Transcript: Suicidal Ideation and My Mother's Legacy

I want to apologize to everybody who might be upset that I continue to return to suicidal ideation. I promise to do my best to keep at it, and let those feelings come and go without acting on them.

This time I did not go live, but just recorded the video on my phone, in four clips, and used an app to extract the audio and a Chrome Extension to create this transcription.

Asides on technical matters and the like are in italics.

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Well, here we are. Back in the midst of the sacred. Another evening in paradise. Another gorgeous sunset. Haven’t seen it yet, but we’re going to take a look at it now. And remember: in Dante’s Inferno, there’s a special Ring in Hell for the ungrateful. Better be grateful for this!

I’m a bit of a mess right now. Back at that state of not feeling like I have the slightest bit of energy to do anything that I need to do for my survival and just being sick of even trying. Oh, survival is kind of a highfalutin word. It ain’t survival. Hell, I’m surviving fine as far as, you know, food, the basic needs of life. There’s plenty of people in the world who are actually struggling to survive. No, I’m just struggling to come up with a plan to continue surviving in the years to come. In a way that doesn’t make me want to die. From a sense of meaninglessness.

Shh. Okay, I’m not doing too well with any of the technology right now. I just lost a whole ten minutes of confession. I thought… I was talking to the phone but it wasn’t running. Anyway...

So I just uh, upset another writer here on Substack who’s just trying to help publicize my work here. Asked me for a blurb to summarize what it’s all about. And at first I was too depressed to think about... I couldn’t even find the words. I didn’t want to talk about myself at all. I didn’t want to think about myself at all. So I had to put that aside for a few.

And then... I was able to put together a blurb that sounded good to me. A compelling reason why you should read the story. I cast it as a sort of a matter of suspense as to how it would turn out. Would this turn out to be an inspiring story of rebirth? Or would it turn out to be a drawn-out suicide note?

And then I came up here, I came up here to the Sugarcane Temple to chill a bit and to try to return to writing the narrative.

I brought my old laptop, the travel laptop, the one I’m not afraid of breaking because it’s so old that, you know, well, if it breaks, it breaks. And I still have my new one. But it wasn’t up to the challenge of writing either. Not with the system. Anyway, the system I’ve got for going over my daily entries and forming longer entries in the hopes of building an outline so that the whole daily diary thing can turn into, has some chance of turning into a cohesive narrative. Well... It’s still got bugs in it and anyway. So yeah, technical. Technical reasons why, you know, someone like me who hasn’t been using pen and paper for years on end can’t function without. Anyhow.

So I was just sitting here and he got back to me and was like a big No to the suicide note thing and... Oh, I realized I’d upset him, and then I got upset because I don’t really want to upset anybody. So I kind of just start to remind myself of my mother who just couldn’t understand why her suicide plans were upsetting to either me or my sister.

So I should clarify that I’m not actually planning to commit suicide. It’s just a thought that recurs because... I run out of hope and the vision disappears. And I get sick of myself. Just get really sick of this show. I get sick of waking up every day and being the same person. Having to continue where I left off from before.

And feeling so tired. Just not having the energy to keep on. It’s different when, you know, uncertainty... is one thing when you’re young. It’s really kind of hard to just not know what you’re doing from one day to the next when you’re over 50 years old.

Anyway, it’s kind of heartbreaking when you realize that people who’ve never even met you don’t want you to kill yourself. And, you know, duh, I don’t want anybody to kill themselves either. I get upset when I hear about anybody with such ideas. Certainly it’s a topic that comes up on this platform, people’s writings, and it’s always kind of upsetting. And you always want them to push on through. Yeah, so of course.

And then when you realize, oh, shit, oh, that’s right. This upsets people. Then you realize that you’ve really kind of gotten so sucked up into yourself that you’ve forgotten some basic humanity-type things. So... how I wish I could just sort of like put my ego aside here and really grok the sacred.

The funny thing is that one of the burdens of being a Muslim is that these images are, well, they’re alien, and you know, I ask myself what is the image of the sacred? Well we kind of don’t believe in images of the sacred. We’re very much against images. We’re against making images of the sacred.

But I keep coming back to this temple because it feels sacred, because it does give me peace of mind. I do always feel a lot better. I might not look like I’m doing better, but boy, I actually am doing better than I was an hour ago in my room, just baking and feeling just stuck in the head, just stuck, not able to do anything at all.

So what have I got to say at this point? What have I got to say at this point? Why is the camera still running? I turned it on for a reason. I had something to say, have I said it all? Doesn’t seem like I have. Man, I wish this camera would let me like switch from selfie to regular so that you can see what I’m seeing. Without my having to cut and restart over and over again. Fucking technology.

You know, like even if my words are just complete downers, I hope that at least the images I capture of this place can give some measure of hope and show what a beautiful world it is, can be.

Why am I so down? Today, does it even matter as much as accepting that there’s always days like this and that you get through them and then there’s better days. There’s sometimes really awesome days.

Oh, that’s right. I also got a phone call. I got a phone call from somebody who cares. A neighbor. Just a few minutes after I broke down in tears. And a quarter hour before I started this recording.

