A Side Effect of Dying
Introduction
“Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer. But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
My mother always sort of put me up on a pedestal when I was younger and I guess that kind of came back to bite her in the ass. I was always described in her words or rather thought of through her perception as better but not necessarily better than everyone else. Truth be told maybe I was at some undying part of my pre adolescent career but as I fell into the temptations of a contemporary society I soon found myself
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So it was that I would and to the day that I write this paragraph that me and my mother would struggle on whether or not I could handle life without the handicapping drug Lexapro and how if I wanted to stop being a metaphorically handicapped that I would have to talk to my doctor about it the thing about it was that at one point if I could be happy without this medication before then I could be that way without it after wards.
Maybe I’m being a little melodramatic and maybe this all could have been answered without such drug out and stretched short stories that may have little to no personal meaning to you, but the goal of this experimental writing is that if I can reach one person, one not so innocent soul then I am will be doing the world a justice. Because if chances are if you can reach one person with your writings or words or lyrics to songs then there’s at least a hundred other people waiting for a little bit of the same relief. It is actually within that statement that I dedicate
I learned that I had created my own feeling of inferiority by putting so much focus on someone else’s best quality. I was too busy trying to be better than them when I just needed to be my own best. As long as I focus on being the best for myself I could eliminate so much of the silly mental worries. Sometimes I still do this to this day but perhaps one day I will realize that I no longer need to compare myself to other people. In the meantime, I’m learning to accept that this is something I do and finding ways to use is as a force for positive
My story has a meaningful story behind it. The story is deep for me and even for the artist and probably for many other people. Hearing songs like this can inspire you. It inspired me to be thankful for the people in my life. One day they can be here the next they could be gone. You never know what’s going on in their lives.
Now throughout my life, being the oldest son, and brother I have always felt that I needed to set the example for the rest of my family. I’ve felt that I needed to be the pillar of strength to carry my family, my parents always made me believe that if I was strong then everyone else around me would benefit. Emotionally as a child I felt shut off from the world because I would be struck/scowled for crying, or even if I’d show the slightest bit of what my parent’s called “overconfidence”, which is basically any type of trying to feel good about my accomplishments in any form. But of course I was always expected to perform at the peak and be above everyone. For this type of upbringing I was “isolated” from the rest of my peers, emotionally detached, and felt as if I was an unwanted enigma. As it says in “Mirrorings” on page 729, “I felt that I was the only one walking about in the world who understood what was really important.”
that a person has cancer could very well put them in a depressed state. Another mental hazard
“The Great Dying” was the largest mass extinction ever recorder in the Earth’s history. It was the death of approximately 90% of all living species, such as, the trilobites, sea scorpions, and coral dating back to 254 million years ago (Randall). It is suspected that the eruption of many volcanoes in the Siberian Traps was the fallout of these species because the eruption killed off almost all plant life, leaving nothing for the animals alive. However, researchers have found new evidence to suggest that acid rain was the cause for this destruction (Randall).
So why would the band choose to illustrate such a serious stage of personal development with the nursery rhyme-like style of the song's chorus? Before we get to that, the song's emotional and psychological message must first be examined.
Corr, C. A., Corr, D. M., & Bordere, T. C. (2013). Death & dying, life & living. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
“My Glioblastoma is going to kill me, I’ve discussed with many experts how I would die from it, and it’s a terrible, terrible way to die. Being able to choose to go with dignity is less terrifying. There is not a cell in my body that is suicidal. I want to live, I wish there was a cure for my disease, but there’s not.”
Many people feels as if patients are quick to choose PAS after a terminal diagnosis and that terminally ill is as unreliable range since patients can be terminal and end up surviving (Sanders & Buchanan, 2012). Another argument against PAS points out that the decision can be influenced by others as well as the cost of treatment. Keown (2013) points out that treatment for cancers are often costly and that PAS often is a cheaper option which can influence patient’s decisions. Another issue is depression accompanying the diagnosis of terminal illnesses .Statistics have shown that depression from a terminal diagnosis can alter the mental capacity to make sound decisions and that when depression is treated patients often end up changing their decision ( Westfeld et. al., 2013). Since depression is a common mental disorder it is important ensure that patients are not utilizing PAS as a means to escape possibly treatable psychological pain (Keown,
The reason I write dictates my writing process. As an invisible person living in a world of highly observable beings, I strive to have value. We materialize as actual beings of worth upon being heard, and written words add acceptable credence. When thoughts dissipate, written words remain solid, so to share my victories, my joys, my struggles and my sadness may inspire individuals to complete a dream, or help overcome hardships. Therefore, with insightful stories, I can give back to humanity.
Death is inescapable and shows no partiality or distinction. The author had his first encounter with death when he was four years old. About ten years later he would lose his mother to diabetes. Eighteen years later death struck again. He lost his dad to a battle with cancer over the course of four months. This happened two weeks prior to his wedding. Ten months later the author would deal with the deal of his mother-in-law.
“Depression is an illness that increasingly afflicts people worldwide, interfering with concentration, motivation and many other aspects of human everyday functioning. It is a complex disorder, involving many systems of the body, including the immune system, either as cause or effect. Depression disrupts sleep, and loss of appetite, in some cases it causes weight loss, in other cases it cause weight gain. Because of its complexity, a full understanding of depression has been elusive. Depression involves mood and thoughts as well as
1.) Explain how the answers to the self-inventories in the text concerning facts, attitudes, beliefs and feelings about death reflect our societal understanding or lack of understanding of death. I think that the self- inventory question reflected on both our understanding and lack of understanding about death related topics. Some of the answers to the questions on the inventory I knew without look at the answers, but some of the answers actually surprised me. The question about the death certificate was one of the questions that actually surprised me. I assumed before I did the inventory that every death certificate had a specific cause of death that was given on the certificate. Another answer that
The time I’ve spent over the summer I listened to a lot of music and its was mostly hip-hop and R&B and rap, but I liked pop as well as a genre in music and while I was sulking over my old life in Wallingford school I developed a close attachment to music to deal with the emotional tension that was going on within myself. At the time school at Branford had started and I didn’t know it exactly at that time but this was the point where I was started to write music I was hooked on all the music from over the summer I guess my mind started translating beats and words and I can recall these beats and words because these became my first song ever written while I came to Branford. The periods I spent over the course of the first year at Branford had been socially and emotionally traumatic for me I cannot lie; the people there were nice some friendly and some not and I found myself alone most of the time. At these point in school I started to question myself and my social skills with others and my self-esteem continued to drop.The epiphany I had happened when I felt as though I wasn’t important anymore and when that happened I started to write songs to express these feeling inside of me;I hadn’t said anything about my days at school to anyone besides my mother, but even with her she couldn’t fully understand what I as in my situation was going
One of the scariest emotional experiences a person can ever suffer during their lifetime is to experience a form of depression. Over one in five Americans can expect to get some form of depression in their lifetime. Over one in twenty Americans have a depressive disorder every year. Depression is one of the most common and most serious mental health problems facing people today. However, depression is often not taken seriously because of the large use of antidepressant drugs and the large number of sufferers. Depression is a serious illness and should be taken as so. Contrary to the popular misconceptions about depression today, it is a serious and deadly disorder.1