I recently had a conversation with my sister where she said she randomly brought up to a coworker that death doesn’t scare her, and her coworker felt uncomfortable. I thought that was such a crazy coincidence because only a few days before, I had written the first draft of this piece. This isn’t meant to be concerning or worrying, me and my sister are perfectly okay and have no plans to not continue living, but I thought this was such an interesting topic and something that I’ve been thinking about for a while that I needed to get out.
What is the worst thing in the world that can happen to you? What’s the end-all be-all for a person? Is it death?
I started watching The Vampire Diaries recently, don’t judge me. I was looking for something new and I found a show that I’ve wanted to watch so I did, don’t judge me.
There are these vampires running around this town sucking blood, killing people. But when there’s a person who gets into an accident, or crosses paths with the wrong vampire, the first instinct of our main characters is to save their lives, rightfully so. And the way to do that, the only way to bring someone back from the edge of death, is to turn them into a vampire. So they do that.
They all think that dying is the worst thing in the world. That living a life, even if it’s eternal and flawed, is way better than being dead.
I’m watching this show, and I’m watching all these humans who have eighty years left of their lives, who have friends and a family, who have humanity, I’m watching them all turn into vampires. And the whole time, the only thing I can think is, I’d rather die. Instead of living an eternal life where I watch my family members die and change locations every few years (so people don’t catch on to the fact that I don’t age) and use other living beings as food, I’d rather die. Because death isn’t the worst thing in the world that can happen to you. Life is.
This semester, I’m taking a class called Prisons, Politics & Policy. It’s about the incarceration system in the U.S. We recently discussed the death penalty and how many people it affects. It’s a lot. And then in discussion my TA asked us if anyone in the room believed in the death penalty. There were what, maybe seven or eight of us there. No one raised their hand. For a politically divided nation, that’s a pretty interesting scene.
She asked why we didn’t believe in it. There were classic answers: it doesn’t deter crime, it’s very expensive, there are too many people being sentenced to death when they either don’t deserve such a horrible punishment or they’re innocent. I felt terrible. My reason was that I think the criminals, if they are guilty, should have to live in prison for the rest of their lives. If they’re executed, they get away pain-free. You don’t feel anything after death. But if you murdered someone, or ten people, you deserve to live with that punishment. The worst thing isn’t death. It’s a life of living with guilt and punishment.
Dark stuff, man. I’m kind of a dark person, but it’s hard not to be, especially when you’re taking a class on prisons.
But isn’t it sort of true? If you had a loved one suffering from cancer, and they were always in pain and in the hospital and they weren’t going to get better, wouldn’t you rather they be at peace instead of suffering? Even though you love them and it’s hard, isn’t death in this case better for them? There is no denying that watching a loved one pass away is excruciatingly painful. And it may be the worst thing in the world for you to watch. But that’s a part of life, which in my opinion is worse than death.
All these thoughts come at an interesting time this semester. I recently suffered from another dissociative episode (see previous posts for more details). But this time was different. This is the fourth episode I’ve had this year, the last one being in June. The first thought I had in June when it started was I’d rather be dead than have to deal with this again. But this time, I didn’t think that once. I never thought about giving up or not living. I just went on autopilot and kept going. I’m not sure what happened. I’ve said that these episodes are some of the worst things to happen to me, but yet, I still felt like living.
I had never really understood what dissociation meant for a person. Where does it come from? Why do people undergo these episodes? What I learned fairly recently is it’s often associated with trauma. I wish I’d known that sooner.
In my prisons class, we discussed women who suffered from sexual and domestic abuse as adolescents and how they often ended up incarcerated. I read these words, and then I took a picture. And I’ll never forget how I felt:
“However, in response to severe stress, and its associated high levels of arousal, severe cognitive disorganization can occur. During dissociative episodes, persons may set aside tortured emotions or feelings and occupy a kind of fugue state where the body may allow consciousness to access a different experience—a different space in time. In this way, the body protects itself from feeling overwhelmed by feelings of stress. This ability to get away from reality is often helpful. However, as a response to chronic severe stress, dissociation can become a way of life, serving to keep women out of full consciousness.”
