My parents are side by side in front of me, backed against the fireplace by my shouting. I’m freshly released from a two night stay in the mental hospital. I am discharging pain at them like never before.
I’m mad, but the undercurrent of my anger is resentment. It’s been building for a while without me understanding why but has now come fully up to the surface.
People should understand, I explain to them, that I’ve chosen not to kill myself more than once for their sake and not for mine. Going to doctors and faithfully taking medication isn’t going to cure my chronic illness; it only manages to drag my condition into a state of numbed suffering.
And while this is going on, my friends and family who love me dearly are off raising their children or devoting themselves to education and careers, and then there’s just me keeping my mental illness company; It doesn’t take fifteen-minute breaks, an hour lunch, and then go home at five. It never takes a day off so neither can I. I sustain my efforts to struggle one more day by reminding myself how hard it would be on my loved ones if they lost me to suicide. I stay so they can feel better.
I shout all of this at my aging parents who have just spent the entire weekend in tears because I was suffering in the hospital.
My mother stops me dead by responding with quiet yet powerful conviction. “Staying because it will stop other people from being sad is no reason to live.”