seen the audience lose it there when they launched into and played the whole album-side version or Terrapin Station, one of my favorites of all their songs. I did go down to Oakland for New Years in '90/'91, even though no ticket. 12/31 was a Blue Moon that year and lots of people opted to stay outside and listen to the simulcast. I danced on top of a hearse. It was amazing. Who can forget that shit?

What shows were you at?

Peace,
Barry

[SadLuckDame]

I couldn't go. I just hung out in town waiting on the boys to show back up from tour, watching for VW buses to turn the corner. Do you want to know how many times I almost went? Those are my only stories, sadly.