By Ox Drover
A thought struck me the other day as I was musing ”¦ many people today have at least thought about how they want things to proceed when they come toward the end of their lives. Do they want to be “kept on life support” with feeding tubes and ventilators and lying unconscious in an intensive care nursing unit?
Is that kind of “life” really anything but prolonging drying? Or, is it possible that if you stayed there with mechanical life support, that you might actually wake up and heal, and go on and enjoy more time in a healthy life? Many of us have made decisions which we have placed into “Living Wills” and have appointed someone to be our decision maker if we can’t make our own decision at the time. (BTW if you don’t have a living will which is legally valid, your nearest relative or your spouse will be automatically appointed.)
When the time came to make the decision about providing life support for my husband with the terrible burns he had, between the medical knowledge I had about his chances of survival (zero) and his wishes, there was no decision to make, nothing could have helped him live longer, only prolong the unavoidable.
In my career as a registered nurse practitioner I have watched families vacillate over whether to put their loved one on mechanical life support, to take them off, or put in a feeding tube or to take one out. I have seen them cry and fight and have seen childhood jealousies come to the front to make decisions which should have been made by a cooler head.
Life support and psychopaths
As I was musing about these physical end of life life-supports, I thought about the fact that sometimes in my relationships I’ve done the same thing. I’ve kept a relationship that was essentially “brain dead and suffering” on life support, loath to let it die a natural and peaceful death by just not sustaining it artificially any more. Hoping against hope that it might improve if I just gave it enough time and energy. Later realizing that I had expended a tremendous amount of energy sustaining this relationship which only became sicker and sicker, sucked away resources I could have used for other more positive things.
Looking back, hindsight is always 20/20, I can see that I kept my relationship with my psychopathic son on life-support from the time he was 17, and when I went to the local jail to get him, as he walked up to me and my husband he said, “What the f&%k took you so long?” At that time, I said to the jailer, “Sir, there’s a problem, this isn’t my son, because my son wouldn’t talk to me like that, take this young man back upstairs.” Right then I had seen the relationship was dead, there was no mutuality about it, there was no respect for me, or for my position as his mother.
But I couldn’t conceive that my relationship with my son couldn’t be somehow miraculously saved by some magical miracle so that “everything would be all right.”
So because I couldn’t stand the thought or the pain of pulling the rest of the life support for the relationship, I put it back on life support and kept it there for decades after that. Even when it took turns for the worse and he wound up not just in juvy jail, but it big-boy’s prison for a felony robbery, then back again for murder.
I kept on refusing to let myself disconnect from the corpse of our relationship, refused to let it die a natural death , and feel the grief. In my prolonged denial of how seriously flawed our relationship was, I tortured myself with hope. Hope that was unfounded on reality, malignant hope that my son might survive inside this corpse of a soul.
Had to pull the plug
Eventually there came a time when I realized that the relationship was not repairable. I could not, medicine could not, nothing could fix the relationship, and in addition the relationship on life support was poisoning everything about itself—including me. It was requiring all the energy I had to keep it as the living dead. It was a source of contagion that used my energy, infected other relationships around it and me. I had to pull the plug and let it go, in order to survive.
I actually had a memorial service for the boy that was, the little boy I had grown to love so much, oh gosh was he cute, but he’s no longer living, and my relationship with him is only in my memory. Just as my late husband and I are only in my memory. Yet, by letting both of them go, and doing the appropriate and painful grieving, I have released those good memories to be enjoyed and loved the rest of my life.
Nothing should outlast its time. When something is dead or broken and can’t be fixed, it is time for us to let it go. Cherish the memories if we can, but let the rest of it go.
Dear Purewater,
I can’t answer your problem about if a child could be determined to be a genetic psychopath (say like a Downs syndrome baby) before birth. Would I abort such a fetus? Smother it at birth? I’m not sure what good it would do if such a test was there unless there was a medication or treatment that could help it. I have known people who aborted a child that would have been a downs syndrome child, and others that were deformed in one way or another, and that is one of those things I can see from both sides and I can’t say yea nor nay because I’ve known some Downs children who were absolutely wonderful and enjoyed life.
