"Never Gonna Give You Up, Never Gonna Let You Down..."
The weather right now is very changeable, and so, it follows, is my mood. Here's a term I learned a few days ago: psychache. Which is like heartache for your soul. But it's a word people don't know, and it's a feeling it's hard to express, and sometimes when you have it and can't understand it or are afraid you won't be able to have anyone else understand it, you decide that maybe you should kill yourself. But that's not what you want: you want someone to salve the ache.
I also realised that when I become a doctor I would not think it was wrong to help a patient kill himself. But if I were going to, if I had a patient who requested help killing himself, I would want conditions to be met first: I would want (in nine of ten cases) a terminal diagnosis, and a low quality of life, and most of all I would want the patient to be able to ask rationally to die. And I realised that, and I realised that's why I shouldn't help myself to euthanise myself when I want to die. I never feel rational when I want to die. If I think it's unethical to provide PAS to a patient who isn't fully in possession of his thoughts when he wants to die, it should by the same logic be unethical to do the same to me when all I have to hold onto is a haze of terrible pain and wildness and desperation. Those aren't the right conditions.
In other words I shouldn't commit suicide, because it's not what I want. Inside me, it's not what I really want. It's just what feels like a solution, because it does bear with it the promise of freedom from pain, and I want so badly to be free from this pain. But what I want is to be free so I can live. I want to be able to do what everyone else does and enjoy life and live. The answer to that is not to take away pain and life and everything. If I had a patient who was in pain I wouldn't suggest she kill herself; I would find out what hurts and why and then I would address that cause, the root of pain. In myself I have been trying to stop my pain by punishing my body (so that it hurts somewhere else) and punishing what hurts instead of what causes hurt.
I've just been doctoring myself wrong.
I want to-morrow to be a good day; I want this week to be a good week. I'm trying to keep things in a neat straight line, but I always end up getting tangled off some other piece. I haven't been as panicky and anxious about academic things, though.
I'm feeling really sad right now, but I'm pretty sure it's from sitting in the dark. I'm going to go to bed and wake up when it's light. I want to be loved, but you do that by loving, and not by sitting in the dark with your soul hurting. I think a month ago I would have answered this by hurting myself, but I'm tired of punishing myself for being sick.
I want to be the physician who heals herself.
I also realised that when I become a doctor I would not think it was wrong to help a patient kill himself. But if I were going to, if I had a patient who requested help killing himself, I would want conditions to be met first: I would want (in nine of ten cases) a terminal diagnosis, and a low quality of life, and most of all I would want the patient to be able to ask rationally to die. And I realised that, and I realised that's why I shouldn't help myself to euthanise myself when I want to die. I never feel rational when I want to die. If I think it's unethical to provide PAS to a patient who isn't fully in possession of his thoughts when he wants to die, it should by the same logic be unethical to do the same to me when all I have to hold onto is a haze of terrible pain and wildness and desperation. Those aren't the right conditions.
In other words I shouldn't commit suicide, because it's not what I want. Inside me, it's not what I really want. It's just what feels like a solution, because it does bear with it the promise of freedom from pain, and I want so badly to be free from this pain. But what I want is to be free so I can live. I want to be able to do what everyone else does and enjoy life and live. The answer to that is not to take away pain and life and everything. If I had a patient who was in pain I wouldn't suggest she kill herself; I would find out what hurts and why and then I would address that cause, the root of pain. In myself I have been trying to stop my pain by punishing my body (so that it hurts somewhere else) and punishing what hurts instead of what causes hurt.
I've just been doctoring myself wrong.
I want to-morrow to be a good day; I want this week to be a good week. I'm trying to keep things in a neat straight line, but I always end up getting tangled off some other piece. I haven't been as panicky and anxious about academic things, though.
I'm feeling really sad right now, but I'm pretty sure it's from sitting in the dark. I'm going to go to bed and wake up when it's light. I want to be loved, but you do that by loving, and not by sitting in the dark with your soul hurting. I think a month ago I would have answered this by hurting myself, but I'm tired of punishing myself for being sick.
I want to be the physician who heals herself.