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Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness

~ Recovery from PTSD & depression + yoga, silliness & poetry…

Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness

Tag Archives: death

The last exhale (farewell Nan)

25 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by Svasti in Life Rant, Milestones

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Can’t catch my breath, death, Enter your zip code here, farewell, funeral, Grief, No more a grandchild, no more grandparents, tea parties

Can’t catch my breath, the wheel is turning; my station on the totem pole changing before my eyes. Not for anything I’ve done, but rather a birthright.

I am now the next eldest generation. No more a grandchild, for all the grandparents are gone.

She passed this morning, my maternal grandmother. Before we had a chance to say goodbye since my Prick Uncle didn’t see fit to warn us sufficiently, even though he saw her on Saturday (bad family blood never really helps in the end).

We could’ve been there yesterday, had we known. But we didn’t.

Now I’m no longer a grandchild. Only one generation left older than me.

And I can’t catch my breath, no air in my lungs where I mean it to be. That last exhale where she finally slipped the last veil of this life, that’s where my lungs are at. Emptied in shock and not filling up again (not yet) no matter how many swigs of O2 I take.

My lungs are empty, like hers are, and I didn’t get to say goodbye before she was gone.

She wasn’t perfect but she was my Nan.

And, she was my grandfather’s keeper, with his suppressed PTSD and life-long alcohol-themed self-medication. A milliner, a marvellous baker of deliciousness (including homemade fig and apricot jam) and in her senior years, an adventurous solo traveller with her senior citizens group.

I learned to tie shoelaces in her lounge room, in my knitted slippers with their knitted laces. There were tea parties with proper English China and biscuits on matching side plates. She made for my sister and me, matching toy clowns with their spaghetti-like arms and legs, and embroidered faces.

Growing up, she was a wonderful Nan. She gave us love.

But she was also mean-hearted, jealous and bigoted. It was only later I learned of her involvement in the forced adoption of my half-brother and it’s something I’ve never been able to entirely reconcile.

A wonderful grandmother. A terrible mother.

A troubled soul whose own benign shop front faltered as dementia kept up its relentless advance. More, we saw the bitterness and meanness my mother always said was there.

Finally we understood how it was for my mother who, to her own credit, never poisoned us against her: we had a relationship with my Nan despite my mother’s own troubled connection.

It was that ever-growing meanness in the end which kept me away. That, and Prick Uncle moving her to the opposite side of town, closer to him, but nowhere I could get to easily or often without a car.

There’s no point in making myself feel bad about that now. She’s gone. But the Nan I knew has been gone for many years now, really.

Yet… that final goodbye. That chance to share love and connection and let her know we were there? Taken from us through a sibling feud older than I am.

Now, I’m a grandchild no more. I’ll see her again I guess, on the day we bury her. Cold and small, the essential spark gone from her flesh. I’ll be able to tell her then as I’m telling her now that despite her flaws, and her apparently shoddy parenting, she was a good grandma.

And in the end, she got her wish to go peacefully and in her sleep. She lived probably fifteen years longer than she really wanted to, but it was only the last five of that she wasn’t really there.

Farewell Nan. Complicated lady, bearing both spikes and sweetness. Farewell, woman who was cold-hearted enough to give up her first grandchild on behalf of her own daughter. Farewell, maker of Peach Melba and Christmas Plum Pudding (with silver pennies inside) and homemade brandy custard.

May you have a fortunate rebirth, Nan. With lessons and learnings that bring you awakenings and ever-closer to your Essence Nature.

~Svasti

xxx

-37.814251 144.963169

This is not peace

02 Monday May 2011

Posted by Svasti in Learnings, Life, Poetry

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

death, hatred, justice, Poem, Poetry, Revenge, symbolism, war

Peace Dove from Peace Mandalas: http://www.asounddesign.com/peace_dove.html

A man lies dead

But nothing has changed

There’s cheering by the tower

Hatred and plotting over there

==

A man lies dead

Although some grieve for him

Fueling more hatred and anger

None are healed by his passing

 ==

Peace begets peace

Love begets love

Kindness begets kindness

Trust begets trust

 ==

A man lies dead but this is not justice

Revenge does not bring peace

War does not bring peace

Symbolism does NOT bring peace

 ==

And this is not the end

 ~Svasti

-37.814251 144.963169

Dreams, death, transformation & labels

05 Monday Apr 2010

Posted by Svasti in Life

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

blood, crocodiles, death, Dinosaurs, Dreams, Labels, sharks, Transformation, transmutation, vampires

Dreamt of death last night/this morning/whenever-it-was, which never means what it seems to mean, of course. And transformation, too. The death was not mine, though often in my dreams it has been. But the transformation was.

