I Had Been Simply Treating Water, Settling

Mood Disorders Are Terribly Painful Illnesses, And They Are Isolating Illnesses. And They Make People Feel Terrible About Themselves When, In Fact, They Can Be Treated.

I Remember Sitting In His Office A Hundred Times During Those Grim Months And Each Time Thinking, What On Earth Can He Say That Will Make Me Feel Better Or Keep Me Alive? Well, There Never Was Anything He Could Say, That's The Funny Thing. It Was All The Stupid, Desperately Optimistic, Condescending Things He Didn't Say That Kept Me Alive; All The Compassion And Wamrth I Felt From Him That Could Not Have Been Said; All The Intelligence, Competence, And Time He Put Into It; And His Granite Belief That Mine Was A Life Worth Living.

I Am By Temperament An Optimist, And I Thought From The Beginning That There Was Much To Be Written About Suicide That Was Strangely Heartening.

There Is An Assumption, In Attaching Puritan Concepts Such As 'successful' And 'unsuccessful' To The Awful, Final Act Of Suicide, That Those Who 'fail' At Killing Themselves Not Only Are Weak, But Incompetent, Incapable Even Of Getting Their Dying Quite Right.

Anyone Who Suggests That Coming Back From Suicidal Despair Is A Straightforward Journey Has Never Taken It.