2024-11-06

On staying alive

For those in pain on November 6th, 2024,

The logical conclusion of fear and numbness is a desire to die. I write to you as someone who has outlived that desire; I have survived suicidal despair. Now, the morning after cruel people were once again elected to power, I am considering what caused me to survive.

First, I kept myself alive. As you might know, in periods of great despair, you must work very hard each and every second to not die. Sometimes, though briefly, I felt grateful and amazed at my persistence. These feelings—gratitude and awe—are a more correct response to the breathing fact of life. Seeking out those emotions, seeking any feeling at all, helped me choose to live, and to keep making that choice. And when I lacked the strength or luck to want to stay, I was able to speak truthfully to those around me.

People who loved me kept me alive. By telling them that I wanted to die and describing to them the reality of that pain, they took more and better care of me. In suicidal despair, the best resource is an attentive, capable, and generous person. In my case, my wife, mother, and sister helped me meet my needs: they ensured I didn't hurt myself; they kept me fed, hydrated, and sheltered; they helped me adjust to new medicines; they stayed. Others helped, too, even without knowing it: on one very dangerous day, petting a stranger's dog for just a moment inspired me to not end my life. You mustn’t doubt the beauty of basic kindness.

Professionals kept me alive. After admitting my desire to die and describing my daily thoughts and behavior, a therapist encouraged me to take medication. Scientific and clinical literature helped me understand my options. Websites featuring this information enabled me to learn. Then my nurse practitioner prescribed me the medicine I wanted to take.

Medicine kept me alive. After researching antidepressant medications, I chose bupropion. I am incredibly lucky that my first choice worked well. After a few difficult weeks of adjusting to the medicine, I woke one morning and felt healthy for the first time in years. I was hopeful, energetic, and calm. That initial euphoria has worn off, but daily doses of bupropion help me feel pleasure, metabolize stress, and not dwell on suicide. A better baseline has helped me establish other medicinal habits, like exercising, laughing with my wife, and playing games with friends.

Good ideas kept me alive. My therapist helped me feel and understand the fact that I am like others who suffer. This likeness formed a bridge over the dark water of severe depression—which would have you believe that you are alone and illegible, thus helpless and doomed. In crossing that bridge, I rekindled my bond with friends and strangers. Additionally, memories of pleasurable art occasionally came to mind, tethering me to the world and its beauty.

Lastly, and grossly, money kept me alive. We translate the simple language of real needs into the arbitrary argot of dollars, and for that, we are immature and foolish and scornful of ourselves. Regardless, I was lucky enough then, and am lucky enough now, to have enough money to stay alive. More directly: money enough for shelter, air, food, water, and medicine.

I catalogue these causes because anxiety and fear are lessened by facts and testimony. We can deduce sound strategies for living from such a foundation.

To survive the deeds of the powerful, we must first understand our needs. Once named precisely, we can work more effectively to meet them. Whenever you feel yourself enthralled by anxiety and fear, remember your needs. Then, if you can meet them, try to meet the needs of those you love. If you can meet those and still have capacity, try to meet the needs of others in your local community. In this process, you shouldn't fear asking for help. Asking for help is neither shameful nor wrong; it is the mortar of civilization. Yet it is also good to take time for sovereign and useless pleasures; we mustn't live solely to serve others.

Remember that many communities have survived cruelty and calamity, and continue to do so. Rebecca Roanhorse, an Ohkay Owingeh and African American science fiction writer, said this of one of her post-apocalyptic novels: "It made sense to me to have a people that survived a genocide survive an apocalypse." No matter your ethnicity and genetic origin, and no matter the era's scapegoats, it is likely that your ancestors survived the stress and trauma of displacement and disorder. Though you are scarred, you are resilient. And, more generally, the existence of our species proves daily, and with a mathematical clarity, that we are more cooperative and kind than violent and uncaring—even if that fact seems lost in the translation of shared desires to political objectives.

Lastly, and crucially, I encourage you to not abandon your imagination. We are a young species, and our means of global collaboration are vanishingly new. The story of humanity is not complete, despite what our ostensible leaders would have us believe. Power may yet be transformed. Love may yet be enough.

But the only way to find out is to dream.

To hurt.

To live.

Yours,
Ken

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