Been thinking about that for a while, coz I’ve got this working theory that all these crazy-seeming things I’m interested in are actually about that, too. Vampires for certain. It’s not the blood or the sexiness or even the immortality thing that I like (I suspect like many, that would get a little old eventually, harhar!). Nope, it’s the transmutation from one thing to another. Same reason I like sharks and crocodiles, too, although in a different way. I mean, they’re time-travelers, aren’t they? From an aeon when we were little more than food for dinosaurs. Yeah…

So in this dream I became something but not someone else. I was still me, and having a hard time explaining all the outward signs of change to my family – suddenly taller, different coloured hair (pink) and skin (ochre), new abilities (strength, flying), although the inward signs were way more significant. They couldn’t see those of course, and there in the midst of dealing with the death scenes in my dream, I was once again not what I should be according to those whom I’m related to by blood!

And then this morning, reading something else I laughed out loud. Because I remembered.

Those who seek labels for others (or label themselves) are missing the point. Not in a new age-y dude, don’t stick your labels on me kinda way. Not like that at all. The only way for us to describe what we see is to use words, but what we forget to remember is how those descriptors are all so very temporary.

We’re always changing, transmuting, decomposing and reforming, even if we don’t know it. And mostly we don’t.

And in the tradition of transmutation, we need to snip those labels loose, tear them into tiny pieces and send them flying ten miles out to sea, remembering that in the end they’re just words, words, words…

Someone might have said it to us once (or even many times over), but it is our fear, shame, sadness, embarrassment, guilt and pain that empowers the labels, those places where we hurt. We hide words and labels in our bodies like wounds we need to defend and in doing so, regenerate our pain points.

But all we need to do is set them free.

They don’t mean anything.

They aren’t personal.

I have to remember this, too. That’s why I’m writing this here. To remind myself when I forget, because I do forget and often.

~Svasti

-37.814251 144.963169

The loss of two Jims

30 Friday Oct 2009

Posted by Svasti in Depression

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Contentment, death, Depression, Habits of Depression, Healing, joi de vivre, Persistence, Suicide, the Bottom Lurker

A rainbow through clouds

My friend Christa over at Giggle On! has a very sad tale to tell.

Her blog was created in memory of a good friend Jim (#1) who lost his battle with depression and committed suicide in 2005.

His death helped Christa to climb out of her own depression and since then, she’s been on a mission to fight the good fight of suicide prevention and bring happiness and laughter to the world.

Her message is: Don’t give up! Giggle on!

Or in other words: find another way. Christa’s way is laughter and humour.

The message continues: Know that where you’re at with your depression is NOT the end of the world. And that when we back ourselves into a corner of a small claustrophobic room called Depression, our choices seem very few. It looks like those limited choices are all we have.

And that’s when suicide can start to look like a good idea.

Very sadly, another friend of Christa’s – also called Jim – has taken his life, just this week. This Jim (#2) was a support to Christa as she grieved for the loss of Jim #1. And he helped her to create the Giggle On! site.

To Christa, the friends and family of the two Jims… I offer endless sympathy and love. No matter what, suicide is shocking and painful for those left behind.

You know, it wasn’t long ago I was engaged in my own showdown with depression – one that could’ve very easily ended the same way as the two Jims.

BlissChick has just written a beautiful post on the Habits of Depression. She describes something I’ve labelled the “Bottom Lurker” – an energy that’s just waiting for an excuse to re-emerge. It sits patiently on the ocean floor of our sub-concious in the shadows and it waits.

