Planet Waves | April 28, 2005   Dear Readers:   In recent weeks we have had two questions involving suicide. Even given the hundreds of questions we get, these are quite rare. Perhaps it's a coincidence. Perhaps it has to do with the weather in the Northern Hemisphere warming up after a long, hard winter. April, as T. S. Eliot said, is the cruelest month, and this is because if we're hurting emotionally we can no longer hide under the gray cloak of winter that makes feeling down seem so normal.   Last summer, I received another suicide question, and here is the response I prepared with the assistance of two therapists I trust deeply, Melanie Reinhart in the UK and Joseph Trusso in New York. (Please scroll down and see letter from 'Giving Up'.) http://cainer.com/ericfrancis/sept17.html More recently, one person writes:   "I'm a Gemini born in Spain. Since Saturn entered my 1st, and now, my 2nd houses I've lost my job, my house and my self-esteem. I'm ready to kill myself cause I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Also my chart says that my rising sign is in Cancer. Am I going to experience everything again for my Cancer rising? My chart also says that I have Saturn in my 7th house. Am I ever going to have a human next to me?" Another person writes:   "I have never really been depressed in life -- I have had setbacks, disappointments, heartbreaks, etc.  But this is the worst. I met a man last year (the day before my birthday and we knew that we were each other's soul-mates). Given that our families don't encourage long-term dating, and that we liked each other very much, we were engaged in two months. He recently went away for a family occasion, and came back wanting to break off the engagement. This was two months ago. I have thought about it a thousand times, and feel that he is making a mistake. Now, I am at a stage that I am willing to give up my life, since I have no life without him." And I would add this one, purely based on the duration and level of struggle, which suggests a person feeling like he or she is not quite alive:   "I am desperate for some progress in my life -- some kind of breakthrough as I feel on some level I have been wading through treacle (or some barren landscape) for many years, since the eclipse of Autumn '87. I would really appreciate some insight." Most of us can relate, I am sure, if not now, then at different times in our lives; most of us, using a bit of maturity and experience, can also see that there is much more to the picture. I don't know if it's possible to reach someone in such a depth of despair. It's possible to acknowledge them; to be present; and to assist them when they seek a means of getting their lives together, or show the true willingness to do so. And when someone threatens or mentions suicide, it is important to listen and to respond earnestly. In such situations, the response from the outside can be the reminder that the person is truly alive inside. So if you're reading, please know that I hear your struggle and I can feel your pain. And I'm putting your letters out there so that others in your situation don't feel so alone.   What two of these inquiries have in common is the search for a matrimonial or long-term partner, which is often associated with much misery and crisis of self-esteem. It is a cruel world that forces us to think that having a relationship is the only thing that leads to truly feeling whole. I know, having been and lived many places, that there are communities that only grant you your citizenship when you're 'coupled'. Some treat ordinary, friendly single people like a stalker is loose. Many families play a similar game. If, perchance, anyone who does play this game with other people is reading, please stop it. You're just making others unhappy. It's also cruel because it puts us under a lot of pressure, and it's cruel because generally it is not true. Relationships don't make us happy. They are the result of contentment. When we enter into a relationship, we bring who we are. If we are not happy with ourselves, we bring that unhappy self into that relationship and there we find it again. At the same time, it seems like all the rules of society often block us from getting the real affection, the touch and the companionship that we need. A lot among us are more than willing to take and not to give. The energy of opening, of sharing, of allowing, of embracing, of authenticity, is in most places kept to a minimum, rationed out or hidden, and it turns out that very often the people who need simple love and affection are the ones who have the least of it available.   It's a sad state of affairs that the world knows so little about contentment. We could look right at our complicated, materialistic society and see why. We could look at how acts of violence are made public and acts of love are kept strictly private. We could look at all the forces of our socialization that seem to compel us to hide who we are from the people around us. We could blame a lot of things and most would be accurate enough.   Unless we get very lucky and open up into the presence of people who really do care, and are willing to help us, the actual solution starts with us personally deciding to make our own lives better. Yes, you may get the idea from something you read or hear, you may find inspiration from one who has done it, and your friends may be supportive. These are aspects of relationship. The real move, the true shift, is inner. It involves something in your relationship to your self, and your relationship to existence.   We can create a no-win situation for ourselves any time we define happiness as having or being one particular thing; and as coming from something or someone outside ourselves. This is by far the hardest thing to hear when we're in this particular mode of searching, but the discussion cannot end there. The real questions, issues and circumstances surrounding deep dissatisfaction, or even constant mild dissatisfaction, go much deeper.   However -- since most people seek relentlessly for everything in the outer world, and most subscribe to the belief that relationship = happiness, there are relatively few places to have the discussion. There are relatively few places for us to learn honest introspection, mental skills, ways to manage our feelings, spaces to heal our deep wounds, and actual methods for understanding our sexuality. There are few people who can actually help us get past the crisis we face dealing with the sheer oppression of our parents and our families. Yet they do exist.   And I suggest that if we really need them, we find them, and use them. They may be professionals, they may be friends, they may be teachers, they may be someone we meet on the street. Some develop methods of healing; some write about them; others are in practice. Many are people who have devoted their lives to spiritual goals and abating suffering and do not even take money. Some are just people who are doing a little better at figuring out how to live well on the planet. They are there, if you look for them.   The real crisis of this world is not that solutions to our problems don't exist. The crisis is that solutions are rarely sought and rarely applied to the problems they could solve.   We might ask: can we define our problems and situations in a way that can be solved? And then, having done so, can we gradually find a way out of the maze? Can we, as Robert Hunter wrote, "Inch our way through dead dreams to another land"? I know we can. I have seen many, many people bravely do so, and I know the feeling myself.   If you are unhappy, struggling, depressed, in pain or dissatisfied, I suggest you reach out to people. And not the people who seem to be involved with your plight: people who are not judgmental about you; those who can offer you their honest companionship and ask little of you personally; those who can be present in a way that is not demanding. You may have the idea that you can get hurt if you do this. And it is true. You can get hurt. But that's always the case, and it cannot be an excuse if you need to make contact with people.   Is there really an alternative to suffering in silence, besides taking the risk and reaching out? At a certain point, we either need to learn to trust, or live with the struggle of constant mistrust. We need to learn to relate, or not have relationships. We need to learn to love, or live loveless lives. We need to learn to feel the love and receive what is around us, or else deny ourselves what is in the greatest abundance of all. It's not so hard, but it must be the most important thing, or it's nothing at all. -- Eric Francis Paris, France