I have been struggling with suicidal thoughts myself this year - am getting help to support me through these moments from a counselor. I actually had brought Rick's post to her last week to read because it had so upset me. Yet on the other hand, I felt that Rick really nailed it...in a certain light. Or how things can be if we don't have mitigating factors, which we are all working to have. I, for one, even though I was diagnosed 18 years ago and am only now 52 - and despite everything - still believe I am going to get better somehow. I really do. And I haven't given up hope for any of us. I'm not requiring anyone to be optimistic with me, but I am offering to lend my faith if anyone needs to borrow it. By the by, upon diagnosis at age 34 I wasn't even told that there was a possibility of doing well at all, but more to expect to be in a wheelchair within five years. I took an African dance class the other night. I say that not to brag, but to say even though I am struggling, there are possibilities. and that we each have an individual course with our condition. And I don't allow anyone to say about me - well, when you finally progress to this point - they don't know, and they have no right.

So I think Rick's description is more an abstraction of the worst case scenario. But I think it could be most valuable for non-PWP to realize what it is we are facing on our darkest days, because even the ones closest to us - the doctors and caregivers even - often don't really see how frightened and trapped one can feel. Thinking even more about the AIDS activist analogy I've been harping on, I think it was much easier for people who weren't sick yet to feel that they could be sick really soon unless they took immediate action, so the identity was much more shared between the well and the unwell. I think probably many of the people that "deal" with us think, "well, that's not me, that is their problem," and feel a sense of underlying security that prevents them from really understanding it personally. Of course, I'm sure there are many exceptions to that idea also, people who do really get it. But face it, if you didn't have to, how would you know how it felt or can feel? There's where I think Rick's words can be a strong communicator.