And while that Bottom Lurker exists, depression is always a possibility. It’s capable of robbing us of sunshine and joi de vivre, especially if we let our guard down.

I understand how bad it can feel to be alive when your mind is telling you there’s no point. But it’s a lie. It is your mind lying to you, pulling down the shades and painting everything midnight black and scary.

I don’t pretend to know why we so readily believe these lies. Why it’s so tough to see alternatives when we are depressed. It’s just so unfair, because right around the corner is our potential, waiting mutely in the wings for us to awaken.

The trick is to find a way to hang on til you do. To trust the stories of others who’ve been where you’re standing who can honestly say: There is another way out!

Because there really is a way to recover that doesn’t involve taking your own life.

My wish for everyone out there dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts is Strength and Persistence. And Trust. And the desire to Hold On and Push Through those painfully difficult times. And for a Break in the Clouds, one that’s big enough to help you remember what life can be like when you are not depressed.

Ultimately, I wish Healing, Joy, Happiness and the desire to live out your life in Contentment. For all of us.

Namaste.

~Svasti

Narties for Margaret

24 Thursday Sep 2009

Posted by Svasti in Life

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

cosmic coincidence, death, funeral, handicapped, Janefield Colony for Mental Defectives, Love, Margaret, mentally disabled, Narties, Peter Pan, second cousin, Smarties, special needs

Smarties - chocolate covered with coloured candy, sweeter than M&M's

She never called them by their proper name. I don’t think she could actually say the word Smarties, but she loved them fiercely. Narties were her favourite.

And this coming Saturday I’m going to her funeral – a woman no one can really say they knew intimately. Except for the little things about Narties, her love of cats and bright trinkets.

Much of what you or I take for granted as basic rights and freedoms were permanently denied to Margaret by cosmic coincidence.

She never travelled. Never went to school. She never read classic literature or rocked out to her favourite band. I’m not sure she even had a favourite band. She never rode on public transport by herself or had the chance to vote. She never had a facial, a massage, spent hours drinking wine and talking long into the night. Never rode a horse or camped under the stars. She’s certainly never been to a yoga class!

She’s never been kissed passionately or been made love to all night long.

I doubt very much that she spent hours, weeks, months or years in the grip of depression or self-loathing. Not even that, something we wish we didn’t experience, was available to Margaret.

Because her world was very small. Contained. And yet she was in her way, happy enough.

So who was Margaret? My second cousin, the only daughter of my maternal grandmother’s sister. Having made it to her sixties (quite marvellous for someone with her life-long health issues), she passed away from kidney failure in the early hours of Thursday morning.

To use language which horrifies the politically correct, yet draws a swift and relatively accurate picture – Margaret was retarded.

Or, as per the name of the institution she lived in for much of her life – Janefield Colony for Mental Defectives.

Mental Defective.

Using kinder terms, I guess you’d call my second cousin mentally disabled, handicapped, special needs… whatever.

PC or no, I find all these descriptions rather vague. I’m not sure if they ever gave her a proper diagnosis.

Margaret permanently lived in her own Peter Pan world and I often wondered it was like in there. Internally, she forever had a mental age of perhaps eight, while externally her body aged like everyone else’s.

She didn’t have a bad life, not once Janefield was closed and she moved into a managed house with live-in carers.

My immediate family were good to Margaret when few others cared, especially once her own parents died. We’d bring her over for Christmas while she tolerated us (eventually her anxieties meant leaving her home wasn’t feasible) and give her small gifts suitable for a young girl – costume jewellery, cat toys, scented talcum powder, bubble bath, and sweets.

Many would look at people like Margaret and feel pity or sadness. Or perhaps they feel nothing when they see the Margarets of this world. Or embarrassed, even.

Hardly anyone knows Margaret and even for those that did… there will be no outpouring of grief. Because there was almost no way to connect, interact.

Is that what love hinges on? This idea of our connection to the object of our affections? Where that object reflects back for us a view of ourself that we really like? And how does one connect anyway, to a person who can’t share anything in return?