[adhan is called]

Oh, jeez. I wonder if I should actually show my face in the masjid one of these days?So used to that being a disappointment and an embarrassment.

[birds chirp]

Of course, I’m going to have to write a piece about this neighbor of mine who’s so sweet. No, now isn’t the time to talk about him. Anyhow, he invited me over early in the morning, and inshallah we’ll go and... meet a friend of his who is a retired massage therapist see if he has any suggestions, any thoughts on my vague plans to start over and practice again here. People care.

I know what I wanted to say I wanted to sort of make up a little bit for all the negativity in my last live video, because it may have sounded like I hate these people that I live with. And there’s definitely been times just lately that I’ve been saying to myself, “I hate these people. I fucking hate these people.” And I don’t. Can’t. I just can’t hold on to it.

And it’s just as well that I can’t, because it’s like holding a vicious animal that wants to eat you alive and holding it up to your throat. No, I can’t help but see other people’s brokenness and other people’s struggles and see myself in what they do and their motivations for doing the things they do.

I haven’t yet told my landlords that I’m really ready to move on out of here because I sort of expect the last bit of goodwill to vanish once I do. But maybe I’m underestimating them there. Maybe they won’t be so unpleasant. I don’t know. But I felt guilty today because I borrowed their vacuum cleaner. To, um, and I... gave them stuff that they’ve been storing in my room in order to make room for my stuff that’s coming.

My stuff. My fucking stuff is coming from the United States by boat next week, Thursday, inshallah. And much as I would just love to have a proper space to move it into, I think I’m moving it into the space where I live now. For now. Because I don’t have any immediate plans, I don’t have another place lined up.

And I couldn’t find it in myself to start to get back on the search for a new place to live today. Because I felt so tired of it all. Just trying to make space in my miserable, hot little room was all I could find the energy for. And then I lost the last bit of energy I had.

I sure don’t feel like I have the energy to make myself dinner tonight. I don’t want the last hours of the evening to get consumed with the effort. So I’m probably just going to go and blow a bit of money on eating out. And then hopefully, with food in my stomach and... the cool of the evening taking the edge off the heat in my room. I might find it in me to progress a bit on this narrative I’m writing.

And I want to apologize to everybody who might be upset that I continue to return to suicidal ideation. And I promise to do my best. I promise to do my best to keep at it. And... Just let those feelings come and go without acting on them.

Was I going to talk some more about my mother? Yeah, I was going to talk some more about my mother. Okay, here we go. Actually, we’re not just... Yeah, I’m going to talk about my mother, and I’m going to talk about coming back from Egypt.

So my mother, for a long time, used to say that when she no longer had... She was a big outdoorswoman. She was really into hiking and canoeing. And... She kind of made it out like this is what gave her life meaning and that once she was no longer physically able to do these things, that she was going to do herself in. But she didn’t. She didn’t.

There was one day she had some kind of anxiety attack or something and she checked herself in at Brooklyn Hospital. And then in her usual way of dealing with medical professionals, she told them, actually, she was fine. Just fine. Nothing wrong with her at all. She was sorry to have bothered them and she wanted to go home.

Ah, well, she was in there. Well, I’d, uh, I was staying at her place. Ah, she called home. I found out what was going on. I didn’t drop any dimes on her, but I, uh, did call my sister, tell her what was going on. And my sister dropped a dime, called the hospital, and let them know about Mom’s suicidal tendencies. And then they told her that she couldn’t go, that she wasn’t free to go, that she was a threat to herself. And they made her, they gave her a prescription for antidepressants, made a promise to take them. It got added to her regimen of medications.

And all the time I stayed with her, I made sure she took her meds. You know, some of them were pretty serious meds to skip. And she could not be counted on keeping track of them. So, yeah. Yeah. I made sure she took her meds and uh I think I mentioned before that like she she was surprised that the suicidal talk was upsetting to me and my sister couldn’t understand why.

I do want you to see these clouds. Every sunset here is worth capturing. They’re all unique. They’re all so beautiful. I used to say that the ultimate proof that God Is, is that we have the capacity to see the beauty of a sunset, we can appreciate it even though it has absolutely nothing to do with our survival. You can’t chalk that up to evolution. Sort of a side topic. But not really.

I was pretty religious at the time and… What time are we talking about? Oh yeah, before I went to Egypt. Before I went off to see the Muslim world, I was a pretty religious Muslim. And to me, the idea was it was a sin. It was just a great sin to consider throwing your life away. And I very much wanted to get her to see that her life was inherently sacred and she couldn’t throw it away.

See that proof? That’s the proof.

But you know, I couldn’t find any way to convince her of the sacredness of anything. You know, the Prophet said that you just... You can’t even... You can’t pray for the soul of a non-believer. Yeah. I know that sounds really harsh, I know that sounds really like unforgiving, whatever, but actually it’s kind of respectful in a way. Because, you know, if you pray on behalf of somebody who doesn’t believe in God, then you’re kind of disrespecting their disbelief and trying to, like, intervene on their behalf. It’s actually profoundly respectful of the Prophet to say that.

I’m going to put away my laptop and head on out of here.

