I have had migraine headaches for about ten years now. I have tried everything, natural unnatural, even a bit of supernatural. I've had long spells with no headaches.
Just coming out of one that lasted almost 24 hours... very, very bad. I couldn't keep a drop of water down, so could not retain the medication. Nausea was so violent it terrified me and my husband. Finally we got nasal inhalants which also made me sick. At one point during this incredibly painful day, it occured to me that if someone were to hand me a weapon, I would use it. On myself.
I know people say that suicide is a selfish act, but I also understand how the pain inside one person can be so excruciating that one might consider it easier not to go on. This is one of the many reasons I don't think people in general need to have guns.
I heard Hulk Hogan talking on a TV show about how, when his wife left him for a 19 year old (think of it!), and his son had a terrible accident (which paralyzed the passenger in his car) he wanted to commit suicide. He sat there for like 2 or 3 days playing with his gun. Finally, he says that Laila Ali called him. She is Muhammed Ali's daughter, with whom he was doing a TV show at the time. She was so worried and concerned for him that he came back to life. She saved him from needless self destruction.
I read this poem on the Writer's Almanac page for today:
She Dreamed of Cows
by Norah Pollard
I knew a woman who washed her hair and bathed
her body and put on the nightgown she'd worn
as a bride and lay down with a .38 in her right hand.
Before she did the thing, she went over her life.
She started at the beginning and recalled everything—
all the shame, sorrow, regret and loss.
This took her a long time into the night
and a long time crying out in rage and grief and disbelief—
until sleep captured her and bore her down.
She dreamed of a green pasture and a green oak tree.
She dreamed of cows. She dreamed she stood
under the tree and the brown and white cows
came slowly up from the pond and stood near her.
Some butted her gently and they licked her bare arms
with their great coarse drooling tongues. Their eyes, wet as
shining water, regarded her. They came closer and began to
press their warm flanks against her, and as they pressed
an almost unendurable joy came over her and
lifted her like a warm wind and she could fly.
She flew over the tree and she flew over the field and
she flew with the cows.
When the woman woke, she rose and went to the mirror.
She looked a long time at her living self.
Then she went down to the kitchen which the sun had made all
yellow, and she made tea. She drank it at the table, slowly,
all the while touching her arms where the cows had licked.
"She Dreamed of Cows" by Norah Pollard, from Death & Rapture in the Animal Kingdom. © Antrim House, 2009. Reprinted with permission.
