Natalie Weber, a girl I went to high school with, passed away Friday. I didn't know her very well but her family and mine knew each other pretty well. Her mother was once of my high school teachers and her brother accompanied me to Homecoming my sophomore year of high school.
Natalie was a victim of Depression, which eventually lead her to committing suicide. It hurts me so much just to think about the reason for someone completing that act. To think that no one loves you that much. Or that not enough people care. The calling hours where supposed to be from 3-7 but my sister left at 10:15 and there was another half hour behind her. There was so much love and support there for her that she never knew. I was talking with her Father and it broke my heart when he said, 'I wish she could see this. All this support that was here for her.' Then he started to tear up and it broke my heart into a million pieces. I NEVER wanted another parent to feel like that EVER again and I never wanted anyone to feel like Natalie did. That there wasn't anything else they could do, that no one cared enough to listen to her. It makes me want to go into psychology and help people like Natalie so much that it's overwhelming.
Could I help people like Natalie? Could I have enough patience and control to be able to help someone without making them worse? Would I be able to handle it if I couldn't help one or two of them? Am I willing to take that risk?
I just saw a quote that says, 'Everyone dies but not everyone lives.' At first, it makes sense when people say that, but if you think about it, honestly, can you say that's true? That's implying that people sit around and want to make their lives miserable - they do absolutely nothing for themselves and don't care to improve their life. Just because people aren't partying it up and living the way others think they should doesn't mean they aren't living their life the best they know how. It's self preservation to make oneself happy - is it not? Even people who are depressed and sitting in their houses all day. They are living to the extent that they know how. They haven't given up and doing only what they know how. They are living just as much as someone partying it up because that's all they can handle. Having a mental illness, like Depression, to me, is something that people have to learn to live with. They live their life the best they know how and can. It may not look like fun to you, and it probably isn't much to them either, but if that's all they can handle, then is it nice to say they aren't living? At that point in time it's the best they can give. I'm not saying they shouldn't get help, because they should, but saying they aren't living life to it's fullest, in their situation, it's not true.
My sister commented on drinking a beer for Natalie because she thought Natalie would want her life celebrated and not have her death be dwelled on. If that was true though, would she have killed herself? If she wanted her life to be celebrated, would she have ended it?
These have just been things running through my mind lately. Depression is a deep and complicated thing that isn't fully understood. I know I'll never understand it in it's entirty but it leads a lot of questions to the way people live their lives and why they do the things they do, which always fascinates me.
RIP Natalie Weber - you are missed by many.
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