Okay, I’m back in my miserable oven of a room, which is all the hotter right now because I turned the fan off so that we don’t have a horrible recording here. I’ll try to finish this up as quickly as possible so I can turn the fan back on and go to bed.

Anyhow, so my mother went on quite a bit about the suicidal thing. She kept a book on how to commit suicide. She was a member of the Hemlock Society, which is an advocacy group for people wishing... It’s for assisted suicide. I think she really misrepresented that group. I’m sure that no member of that group would have approved of the idea of someone killing themselves simply because they had decided that life was meaningless. It’s really for people who have terminal illnesses, what have you.

Anyhow... Yeah, she had needed a hip replacement and was no longer able to canoe or hike. And so she was going down this spiral of depression. And there was nothing I could do. And I found that not only was my faith useless for bringing any light into her life, but it wasn’t helping me with my secondhand depression at all. That was actually, I think, sort of the beginning of my faith crumbling, finding that I just couldn’t count on it to help me with this depression in any way.

And then there was the incident where she admitted herself to Brooklyn Hospital and came out with a prescription for antidepressants and a promise to keep taking them. And the suicidal talk ended. And it seemed safe for me to go. I went off to Egypt.

Towards the end of my time there, well, something happened that I’m not going to get into. It’s a whole other story that I’m not going to tell tonight. It left me very shell-shocked and with a state of survivor’s guilt. And I had a lot of trouble adjusting to life back in the United States. I had trouble adjusting to not having my life in danger.

Not that my life had been in danger for long, but it doesn’t take very long. It doesn’t take very long to get used to not knowing if you’re going to live from one day to the next. Sharpens your senses and draws you into the present moment like nothing else. And, you know, when you’re back in safety, well, it’s like all the wind falls from your sails. I understand why veterans have a hard time coming back to civilian life.

In my last weeks in Egypt... I stockpiled quite a collection of sleeping pills because I was having trouble sleeping. And I figured if I was going to go back to the United States, I might not have such an easy time getting prescription drugs without a prescription. So I stocked up.

And then there was the night I took my mom’s book off the shelf and I went to the part about suicide by sleeping pills, and looked up just how much it takes. I compared it to my stockpile and saw that I had only like 80-90% of what it would actually take. And my reaction emotionally was a mixture of disappointment and relief.

Anyhow, I thought I was just going to pass through the United States, figure out where I was going to go next. I knew I didn’t want to stay. But Mom had changed, and she continued to change. She had Alzheimer’s, and it was getting worse. It was getting rapidly worse. And I just had to take care of her. And that kept me there for a long time.

And one of the things that I had to do in taking care of her was make sure that she took her meds, including that pill that had changed her attitude about, or had taken away her resolution to end her life. And instead she lived day by day. Not that she was living life to its fullest, but that every day was like the day before, without much memory connecting one to the next.

And I watched her deteriorate quite quickly, but still taking years and years and years, continuous physical and mental decay, until she got to a state where she no longer recognized her children. Couldn’t get by without a wheelchair. And, well, I don’t need get into all the disgusting details of her physical condition.

But the point is that she was nowhere near.... This person who had said she would maintain her dignity and kill herself as soon as she was no longer able to climb mountains and take canoe trips hung on till her last breath, and not out of any joy of living. She was obviously miserable, completely miserable, but she was no longer capable of doing anything about it.

And she hadn’t actually prepared any sort of, well, you know, it’s really not that easy to will away your, to stipulate that you want to be killed. If you’re not on a life support machine, a Do Not Resuscitate order means absolutely nothing. As long as your heart and lungs are continuing to do their thing, you can just be in living hell and not know your ass from your elbow, and there’s nothing that could be done. You could have talked somebody into killing you, but then they would be a murderer in the eyes of the law. And she never did really appoint anybody to do the work, the dirty deed for her.

So she had that idea, and then it slipped away. And she lived to be 99 years old, and I’m absolutely positive that she would loved to have lived a lot shorter a life than that.

And so here is my question. Yeah, yeah, it’s foolish to off yourself while there’s still some reason to live, while there’s still some hope, while there’s still something beautiful in your life. But when is it no longer too soon to go? When is it actually time to just say, “actually, I’ve had enough?” And when that time comes, are you, am I going to be able to do something about it?

My sister came to regret that phone call she made to the hospital, and I came to regret trying to talk her into living on, not that I ever succeeded. Seeing my mother in her final years was really one of the most heartbreaking and terrifying things I’ve ever seen and I sure as hell do not want to live to be in a state like she was at the end.

So no, I’m not seriously planning on killing myself tonight or tomorrow night, any time soon. I do get these horrible, horrible moods and thoughts at times, but I really have managed to resist them for… I guess… when was the first time I had these thoughts? So anyway, let’s just say 40 years.

So, but at some point, you know, it does actually become a sane thing to do, in my mind. So, it’s my question. I don’t have an answer for it. This is just amongst the horrors that I live with, this thought.

I think that’s all I had to say. Thanks for watching and thanks for your comments. Thanks for Subscribing, Restacking, all that groovy stuff that, yeah, is gratifying. Cheers.

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