Sometimes I don’t know if I find the stories or if the stories find me. This essay by Anita Darcel Taylor is an exceptional study of the authour’s melancholia, her “normal existence”. I am grateful that this story and I discovered each other so that I can share it here.
Her description of suicidal intent affirms the understanding I’ve gained after wrestling to comprehend what I didn’t understand; “I know that, inconceivable as it may be to loved ones who believe that their love alone is enough to save someone, sometimes a person decides that the stopping of the pain must be permanent. In this situation, suicide is not a selfish, deliberate act of cruelty against loved ones; it is a frantic final act against continued anguish. If there is a rational thought in choosing suicide, it is that the sufferer hasn’t the strength to live through that agony again, much in the way that a cancer patient may not be able to withstand another bout of chemotherapy. Mental anguish can be as unruly as any terminal illness. It can, unfortunately, orchestrate its own end.”
Anita Darcel Taylor writes of reading William Styron while listening to Donny Hathaway on a train. Either one on his own would induce melancholy in me, let alone as a duo, brave woman.
She writes a hypnotising paragraph about train platforms, never feeling really safe, and seeing ways she might die in every situation. Her revealing essay is truly awe inspiring.
This post is for Anita Darcel Taylor and anyone who doesn’t feel safe from themselves, while standing on a train platform.
Crisis counselling is available around the world. In Australia Life Line 13 11 14.