Although I’ve known Margaret for much of my adult life, I can not cry at her passing. But I want to. I want to cry and say I wish we could have talked. I wish I knew how your life went. I want to ask you what you experienced and felt. I want to know if you were happy, content even. I want to know what you wished for, and if your wishes came true…

There won’t be a crowd at the funeral, because she never met many people. Never had the chance to, actually.

Mum asked me if I wanted to attend and my response was, of course. She deserves to have people pay their respects, I said.

Because even though her experience was so utterly different to the general human consensus of ‘normal’ life, she is still one of us, of course.

We can’t relate, we can’t share what her life was like because she could never tell us, but we can mark her passing with what we do know.

So come Saturday we’re bringing flowers, Narties and toy cats to her service.

And we’ll farewell this human life as she is released from her very contracted incarnation and flows back to Source.

Margaret, you’re in my thoughts and prayers. May your passage through the bardos be swift, and may your next incarnation be an expansive and joyful opportunity.

Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti. Hari Om Tat Sat!

~Svasti

Over the rainbow bridge

02 Tuesday Dec 2008

Posted by Svasti in Spirituality

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

After death state, Cancer, death, Energy, Grandpa, Mantra, Om Shanti, Strange dream, Yoga, Yogis

One of my yogini sisters has been duking it out with cancer for many years now… she’s young, and vital and yet… cancer kept up its slow inevitable march forward.

Being initiated into the same yogic lineage (and I don’t give a toss if you think it’s a load of crap) means energy connections between me and my fellow yogis (as well as family and some close friends) I feel more easily than others… and word came down the line today that she’d passed.

But not before I’d spent most of last night almost comatose on the couch from around 7.30pm, weirdly tired, and completely falling into a deep, deep sleep during the twilight hours…

And this morning before awaking, dreaming a strange dream:

You know those photos where someone’s arm or feet or another body part is in the shot, but that’s all you see of them? The main person who’s featured appears to have dismembered body parts floating in their general vicinity? In my dream I met a man, of Asian appearance, with incredible Photoshop skills and he was systematically removing the unattached limbs from several photos. They looked like they’d never been there. I was amazed he could do that so well…

Morning arrived, I was still exhausted, and inexplicably I felt unwell. So I stayed home from work and around 1.30pm local time, received the text message of her passing.

I knew it was coming; we’d received an email just a couple of days ago.

Those in our yogi school had been asked to send the energy of our practice and prayers to help her through this time… passing of life into death… through the bardos where images clung to as reality in the world we believe to be solid and permanent show up again… and where, if we so choose, we can reside ever after in a dream-like state… much as we do anyway… just another possible way of existing… Who says it’s all ‘like this’ or ‘like that’ anyway?

It’s the after-death state(s) that some yogis and yoginis practice for throughout their lives.

We practice not just to live here and now as humanly and humanely as possible, but to navigate the various stages of letting go – slowly unfurling and shrugging off corporeal shackles to grasp the wider view of what life is and how death actually, isn’t separate, but part of it… beyond the tangible with its rules both societal and physical.

In this world, we humans grieve for what has been, fixating on something that after this moment ‘right now’… no longer ‘is’.

My paternal grandfather’s passing a couple of years ago was like that. With my own father so angry at him for not calling the ambulance (or anyone) when grandpa had clearly felt heart pain for several days before he died alone in his home with the blinds still drawn and his bed not made.

There was a viewing before the service where I was to speak as a proxy for my father who’s voice was not reliable (neither was mine). I slipped in early, before anyone else arrived.

In an impossibly small coffin at the end of a narrow room lay his shrunken form, no longer my twinkly eyed grandpa, so gentle and sweet in his silent ways. He was no longer an inhabitant of this form, if he ever was. If any of us ever are…

Right there is a good philosophical argument for cremation, which is certainly my preference…

As I offered prayer and mantra, I knew I wasn’t praying to this lifeless inanimate flesh but to the surrounding environment… where I felt him to be more real and present than this frozen grandpa-like shape.

Do you start to wail and cry if a person goes to another room in the house? This death is inevitably connected with this life. In the sphere of Immortality, where is the question of death and loss? Nobody is lost to me.
~Sri Anandamayi Ma

Aum
Shanti, Shanti, Shanti!