I guess it is kind of like the “death penalty” I used to be very much for the death penalty, but actually if our justice system was less flawed I might be again, but the thought that even 1 out of 10,000 people executed MIGHT be innocent—I can’t be for the death penalty any more.
As far as the psychopaths, the violent and criminal ones should be locked upfor life in special “Path” prisons, and keep them away from the young NOT-P criminals. That ought to save a lot of money—
If mankind followed the commands and suggestions in the Bible about how to treat others earth would become a paradise! Unfortunately, there are more people I think who don’t follow even the 10 commandments than do.
But nothing has changed, there have always been psychopaths, and the Bible describes them in many places. It shows many many examples of hypocrits and evil people, and even peoople who do evil by doing nothing…like the priest that walked by the hurt man on the road, where the “Good Samaritain” stopped and gave the man aid and compassion, while the others who pretended to be “godly” and “holy” (outwardly) didn’t have the inner compassion to help a wounded man.
purewaters – thank you for your clear post. i haven’t thought long and hard about the question you pose. we are so hard wired to protect babies once they are born – but maybe your question is about in utero?
to begin the thought process – there is a vast difference between intellectual and physical disability and disorderedness. We KNOW the disordered will harm others. if we could predict the extent of the disorder via genetics….it would have to be ironclad for me…then? well, i am not sure. but i think yes. in Buddhism, the concept of compassion encompasses the killing of the one to protect many. so, i think yes. but process and checks and counter checks are necessary for process.
we need to start cataloging the DNA of spaths in jail. create a DB. i know this idea, and my view won’t be popular. that’s okay. what i went through with the spath wasn’t popular with me either; and nor is it with the families of the women who were murdered by robert picton or paul bernardo, or jeffry daumer…..
Oxy, in regards to the Good Samaritan, did anyone see What Would You Do? on ABC last night. I love that show. The last clip was of 2 different people falling down on the street to see if anyone would stop and help them. A number of people stopped to check on or try to help the well dressed attractive lady, but not a one stopped for the “homeless” man with a can of beer in his hand. Finally, a homeless woman stopped and when not getting a response from him, leaned up against the building and asked passersby to call 911. No one would. She even went so far as to remove the can from his hand, throw it away, and still no one helped. You could see the helplessness and hopelessness she felt on her face. Finally, one lady did stop and make a call. It was truly one of the saddest things I have ever watched in respect to human behavior.
Oxy, good post about the righteous and unrighteous in this world.
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Throughout Scripture, one very loud and main theme of the Word of God is this:
Those who are righteous (right with God) will receive mercy, blessings and rewards from God (e.g. Psalm 37:18-20).
Those who are wicked, God will judge. As Psalm 11:5-6 says,
The Lord tests the righteous (that’s us on LF), but the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates. Upon the wicked He will rain coals; fire and brimstone and a burning wind shall be the portion of their cup.
I just thought I’d throw that in.
purewaters3,
Your post was good, thought provoking. Yes, toxic relationships don’t work – you’ll go down with the ship if you stay on board.
OMG, has anyone seen the newest GEICO insurance commercial?
A mom is driving her children (all seated in the back of the sports van) and a little pig sits in the front passenger side as he WE, WE, WE’s all the way home.
Too funny.
Wini,
I’m sick of being tested (if that’s the case) by the man upstairs, not having the stamina to take anymore pain. As far as being righteous, I hardly see myself that way – not being close to God, instead, keeping Him at a distance due to all the DRAMA that He’s allowed me to endure, questioning everything.
Dear Shanna,
Yes, I saw an episode or two of it, the one where the guy was sitting eating with a girl and he began to verbally abuse her (she had visible bruises) some people helped her some not.
The one where the “mother” left her small children on the sidewalk and drove off was pretty good.
