Linda's Notes for the Living

[Wayne] found the following document among Linda's papers.  It was written just prior to her second attempt to end her life.

Notes for the Living

These are some notes I wrote in my last weeks for those I've left behind who might like to read them. I'd come to terms with dying. Everyone has to do it. I just wanted to do it sooner than is acceptable.  Remember me in better times and know there is nothing anyone could have done to prevent it.

October 1, 2017:  We're part of a culture that goes to  great lengths to prevent all suicides, forcing those of us who do choose to end our own lives to do so in secret and alone. It makes it impossible to  say good bye.  I would have liked to have conversations that in reality could not have happened. The professional therapists have a "duty to report" so you can't openly discuss it once you've made up your mind.  My  suicide could not  have been prevented,  only postponed  which it already had been for longer than I want to  go into here.  I tried to make it  work for longer, but depression swallowed me completely and my efforts resulted in no hope for improvement. There  was nothing left for me to  survive  on.  I couldn't build a future for myself that I would have wanted. I hope to be forgiven and remembered as positively as possible. I wish I had accomplished  more.  I wish I had been stronger. And I wish life would have been softer.

October 19, 2017: I was living in pretty close to ideal conditions at the end.  The weather was sunny and perfect every single day. I lived in such a beautiful place with one of the best friends anyone could hope for. I sometimes felt like a very privileged person who had a terminal illness and didn't have to be busy or responsible for much, like in the old days of tuberculosis. I had a safe and warm place to heal and in some ways I did heal even though I felt strongly I was in my last days. In some ways I'd never been more content.

October 20, 2017: I was employed just marginally as a paralegal, enough to have something to talk about and keep me minimally occupied.  In all honesty though -- and Wayne would corroborate this -- he and I together  over the  years and until very recently worked hard and got some very good outcomes for his clients who didn't have a whole lot going for them other than us. Without that meaningful connection to him  and to  working at something meaningful  for  a living, depression would have taken me sooner. The kindnesses I have received from my friends collectively bought me eight additional months of  living.  Mary is my beautiful artist friend who lives in southern Arizona now but who I met here in Albuquerque shortly after I moved  out  here.  She's a painter and an all-around cool and intelligent person who brought such humor and harmony to my life. Apu was the first person I met in Albuquerque and we became immediately close and traveled everywhere together. Our friendship was always a complete joy to me.

He took me in at the end and could not have been more generous or better company. I hope he always feels it was worth it even if it didn't get him as much time as he might have wanted. The quality of his company and support was perfect. Evan, my dear friend who spent so much time with me making sure I wasn't lonely. It's in no small part because of Evan that these last eight months were enjoyable. We had good times and he was a true companion. What a tremendous connection we shared because he was brave enough to want to be close to me even though he knew I might leave. Monica always made me feel important. Her free spirit always touched me and made me a better person.  All the way from NJ, her friendship kept me warm.

October 26, 2017: Occasional appointments with medical/mental health professionals have all but stopped. I spend most of my time alone. I see Apu every day when he's not traveling and it's always such a pleasure interacting with him. I know he thinks living is a matter of motivation and free will, and he's not alone in thinking that. No one knows where willpower comes from exactly.

Depression has interfered with my decisions so profoundly over the years that I can't find my way back. I want to sincerely apologize wherever it's due for  having to disconnect this way.

November 1, 2017: To me Donald Trump being elected not  only shocked me because I believed it could never happen, but it seemed like a huge strategic mistake for our country. Clearly the banks and the corporations got the president they wanted. I was heartsick about what I saw in the first year. I had become convinced that a free and independent press did not exist on a national level in the United States; I was crushed to have had to finally admit that. I'm not at all sorry I lived only to see the first year of such a demoralizing time in America.

November 2, 2017: I did get some measure of a second wind after my February attempt but the inertia of depression came over me again and I could not continue putting one foot in front of the other any longer. Even with my very life at stake in such a clear and present way, I spent my days isolated, unalarmed, doing impractical things like reading and drawing and listening to music. One common rationale for suicide is that the person didn't want to be a burden on others and I know that's the case for me. I wasn't going to be able to help myself.

November 8, 2017: Most people's perspective on life is deeply rooted in free will and self-determination. They believe everyone has the power to set goals and work towards them. I had always struggled with an inability to construct a future even when I broke it down to the smallest objectives. How can anyone ever know another person's potential? I think it was Emerson who wrote about how unrealized human potential is common, but who could ever know that? I vacillate between thinking I'm tired and checking out early because I'm an exhausted, high-mileage vehicle who didn't pace herself for a long race. Or at times I think it's simply that I'm depressed and let's face it: Depression kills people. Not everyone recovers from it. I do take medication but I have what they call "refractory depression" that is recalcitrant and malignant and often enough, fatal. I'm afraid of a future where I can't be self-supporting and where I will have to rely on assistance because of an invisible mental illness that so many people think is so much more treatable than it actually is. And people aren't particularly nice to depressed people. And pride is part of it, sure. But it's more about control, and avoidance of entering the last trimester of my life in such a deep hole. And I do have a head-full of philosophy that took me too close to the sun on many occasions. But it's not possible to unlearn all of what you went to great lengths to teach yourself about the meaning of life and why people behave as they do no matter how much pain they cause. It's impossible to sort out what we owe each other when we don't all value the same things and some take so much more than they give without feeling an imbalance. Life itself isn't as important to me as being able to say I ultimately gave more to the world than I took, even if it's not by all that much. I needed life and people to be a lot softer.

November 9, 2017: The political climate in this country has changed into something I scarcely recognize. The separation of church and state has become negotiable under the ruse of "freedom  of religion."  Speaking  for  myself I'm feeling disoriented, like when the World Trade Center fell and I couldn't find New Jersey only I found 9/11 easier to adjust to, frankly. This conservative counter­-revolution rolling back the clock is asking too much. Progress made on social policy and civil rights that I thought was settled  law that  made  the  world better for people, and that so many people dedicated their lives and careers to advancing, is being reversed with the flick of a pen by an unbalanced  egomaniac in God's name. All this makes my decision easier.

November 8, 2017: What do we owe each other? How can we tell what's within our power? Are non-religious people more likely to commit suicide than religious people? If so that's a good argument for believing in something beyond this existence. If there's something else after this, I'm confident it won't resemble any of the scenarios I've heard proffered by various religions throughout my life.  I expect to return to the same state I was in for millions of years before I was born. I'll be quite surprised if there's an accounting or judgment of any kind.

November 12, 2017: I am all but gone already. Goodbye to everyone I've ever known. Forgive me if you can.

Love always, 

Linda

A hand-written separate document entitled:

"Immediately after #2 attempt"

But for the nervous irritability that interrupted me, the final minutes of my life would have been a dull, wearisome and lethargic affair.  Among the many other singular coincidences that left me standing thunderstruck -- like the last column of some ruined temple --my suicide became just one more manifestation of my diseased ambition.  Instead of the perfectly motionless contentment and eternally vacuous nothingness of death, I instead face unheard of perplexity wrought by sentimental souls erroneously convinced they would have suffered an irreparable  an unspeakable loss because they are entitled to my existence.  And so my melancholic discontent is a debt that I owe to the living despite my own wishes to the contrary.