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stella41b -> RE: Feeling very protective (10/25/2008 2:32:07 PM)
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This brings me back to a situation of a few weeks ago when I got involved in a situation with a suicide which took place in a rolling night shelter in London. As part of my work with a support group I was called out with a colleague to a night shelter for the homeless as staff were trying to deal with a man who was determined to take his own life. The man in question was gay, in his late thirties and dying from HIV and the effects of street homelessness and long term substance misuse issues. The staff had even managed to arrange a Palliative Care Worker for him, his resettlement case was closed as it was clear he was never going to leave the night shelter.
The main issue was that staff felt that he shouldn't be in the night shelter as it was a situation which they found stressful, and they felt it would be much better for him to die in a hospice or hospital. However the man himself wanted to die on the streets, among his friends, and wanted basically to be left alone to die where he was. It came out he was being taunted by staff over his lifestyle choices and condition and for what he was putting them through, and this is what perhaps directly related to him making the decision to end his own life. He was angry, upset, defensive, emotional, he was holding razor blades and about to slash his wrists, and we took it in turns to go into his room to try and get the razor blades off him. My colleague and I intervened when we discovered that we couldn't work out which staff he had problems with and so we left them to arrange the ambulance.
This threw up a number of issues, including resentment towards all the night shelter staff, his family who had rejected him, euthanasia and his right to die on his terms, and so on. However this became a far bigger issue than him or anyone of us involved, for we were trying to persuade a man who had maybe only weeks, or even days to live, not to take his own life. He spoke of his anger and frustration at the staff, his battle and struggle to stay alive, his fear of death and not being able to die among his friends, his personal isolation and loneliness and so on. But we noticed that he was tiring, becoming weaker, drowsier, less coherent,. and while my colleague soothed him with her words I managed to approach him, reach out, and hug him, persuading him that this was all I wanted to do. I stood there with this man in my arms, and took the razor blades from him, handing them to my colleague, just soothing him, agreeing with him, and getting him prepared emotionally for the paramedics to come in and take over. They came in, but as he was weakening they decided to take him to the nearest hospital.
The man died en route to the hospital. Apparently he had taken an overdose earlier of his prescription medication, which leaves us only to speculate and wonder why he decided to slash his wrists. I felt gutted. This was despite my previous training as a nurse, and working as a teacher and a journalist, occupations which had taught me to be able to detach my feelings and emotions and respond in a professional manner. I still felt gutted. There was even some degree of anger, someone should have checked to see that he didn't have access to his medication, someone should have handled this better, staff shouldn't have let their feelings to become involved. But you know 'should have' and 'shouldn't have' are pointless in this situation, save for learning from the experience. But this too is pointless. The man is dead, and it's unlikely that I or anyone else will ever find themselves in the same situation again. This was, and will always remain, an individual experience.
This is how I see the experiences of the OP, SlaveIndigoChild, her Master and his now deceased father, experiences which she has chosen to share with me throughout, and throughout which I have sought to provide whatever support I could, whether it be through e-mail, c-mail, over the phone. This from what I understand was never a thread about her, about her Master or even indeed about his now deceased father simply because the issues and experience are much bigger than that - this was her choosing to come onto the boards and share what is a very unique experience - the experience of a man choosing to die at home, surrounded by his family, and on how everyone responded and coped with these issues.
Therefore to me this is very much a thread about death, about loss, separation, bereavement, and mourning and how one responds to such an event.
Death is very much a taboo subject. Even though it is a subject that we all frequently think about, consider, it is still very much a subject which arouses fear, which makes us feel uncomfortable, uneasy, insecure, for we have no way of knowing how to cope with the finality of death and those final hours of someone's life. Indeed there is an attempt to sanitize the experience, to try and remove the intimacy, and to try somehow to deal with the impact of someone leaving our lives forever never to return.
When we cry over someone's death who are we crying for? Are we crying for them? Do we cry over our feelings of what they have had to suffer? But do we not also cry for ourselves? Do we not also suffer the heartache, feelings of loss and anguish at such a permanent and final separation? Is that grief selfless, selfish, or both?
This is where I addressed LA in her posting and felt that she was dictating on the proper manner for Indigo to grieve. It was the use of the construction 'should have' and 'shouldn't have', and this though her own personal feeling and opinion still stands as a statement which declares Indigo wrong for what she did. My point is that this thread didn't come out of any feelings of altruism on Indigo's part, nor any attempt to massage her own ego. There was never any choice to allow for such altruism as this, like every other death which occurs, is a truly unique and human experience. The issues were far bigger than Indigo, her Master or his deceased father, this wasn't something which was planned, but an event which simply happened, which everyone had to cope with in their own way and to which everyone had to respond to. It goes without saying that looking at this from the outside it may not be what we would choose to do, but then again if something like this happened to us and we lost someone in our lives would we have the freedom of choice? The way I see it the only situation where you would have such a choice would be in the event of a judicial execution about to be carried out on someone sentenced to death.
I am writing this posting having spoken not long back to SlaveIndigoChild and her Master and we have discussed this thread, I can reassure everyone that all what she posted was done with the full knowledge and approval of her Master, and she is aware of this posting which has also been discussed and therefore it can be seen as a posting we have come up with together.
She has also asked me to pass on that everyone here can post freely what or how they feel on this thread, that she has no intention of defending herself and she requests that those who have issues with her and what she posts kindly wait until she has returned to the boards and take up such issues on other threads.
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