M. Katherine Maeve (2000) SPEAKING UNAVOIDABLE TRUTHS: UNDERSTANDING EARLY CHILDHOOD SEXUAL AND PHYSICAL VIOLENCE AMONG WOMEN IN PRISON, Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 21:5, 478, DOI: 10.1080/01612840050044249I felt like I wasn’t alone. I’d known that this happened to other people. Heck, that’s how I figured out what this was the first time it happened, I Googled it. But I never knew exactly what it was, and I didn’t realize it’s a lot more common than I thought. Those women who had experienced trauma from abuse often ended up in these states, leading them to be more likely incarcerated.
I knew my dissociative episodes were linked to stress. But until this summer, it hadn’t occurred to me that this came from trauma. It wasn’t until my psychiatrist pointed this out that everything really clicked for me. And I think that made a huge difference in my episode recently. I feel like I’ve been looking for answers for a while, and I finally feel like I have some. That doesn’t cure the problem, but it certainly makes it easier to deal with.
This still doesn’t change my opinion. I still think life is really hard, for everyone. Everyone goes through crap and has a story. And I think in those really rough times, death may not be the scariest thing, but the idea of having to go through something so difficult or terrible or heartbreaking, the thought of that is scarier. I’ve often wondered in my low times, “How the heck am I going to make it out of this?” I can’t possibly be the only one who’s thought this.
I found this quote online:
“People living deeply have no fear of death.”
Anais NinThis reminds me of my sister. She lives life so happily and fully that dying doesn’t scare her. That’s an amazing kind of happiness to achieve.
It’s kind of crazy how much my perspective has shifted since taking this prisons class. I think for someone serving a life sentence, or one where they’re not getting out anytime soon, being incarcerated is a whole lot worse than dying. Prisons and jails are not great places to be.
Can you imagine being locked up with the same scarce amenities and same food and same people? Solitary confinement rates have increased too over the past years. Can you imagine being locked up alone for 23 hours with no one to talk to and nothing to do, for days on end? And if you have any form of mental illness, you’re way more likely to end up locked up than in a psychiatric institution. Can you imagine that? Seems a whole lot worse than dying.
But I think for someone who is released from prison/jail, that freedom can also be worse than death. If you’re locked up for years, you may not have family left in town, no support system, no housing, no money, no job. No one will hire you because you have a criminal record. You can’t get food or even some shelter because you don’t have money because you can’t get hired. You got treated for mental illness in prison because prisons and jails are required to treat inmates by law, but you don’t have access to psychiatric services anymore and can’t pay for medication, so your symptoms are getting worse. The election next year is the last thing on your mind while everyone else is buzzing about it, because you’re not even sure if you can vote. You’re either going to get really lucky and get a job and rebuild your life, or you’re going to get really unlucky and end up in jail again because you turned to self-medication since you couldn’t get your hands on real medication. This is too hard. Dying might just be easier.
I guess that’s the really powerful difference. My sister is so happy that dying doesn’t scare her. She’s always made friends really easily, or she’s made it her mission to make sure every one of her colleagues likes her. Barring a lazy eye, she’s never had any medical issues. And she’s always been able to find things that make her happy and roll with them. She’s never overanalyzed or stressed or worried or been anxious for days on end. To her, dying is just an end to a really fulfilling and happy life.
But for me, dying doesn’t scare me because it’s just an end to a hard life. I’ve always had trouble finding real friends who care about me and make me happy. I’ve had so many medical issues and mental health problems that it has finally taken a toll on me. And I’ve always been anxious or worried and had to spend actual energy to find things that made me happy. To me, dying is just an end to suffering. I hope someday, I feel like death isn’t the worst thing in the world because I have found a happiness so great and fulfilling.
Words for Thought 