Someone I loved very much has died of cancer a few days ago. Another person I love has just completed an extremely painful cancer treatment and is getting better. Some time ago I felt incredibly lucky -- and happy -- to have survived a nearly fatal accident, but now I think it might have been better to have died. Like the LW, I feel like life is not worth living, and I wouldn't mind dying. And yet:

LW, I have no opinion or judgement about what you should do. Just this: you might enjoy reading the letters of Alice James, sister of William and Henry, who wanted to die a long time before she was diagnosed with breast cancer at about 40. Of course this was before the advent of chemo-therapy and "you can beat cancer!" peer-pressure; AJ didn't have to make the choices you are facing so I doubt her letters would help you solve your dilemma, but reading them might make your experience... more intellectual? Cold comfort at best, but better than none.

OK, I'll tell you, but only because you asked. I have 2 novels in print (which may be a little hard to find, but you can try Amazon.com or the publishers, both Canadian). My first novel is titled BETTER THAN LIFE (NeWest Press, 2003). The second, MALLORY (Turnstone Press, 2005). I had high hopes for the second one, but my health crashed hard, and I'm still picking up the pieces. I have novels swirling around in my head, a few manuscripts lurking in the file drawer, but it somehow feels like too soon. If anything actually happened, which it did before, I'd need to be as well as possible to avoid the disaster of 2 years ago. I don't think I could survive another one of those.

I will say, however, that I am gratified and touched by people's comments about my letter. Some days I'm just bloody angry about what happened to me - now they're calling me bipolar, and I'm supposed to be happy about it? The trouble is, there is no black ribbon for mental illness, no pom-poms or marches for schizophrenia or bipolar. And there never will be. That fear and loathing is probably going to last forever. Mental illness just isn't sexy enough, and the problem is, most people don't "triumph over it", the way the culture insists we do with every illness.

And have you ever noticed, when someone dies of cancer, the media say, "She lost her battle with cancer. . . " Why does it have to be a "battle" in the first place? Does illness scare us so much that we have to use warlike, militaristic images to make it palatable? As far as mental illness is concerned, we don't "conquer" it, we learn to live with it, day by precarious day. It's a constant companion, me and my shadow. Can I make friends with it, or at least learn a little tolerance for an imbalance I can't help? I'll get back to you on that.

Thank you for your reply. I know too well that one does not conquer mental illness. My grandmother battled it for years (schizophrenia), so when I hear literary types try to romanticize that or bi polar disorder as a form of artistic temperment, well it drives me around the bend. It's a shitty hand to be dealt, fucking shitty. If you're lucky you get to live with it, if you're unlucky, like my grandmother, you are left diminished and sentenced to a lifetime of sitting on the sofa. I'll order your book.

I am a survivor: breast cancer, surgery, chemo. Twelve years ago. Treatment is brutal. Finding the will to live is essential.

Cary's right ... one serious, unacknowledged side effect of treatment for cancer can be deep, dark, suicidal ideation and it may be drug induced.

In my case, I believe that black hole was deeper and blacker than it needed to be, an unfortunate result of an anti-depressant mixing it up with all the other drugs I was taking during treatment.

After the third round of chemo I was contemplating suicide-by-chemo. I was in a deep, black hole and couldn't get out, seriously considering letting the chemo take me down for good.

Fortunately, a little part of me wanted to live. I made a choice and I found help.

Today I see that moment as a turning point in my life.

Please don't give up.

Dear LW:

I was diagnosed with breast cancer while already battling depression, too. My mother had already been fighting metastatic breast cancer for years, so, like you, I didn't have a choice about what to do. So I fought, and fought hard.

I also tried to kill myself twice in the ensuing years, and, unless the afterlife includes Salon, I'm still here and glad of it.

There is so much joy to be had in life. Mostly in little things, mind you, like a spectacular sunset, how good it feels on those rare occasions that you've laughed so much that your jaw and abdomen ache, the first crisp fall day after a blistering summer, doing your best to be kind to others no matter how crappy they are to you...

My mother is actively dying of breast cancer as I type this. I hate it, but it's ok. If she chooses to swallow a whole bottle of liquid morphine, that's cool. She's done what she set out to do, and done it with joy and reverence. My heart is breaking, but I'm trying to approach her death with the awe and reverence that I now attach to everyday life.

I wish I could hold your hand, take a walk with you, and talk about what you're going through. And show you the amazing things about life along the way.

I'm feeling better. I took some of your advice and spoke with my doctor, and maybe for the first time I am getting my depression treated appropriately. I feel physically awful, but maybe I'm going to be okay.

Thanks.