Posted by deirdrehbrt on March 1, 2006, at 23:27:50
In reply to Re: Caretaker blues ....****Trigger****, posted by jonquiljo on February 22, 2006, at 19:27:55
Jon,
I don't know what it's like to have someone ask for help in ending their life, so I don't know how I would react. If it was someone I love, and they were living an unbearable life, would I feel them selfish? I honestly don't know. Certainly I know I would miss them terribly if they were gone.
Then again, I've been on the other side of this discussion. I have Bipolar Disorder, and have suffered terribly, and have tried to take my own life a number of times. Was I selfish? Maybe, but when I was ready to die, I wasn't thinking at all about family or friends. I couldn't. It wasn't that I didn't want to, but that the pain was so unbearable that I didn't have the capacity to think of anything other than a way to end that pain. When I did think about family, all that I could think of was how I was ruining their lives, and how they would be better off without me. It wasn't selfish in my mind, but freeing for them.
Pain, physical or emotional, alters your perception. It destroys your objectivity. It infiltrates every thought you might have. It taints what would have otherwise been positive.
Far from being selfish, your wife may be also thinking of your needs, but through the cloud of pain. It may be quite difficult for her to see how your life is better while she is so much in need. She may see her death as something that will free both of you. I'm certain that she knows you'll mourn and miss her, but you will also not be saddled with the burden of her care. This might be her viewpoint.
How do you fight this viewpoint? Therapy could help. She probably feels that she isn't contributing to your relationship, that she is little more than a burden. Most people who want to die feel that they have nothing to offer. Are there ways in which you can show her that she still contributes to you, to your relationship,to the greater community? Perhaps knowing that she still does contribute will help her with the depression that she is feeling.
I don't really know any answers, but maybe this will give you something to think about.
Bright blessings for you and her.
--Dee
poster:deirdrehbrt
thread:609114
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/relate/20060220/msgs/614863.html