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Thursday, March 8, 2007 12:00 AM

I've got breast cancer and I don't want to live

I wanted to die even before I got sick. But my family will kill me if I just give up hope!

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  • Wednesday, March 7, 2007 07:08 PM

    Well, this is different...

    This should bring out a whole different type of crowd than the usual relationship-based letters. That's a good thing.

    To the Letter Writer, I'd say this: Please live. Why? Because at some point, as you continue to live, something will happen that will make you say, "I am glad I am around for this."

    I'm a guy who has been suicidal at many different times in my life. I suffered from severe clinical depression. There have been a few suicides in my family, too. One of them was related to a cancer situation -- somebody who could have gone through with treatments, but decided to make it easier. Another suicide among my friends was somebody with severe pain issues.

    I can't fault either of them for taking their lives. But I wish they hadn't. I wish they were around to talk to. I wish they had given some warning they were going to kill themselves, because I would have loved to have had the chance to go visit them and talk to them. I hadn't seen them in a couple of years and definitely consider it a major loss that I didn't.

    There are plenty of reasons to live. Maybe you're blocking out or forgetting many of them. Maybe they aren't as lucid to you -- you're viewing them through a haze of depression and sadness and futility. But they are there. Give them a chance to become clearer to you.

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