The only thing that has kept me from attempting suicide several times is my fear of botching the job and ending up a 120-pound vegetable my family would then be burdened with caring for. I've done the research, trying to find that one fool-proof, not-too-painful-or-scary way of killing oneself, and it doesn't exist. Every method is easy to botch, and the more seemingly fool-proof the method of death, the more likely it is to deliver you into vegetabledom.

I have learned to just endure the shittiness, and every once in a while, I'm glad I endure.

I've been so depressed and lonely and frustrated that I wanted to go to bed and not wake up. I know that awful feeling, but you know what? That is mental illness. It's depression. Or it is some other physical ailment. It is usually treatable with therapy, diet, exercise, and medication. And it generally doesn't last for forver. Though I had it bad for six years and thought it would never end.

I cannot imagine what would have happened if I had gotten cancer in my darkest, most lost moments. I probably would not even have gotten the surgery. So I think I kind of understand the LW. But I got help and I'm better and I can't imagine having missed this part of my life which is the best part yet. Not that there is any guarantee that the LW would get better, or would experience any happiness if s/he tried to turn things around now. There never is that guarantee.

My mother was convinced she would die when she was diagnosed with intermediate/advanced breast cancer. And seven years later, half a million dollars in treatment costs spent, and considerable pain and anguish endured--she died. And I think she wanted to. And I am still angry about that. So I don't think I can say anything to the LW without projecting.

You've given up and that is fine, but you know it will affect your family. If it were just you on a desert island I could support your freedom to choose. There are people who love you and who value your life more than you do. Do not make a half assed attempt to please them. Be honest about it if you have to give up. But you might want to see a psychiatrist first. You sound like you should have seen one years ago.

What the hell made you give up?

Blah blah blah. I'm rambling. Look, the amazing thing about life is not what happens while we're here. It is that we are here at all. How we experience our lives is up to us even though we probably have little control over what happens to us. I don't understand why you are accepting this crappy experience and not doing anything about it.

Even if you only have 100 days left to live, why not get your head straightened out and maybe experience something before that happens. The LW sounds ready to crawl into her coffin and wait. Get out of there. You're not dead yet!

Thank you so much for treating this question with the respect & honesty it deserves.

And to the Letter Writer:

you just never know.

staying alive might lead you to your desire to stay alive.

you might not be able to see how that's possible, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

I'm so sorry you're lonely and in pain.

Maybe a support group for cancer survivors could help you navigate those feelings.

But please don't give up...I believe that this life is all we get, and like Cary, I think that for all its challenges it is more often than not unbearably beautiful.

I wish for you just one moment of experiencing that, to give you hope & the strength to march on toward the rest of those moments.

In 2002, I was diagnosed with a malignant melanoma of significant depth. I was 28 at the time. The doctors I saw gave me anywhere from between a 50-70% chance of recurrence within several years. At the time, I was flirting with depression -- I'm not sure if I was clinically depressed, but my life was definitely on a downswing. Most significantly, I had just broken up for good with my girlfriend of nearly seven years.

When the news broke, and the magnitude of the problem became clear to me, I had a reaction similar to yours. I gave up. I didn't have to have chemo (as far as the doctors knew, there was no cancer remaining, so no need for chemo), but I pretty much consigned myself to demise within a year or two. I talked openly of ending my life, and told myself that the only reason I didn't was because it would be harder on my family (particularly my mother, seeing as my father had passed away from cancer about 10 years prior).

I think one of the main reasons that I reacted as I did was fear of the uncertain; fear that if I tried to go on with my life, to have hope, and to believe that I might beat this thing, that I'd end up being wrong, and feeling foolish for ever having tried. I equated optimism with self-deceit. This may seem perverse, but in a way, it would have been easier if the diagnosis had been certain demise. Certainly, either way, can be comforting in and of itself.

I don't have any easy answers to your dilemna. There were none for mine. I got therapy, that helped. But in the end, it was mainly a process of putting one foot in front of the other, living every day, revelling in the things that I enjoyed, and trying to allow myself to feel optimism that I might very well be around to enjoy those things for a long time to come, and maybe find greater happiness in other parts of my life. I know that the beginning of this journey will be incredibly difficult for you, but unless you know with certainty that life has nothing to offer you, I would ask you not to close that door yet.