foxinsnow's Diaryland Diary

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Suicide is Not an Act of Cowardice

SUICIDE IS NOT AN ACT OF COWARDICE

On September 14, 2001, Susan Sontag rocked a shocked and grieving nation with her assertion that the terrorists who attacked the United States of America were not cowards. She wrote this in an essay in the New Yorker.

Well, they weren�t. Sontag knows her words pretty well; well enough to know that �cowardice� is not the most appropriate of many more suitable bad words for what went down three days prior.

So, following Sontag�s lead about suicide hi-jackers, I feel compelled to assert that suicides in general are not cowards. Selfish? Perhaps. Short-sighted? Most definitely. But certainly not cowardly.

I say this because I want to assure all my loved ones that I am too lazy and chicken-shit to kill myself. Lazy? Yes. It�s far easier to stay where you are than to go someplace else. I actually did all of the reading for class today, so I might as well go instead of killing myself. Chicken-shit? I�m scared of dying. Maybe not as much so as most people, but the thought of Eternal Whatever does give me pause. Quite a bit of pause.

What I�m scared of more than dying, though, is being locked up. They can put you on whatever drugs they want in there, and you know what is cowardly? The way I stayed doped up beyond recognition for four+ years, while my doctors and parents patted me on the back for being such a good girl and taking my meds. I�m still on meds, but they�re the right meds, and I may get suicidally sad, I may stay up all night listening to Loved by the Cranes over and over again, but I�m me. And I�ll die before they put me back on Zyprexa. Paradoxically, Zyprexa was death. I felt a void within me, I looked and talked like a mental patient, and I slept sixteen hours a day. And this was called recovery. Hey, I bought it.

Anyway, going to class and deciding I need a new mood stabilizer lifted my spirits. I acknowledged I was depressed, and I have a crush on a boy in my class. His name is Justin, he�s smart, he reads, and he likes the Cure. Also, we talked about feminism today in class, including female sexuality.

What�s not to live for?

I say: if it ain�t worth livin� for, it ain�t worth dyin� for.

Peace,

elizabeth

p.s. quote for the day:

"Life is short and love is always over in the morning..." -sisters of mercy

and yes, I'm still getting a tattoo. But just for fun.

Note from six months later: I'm back on Zyprexa, but a very small dose that doesn't make me feel like a zombie. Also, I am most decidedly Never, ever going to get a tattoo.

1:20 p.m. - 2004-01-28

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