An Ardent Temperament Makes One Very Vulnerable

Somehow, Like So Many People Who Get Depressed, We Felt Our Depressions Were More Complicated And Existentially Based Than They Actually Were.

As Best I Could Make Out, Having Never Heard The Term Until I Arrived In California, Being A Wasp Meant Being Mossbacked, Lockjawed, Rigid, Humorless, Cold, Charmless, Insipid, Less Than Penetratingly Bright, But Otherwise---and Inexplicably---to Be Envied.

Suicide Is A Particularly Awful Way To Die: The Mental Suffering Leading Up To It Is Usually Prolonged, Intense And Unpalliated. There Is No Morphine Equivalent To Ease The Acute Pain, And Death, Not Uncommonly, Is Violent And Grisly. The Suffering Of A Suicidal Is Private And Inexpressible, Leaving Family Members, Friends And Colleagues To Deal With An Almost Unfathomable Kind Of Loss, As Well As Guilt. Suicide Carries In Its Aftermath A Level Of Confusion And Devastation That Is, For The Most Part, Beyond Description.

One Is What One Is, And The Dishonesty Of Hiding Behind A Degree, Or A Title, Or Any Manner And Collection Of Words, Is Still Exactly That: Dishonest.

It Is True That I Had Wanted To Die , But That Is Peculiarly Different From Regretting Having Been Born. Overwhelmingly, I Was Enormously Glad To Have Been Born, Grateful For Life, And I Couldn’t Imagine Not Wanting To Pass On Life To Someone Else.