so I've arrived, with gold in my eyes

I'm having sick and cruel and selfish thoughts

today at work I met an older bipolar patient who was so clearly in the throes of a manic episode, complicated by what's essentially an early onset dementia

and it was sad, so so sad to see. to hear him talk about how his wife can't stand him and how horrible they are toward each other. angry and violent. and it was genuinely scary. he was really scary.

since then I haven't been able to stop thinking about my life and my love and what things could have been like. but instead of thinking like I usually do, about the regret of not doing things differently and not being better and not saving g from himself, thinking about what would have happened if I had. what if we did stay together, and I never let him get sick like he did?

but then what if all we did was prolong the inevitable? I know that I would never actually be able to control the things a manic depressive bipolar person does especially if he refused to get any sort of help, or be medicated in any way other than with whatever vicodin or other pills he could get his hands on. that would take a toll on him. it did while he was still here. I'd never thought it before but what if things got very bad as the years went by, for us, for him...? even if I got to save him

I think he killed himself. I'll never know for sure.

but if I think selfishly like this I can pray that, because of that, he actually saved himself years - decades - of slowly slipping deeper into a different reality. one where his body and brain and.. soul would have had to undergo even more suffering than I'm sure he had in the mere 28 years of life he had here. it could have saved US that suffering.