~Svasti

Monsters in the closet

23 Thursday Oct 2008

Posted by Svasti in Time to come out

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

death, Dreams, Drink Me, Fake tan, hallway monster, heart break, imagination, loo, Mad Hatters Tea Party, monsters, Queen of Hearts, super powers, wenches

Sully from Monsters Inc

There’s method in my madness, although it may be utterly unintelligible to others, or even to my own good self.

One of my many, many quirks is this – I’ve always considered my imagination to be a secret weapon, kind of like a super power.

As a young child, I had a wildly over-active mind, full of ghosts and goblins and invisible people. Who knows, perhaps some of them were really there? Anyway, two main night-time fantasies persisted, around the concept of monsters.

My monsters looked a little like Sully (see pic) although perhaps a little scarier.

First – I had this idea that when us kids had gone to bed, my parents took off their ‘skins’ and underneath they were really monsters. I never thought they wanted to kill us or anything, just that they had another ‘face’ we never saw.

Second – there was a hallway monster, who wasn’t either of my parents. And he was really scary! He hung around outside my bedroom door which meant he was in the way of me getting to the toilet. I learned I could have a ‘conversation’ with him, in which we made a deal. He could be outside my room all he wanted, except when I needed to go to the loo (Aussie word for ‘toilet’). And since we never formally crossed paths, I figured it worked. 😉

As I graduated from monsters to real life fears, I found different ways to use my imaginal powers. I had endless horrific nightmares from the ages of 10-16. I dreamt not only of my own death, but that of almost every person I knew. I’ve been at my funeral many times over in my dream world. Some of the dreams I dreamt of others were frightening. Like the one where my sister was beheaded and no matter what I tried I couldn’t stop them…

In response to my night time terrors I actively imagined all sorts of things. I had this theory that if I dreamt or thought of it first, it could no longer come true in the real world. In this way, I protected the people I loved because I’d taken away horrible possibilities by thinking about them already. Weird, I know!

Moving into adulthood, my terror became that of heart break. I would seek to expunge the ‘last memory’ of being somewhere special with ex-boyfriends/partners by taking myself back to those places whenever I could. So they no longer held any fear or sadness and once again became ‘just a place’.

It seems like another lifetime ago that I had these funny ideas and ways of handling my emotions.

The exception is dealing with the ‘Andre’ stuff.

I’ve been near and around where he lives, but not by design. It wasn’t so long ago I figuratively dropped my lunch when my therapist asked me how I’d handle things if I ever did come face to face with Andre again. I’ve never purposely sought out any of the places I’d spent time with him.

But tomorrow night I’m going back to the ‘scene of the crime’: the club where we first met. And that’s because my good friend L and I are going to a fancy dress party!!

Hence the fake tan. The reality of my costume involves a fair bit of flesh on display and my beautiful Thai suntan has faded in Melbourne’s lingering Winter.

The fake tan is also a thin chemical layer of protection. Something between me and… the spectres of ‘past-Svasti’ and ‘past-Andre’.

Actually, I’m not really going there on purpose to exorcise ghosts – its just there was a party on that I damn-well wanted to go to! And I decided, after three years I’m way past ready, damnit!

L knows the deal with all that stuff ofcourse, and we’re both there for each other in the good chick friendship kind of way as well as the – let’s be dirty little stop outs kind of way…

Logical brain says – I don’t expect he will be there. Ofcourse he won’t be there. I know he won’t be there.

Fear says – but what if by some freak happenstance he is there?

Shut up says my intuition. Its just not gonna happen, okay?

I’m going over to L’s place after work tomorrow. We’re picking up our costumes on the way. At her place we’ll primp and preen, do hair and make up, help each other into our outfits and drink outrageous amounts of vodka.

The theme is ‘Mad Hatters Tea Party’. And we’re going as wenches at the Queen of Hearts’ court. Ofcourse! There’s a red velvet corset, a short, sassy bustle-y skirt and some stay up fishnets coming my way. And a faux black velvet hat. Plus accoutrements.