I loved the one where they got people to lie and endorse a product that they hadn’t used (and say they did) and even when they thought it caused cancer they still did it. One man when confronted said “well that’s the buyer’s problem” (wonder if he was a psychopath?) LOL
Yea, Good show! But you know it does show though that not everyone will “get involved” or even call 911…I did like the episode of it where the kid was left alone in the park and the perp approached her and some of the parents there with their kids ran him off and protected the little gir. I think though that they said that less than half did, only like 12 protected her I think. Maybe it will make some people MORE AWARE of what they should do in some of those situations.
Enough of that kind of situation has gone on that I really don’t have a lot of confidence in people stepping into a situation to “help” enough to depend on them unless absolutely necessary.
The episode (I didn’t see it) of the homeless man on the street needing help doesn’t surprise me in the least that no one would even call 911 for him. It breaks my heart, but doesn’t surprise me.
I do think though that sometimes, especially in areas where there are homeless people frequently seen, they tend to become invisible to those passing by—or are seen as a danger, which most of the time they aren’t.
When I would go to Dallas to visit my friend and we would go to the Dallas library we would usually get there early so we could spend the day doing the research we came there to do and many homeless would be lined up outside the doors where they would spend the day as well. For a while the library had run them off (many of them have hygiene problems) but someone had sued and made the library let them in as it would any other well behaved citizen…however, they won’t let them obviously sleep there with their heads on the tables even now.
Wini, was the little piggie in a safety seat? Was he big enough to sit in the front seat? If not, call the ASPCA LOL hee hee hee all the way home!
BlueJay, sorry, but you, like the rest of us on this site are LOVED and cherished by our Creator. I’ll tell you more latter. I’m about to walk out the door to help friends of mine.
Just know this. He loves you, wants the best for you … and any evil that the DEVIL (yes, it’s the devil playing us with all this evil) does to us … we just endure to the end. Why? Because we will have eternal life everlasting and the evil ones go into the eternal flames for ever more. For ever more? Yes, for ever more.
I’ll tell you the spiritual aspects of all of this at a latter writing … just remind me the next time you know we are on line together.
Just know you survived evil without surrendering to that evil and becoming evil yourself. For that is what the Devil wants us to do. Throw up our hands up in the air. Give up. Loose faith in God. Join his ranks in doing evil. So we can do what? So that we can burn along with him.
That is why we pray for those that do us wrong. Why? Because we don’t want any of God’s children because they didn’t have courage enough to fight the devil on their own or were to arrogant in this life to think there is an afterlife (believe Satans lies that this is just a fairy tale or the upper echelon fables to control the masses, etc. etc.) … to fry in the eternal fires … with Lucifer! Some of our Spaths are evil to the core. Always were and always will be. However, some evil folks are blinded by sins … and are clueless to what they do. Either way … God knows what to do with any of the above.
That’s why Jesus said to His father in Heaven (GOD) … forgive them Lord, for they know not what they do.
Shana31, I actually experienced a real-life episode of “What Would You Do?” and the results were shocking, to me.
We were on our way back from the camping in the Catskills, and stopped at one of the Turnpike Service Centers – you know, gas, mooga-fast-food, tourist stuff, and bathroom facilities.
As we were nearing the doors, there was an elderly woman laying out at the entrance, and people were actually side-stepping her without a pause. I stooped down and asked her if she needed help. She replied that she had taken a fall and was in considerable pain. My husband went inside to call for an ambulance, and I sat down on the pavement, put her head in my lap, and held her hand until the paramedics arrived. She was a beautiful senior in her ’80’s, an incredibly delightful personality, and her name was, “Elanore.” She asked for my name and address before she was taken by the paramedics. I gave her my information, and said a healing prayer before they loaded her into the ambulance. During that 45 minutes, only 2 people out of over a hundred stopped to see if they could help.
I heard from Elanore a few weeks later. She said that she had been overmedicated by her doctor, had suffered some severe bruising, and that she was going to be alright. She thanked me over, and over, for helping her, and I had to write back to her that I appreciated her thanks, but that I couldn’t just walk past someone who was obviously injured and in need of help.
No, I don’t want accolades or recognition for doing the “right thing,” ever. To walk away with the experience of having met a beautiful soul is reward enough.