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Wednesday, September 28, 2005

There’s a person in America who is afraid all the time. She wasn’t in a hurricane and nobody committed a crime against her so there won’t be anyone coming to her rescue. She doesn’t know anyone because she is afraid to leave her house. She wakes up 4 times a night and never gets a decent nights sleep. When the clock says 5 am, she gets out of bed and waits for someone to help her but no one ever comes. She paces back and forth all day long, wringing her hands. She is paralyzed by fear and embarrassed to be this way. She doesn’t want to burden her adult children and her parents are gone. There really isn’t anyone else to help her. You won’t hear about her on the news because her life isn’t something that a reporter would be interested in. There must be others like her but these people can’t get together for fear of leaving their homes.

She feels dreadfully worthless and lately she has been considering just ending the misery by ending her life. She knows it’s a coward's way out, but she really believes that no one would even miss her. That’s truly a shame because she has so much to offer and would help anyone who asked her for help.

In this country, we come to the rescue when major disasters hit large numbers of people but when there is just one sad person sitting all alone in a house, there isn’t a soul who even knows about them, much less cares to come to their rescue. We drive down streets totally unaware of the sadness in the homes that we pass.

We can’t see the woman in the house...sitting alone crying softly to herself, so we drive on our way, singing to the radio or chatting with our friends. Surely we would help if we knew about this woman, but who is there to tell her story?

When it is so painful to be awake and to know that it will be just as painful tomorrow, you start to think about putting an end to the pain. Suicide is certainly a permanent solution to a temporary problem but how long does one have to wait for that solution to come? When you are terrified to leave your house, how do you even try to solve your problems?

A long time ago, she was a little girl with dreams and hopes for her life but something happened along the way that ruined all of those dreams. She has her memories, memories of her prom, her wedding, giving birth to her children, all of the wonderful things that added to her hopes and dreams. But now, there doesn’t seem to be anything else to look forward to. Her mind is full of fear, fear of being homeless, being alone and just plain living with the fears that plague her everyday.

What does one do when they are filled with fear? Dr. Phil doesn’t make house calls, no doctor does. When someone is terrified to leave the house, how does help arrive? Who do you call to ask for help? Anyone who could help wouldn’t come to her home and she can’t leave it.

After living with the pain for long enough, there comes a time to end it the only way that you can think of. If one pill will help a little bit, then surely the entire bottle will help a lot. People who have a good life will only be judgmental and tell her that she should just get over it and do what has to be done. They don’t understand at all what it feels like to live in fear every single day of your life. What do you do to help a person like that? I have no answers.

When every day is filled with fear and hopelessness, death seems to be a pretty good alternative. As Socrates said, death is either eternal life with the Gods or a very, very long nap. So, how could that possibly be worse than waking up terrified every single day?

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