Should be a hoot. I really and truly don’t party like this very much or very often. Must be the arrival of Spring – both L and I decided it was time to let our hair down and then the party came up.

Actually, I’m so darn toey that I’m just hoping there’s fun with some tall, dark ‘n’ handsome Mad Hatters – and I betcha anything if I opened the “Drink Me” bottle, there’d be some short term amnesia involved…

~Svasti

P.S. Jay – no rude remarks about the number of posts I’ve made this week please!! Yesterday’s came out of nowhere and so did today’s. Sometimes a girl’s just gotta write…

P.P.S. I’m still in a little bit of shock that I’m actually gonna post this to my blog…

On not contemplating suicide

14 Sunday Sep 2008

Posted by Svasti in Depression, Therapy

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

death, Depression, Fragility, Life, Mark Priestly, Suicide

Hopefully the title of this piece does not cause any alarm. But I’d like to talk about the “s” word without sounding suicidal. Which I’m not.

Recently here in Australia, a well known and well liked actor starring in an Australian TV show killed himself. This news, combined with my own internal contemplations of late, has created this post.

Now, I know I’m not suicidal, because if I was going to do it, there’s a specific night around eight years ago that it would have been all over for me in this lifetime. Sayonara. Goodnight.

Also, with everything I’ve been through in the past few years, not once have I seriously thought about it.

However, it would be true to say I have very mixed feelings about the whole concept of suicide.

For example, I’m pro-euthanasia: humanely allowing people to end their misery if they choose to with a sane mind. I don’t think that should be a crime for either the person dying or the person(s) helping them. Especially where someone has chronic pain or an incurable disease that will eventually rob them of their dignity.

In my early 20’s, I had a friend, Rhett. I don’t have that friend any more because one day he killed himself. No one knew he was feeling so bad or that he had suicidal tendencies. He got stoned off his tree, drove to a nearby beach, and threw himself over the edge of a cliff.

His death brought utter devastation to the lives of his friends and family. The funeral, a cremation, looked like a car crash scene. It was unbearable to look anyone in the eye because of the haunted, lost and searching expressions that pervaded. His brother, whom I’d once dated, cried openly in my arms.

Fifteen years later and I still think of Rhett from time to time. I can’t quite believe that he did what he did. Sometimes I wonder what his life might have been like if he’d just reached out and told someone he was feeling really crappy. And I think of his family, for whom the grief may never end as long as they live.

Then in the year 2000, a very torrid, passionate and self-destructive relationship I was in came to a screeching halt. Metal and against metal, my ex A, ended things painfully, harshly. It’s possibly the only way he could’ve ended things to make it stick. Prior to this I’d been in counselling, trying to get over him and not go back or take him back. So it shouldn’t have come as such a shock, given we’d been on and off for over eighteen months. But it did. And it was.

To blot out the pain, I threw myself into my stupid meaningless job. Friday night drinks would turn into a bender, and I began to understand why people anesthetise themselves with alcohol. Sometimes it can really help for a bit, I thought at the time. In retrospect, I’d say I was suffering shock and depression.

I can’t remember what night of the week it was, but I came home and my flatmate wasn’t there. She was staying at her boyfriend’s place like she often did and our little flat was empty. Since I was crying most nights anyway, that kind of suited me.

Fragility is a funny thing. Physically you can be really strong and powerful, but the state of helplessness siphons that away. The sensation that your bones will crack with the slightest touch replaces any strength you possess.

And that night something had cracked and was desperately broken.

I knew I was in trouble when no matter what, I couldn’t stop crying. I tried practicing breathing that I knew from yoga. I talked sternly to myself. I walked around the flat and tried to do stuff to distract. But nope, I was still crying uncontrollably.

Sitting on the couch, everything went a little dark and it seemed as though I’d paid admission to a jerky fun park ghost ride: Welcome… to your own personal dark night of the soul…

Down, down, down. The further I plunged, the more painful things got and I knew, I just knew right then I needed some help.

