From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Surviving (was Re: Getting Something off My Chest)
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 00:23:50 GMT


In article <1992Jul10.155659.4336@ifi.unizh.ch>
kiser@ifi.unizh.ch (Markus Kiser) writes:

Markus is traveling in the States just now, I believe, so he
may not see this.  But I decided not to wait.  My remarks
here don't take exception to anything Markus says, but
rather use his posting as a springboard into a related area,
derived from my personal history.

>In article <vanyel.710698730@camelot>
>vanyel@camelot.bradley.edu (Alan Williams) - among other
>things - writes:

>>I've become more satisfied with just "being" and less angry
>>at not "being something/someone." I've started to channel
>>the kind of love I get from my friends into the void created
>>by a lack of the kind of love people get from romantic
>>relationships.  And I've started to take notice of the fact
>>that I've survived this long, which probably means that
>>surviving a little longer without a "special someone" isn't
>>as difficult as it seems.

>(Life is more that just surviving.  I am sure you know that.
> Else I would have to ask you *what* it is exactly you say to
> be surviving.)

While I certainly agree that life is -- most of the time --
more than just surviving, I can recall vividly many periods
in my life in which "just surviving" seemed to be about all
I had going for myself.  I've known others who also counted
it a major achievement not to perish on any particular day,
so great was their misery.  So though in our better periods
we can feel that there is quite a lot more to life than
surviving, there are times when just that much is a sort of
victory, especially condidering the alternative.

I was reminded of some of this this past week when I posted
my own comments on Alan Williams's post.  I don't think it's
an indiscretion to say I got a letter from a mother whose
young gay son has had a long battle with suicidal
depression.  Parenthetically, it seems both mother and son
are readers of soc.motss.  The son is getting along better
now, but the letter reminded me how tenuous a grip we
sometimes have on life, and also how terrifying it must be
to a loving parent to see your child in the throes of that
struggle.

Indeed, there's a sense, I think, in which suicide is one of
the cruelest of all options.  Not only does it snuff out all
potentials for life -- they are *always* there, no matter
how bleak it sometimes seems -- for that one person, but in
nearly all cases it wreaks the worst kind of emotional havoc
on quite undeserving people who really care about you.

In a small town about 40 miles from here lives a woman I
know named Kay; she's about my age.  When she was young, her
favorite uncle killed himself, leaving her terribly hurt and
confused.  She got married and raised a large family, but
when she was about 40, her favorite brother killed himself
(he was one of my best friends and a sometime lover).  Two
years ago, her 24-year-old son (coincidentally a great
beauty with everything to live for, one would have thought)
killed himself.  One of her other sons is my close friend
and also a sometime lover.  So while Kay lost an uncle, a
brother, and a son, at the same time her mother (who was
still living) lost a brother, a son, and a grandson.  For all
the survivors in this large family, it's as though they are
being stalked by the death gene.

I'm sure, given the stories we've heard, that some somewhere
between 10,000 and 25,000 of you have given suicide either a
try or at least serious consideration.  For any of you
currently thinking of it, my plea is: please don't.  Please
get help instead.  I can't tell you how relieved I am now
that I didn't do that to my mother and all the others who
love me.

I'm sure there are a thousand reasons to consider it.  For
me it was always somehow bound up with love and lovers.
Retrospect is a wonderful thing (something you don't have if
you take that final step).  The current thread has been
raising echoes all over the landscape of the past for me.

>I think it is a good way "to channel the love you get from
>your friends into the void created by the lack of the kind
>of love one can get from a romantic relationship", to use
>your words here.  It is what I have learned during the last
>three years.  

I think the idea of redirecting one's energies into all
sorts of things -- not just friends, but work, hobbies,
sports, travel, reading and writing, lots of things -- can
play an important role in adding a sense of worthwhileness
to one's life.  And the void it fills is not just the
perceived absence of lovers, but really all perceived
deficiencies.

>In fact, I have learned this lesson so very
>well that, until three months ago, I could convince far too
>many people that I did not want nor needed a romantic
>relationship.

In passing, note "want or need;" a very important
distinction there, want and need not being at all the same
thing.  For me this distinction was a key discovery, part
of saving my life.

>[new love found]

>Since then, my life is not just me, it's him also.  But at
>the same time I still have very much of the freedom I need
>to live.  Yet, in the back of my mind I know that I am able
>to live a good life alone, whenever this would happen again.
>I know that I *need* to know that. For once, my having been
>alone made sense.  I really hope you'll be able to say this
>to yourself one day.

Rather in contrast to Markus, perhaps, what it has taken me
so long to learn is that as wonderful as love can be -- I've
been uncommonly lucky in that regard, I think, having had
quite a lot of it -- it isn't, as during most of my life I
would have claimed, the be-all and end-all of existence.  I
know it sounds a bit silly, but the point of existing is to
exist; everything else is icing on the cake.  Continuing to
exist is the obvious precondition for everything else.  It
seems so odd now that I could ever have overlooked that and
been willing to throw it *all* away.  I'm sure that getting
one's wants confused with one's needs are part of reason for
missing the obvious.

-- 
Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
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