My thoughts had turned to how I could stop feeling so torn. This is the first time I’d seriously considered suicide in my life. I reached the bottom of that ocean, and it was decision time. Black thoughts, deepening darkness and intentions of eradicating myself. But no… I touched the sandy ocean floor and kicked back towards the surface again.

In the moment of my worst pain, I was glad to know that about myself. But still, I hurt ferociously. So the next step was thinking I needed to create some other sort of pain. Like, how when you cut your finger but then bang your head and you don’t notice the finger anymore? That’s what I was thinking. Of cutting.

Around this time I was hysterical. So much so I thought it would be a good idea to call my mother. Call mummy. But this was my first important lesson in why I should never call my mother when in this kind of state.

She picks up and I’m crying like a banshee. She asks me what’s wrong but I can’t talk. I can barely catch my breath. After trying for a few minutes to get me to talk, coldly she says: “Stop acting like a baby. Grow up and stop crying.”

This shocks me awake enough to hang up the phone. She doesn’t try to call back. Not that night and not the next day either. She never mentions it to me again.

Eventually I get up the nerve to call my counsellor – because it was late, I’d hesitated, not wanting to bother her. But she was the correct choice all along. She helped me work things out and find a way through the night. But I’ve never forgotten that plunge to the depths of my dark side.

Last week I was driving with my mum over to my nan’s house and there was a news story on the radio about the actor who committed suicide.

I start saying how sad it was, how it’s such a terrible experience for those left behind. About then Mum got all reactive which is pretty normal for her.

She said she doesn’t see it that way. Foolishly I tried to debate it with her a bit, but she’s not interested as per usual. There’s an old standard argument ender in my family – “If you’re right, then I must be wrong again”. It’s used to shut down so many conversations it’s just not funny. And it drives me batty because there’s no way to talk to someone who takes that stance. Both my parents do it actually and I want to shake them from their comatose animal realm view of life each and every time. So she pulls that line out and for now the conversation is over.

A little later she said: “I’ve got news for you. If the doctors couldn’t save my arm with this last operation, they were going to amputate it. And if that happened I wasn’t going to live. I had it all planned out, with the pills and everything.”

I tell her that I don’t think she could or would actually go through with it. That she has a baby grand-daughter and another on the way and I just don’t believe she’d do it.

She admitted that her grand daughter was the only thing that made her think twice, but she was going to try and go through with it if she had the balls. She thought it was about balls.

But I’m not so sure it’s about courage when it comes to suicide. My completely unqualified opinion is this: I think people stop identifying with themselves and instead identify only with the pain. Really bad pain that they can’t see a way out of it whilst they’re alive. But because they don’t like the pain, they want to end it. And since they’ve stopped identifying with themselves as a valued individual, it really isn’t a big deal for them to end their life.

All of this said… I still have mixed feelings about suicide. I mean, it’s not for others to judge how much pain someone else is in. But it’s always my hope that people feel they can just tell someone else how they’re feeling. Because I truly believe part of what makes us feel so bad is keeping it to ourselves. Thinking no one else could understand, and that there’s no end to how we feel.

Righto then… just to complicate matters I can truly empathise with those who do take their lives even though I wish they’d try to work it out another way.

A lot of the inner world thinking that belongs to the darker part of myself – as opposed to the sage yogi part of myself – is probably not that healthy. And its active right now unfortunately…

For example: “There’s not one person who relies on me for anything in their daily life, except for going to work. So, if I just vanished from this world… its not like it would make a huge difference to anyone.”

This is despite knowing from my friend Rhett’s death just how it is for those left behind.

But when these trains of thought are in operation, I completely agree with what I’m telling myself.

“It’s such a shame really that I have to endure this existence. I’d probably have a better shot at liberation in another lifetime anyway. It would be simpler for me not to be here. What would it really matter?”

Oh, so this voice also engages with the yogic part of my being too! And tries to incorporate yogi philosophy about life and death. Luckily, I know better.

On my side, is the knowledge it’s not what I want. But the dark thoughts, they persist, tormenting and whispering…

This post is for all those out there feeling low. Get help, reach out. Trust that others care, no matter what you tell yourself.

And god bless Mark Priestly. I hope he found some peace in the after-death state.

~Svasti

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