I first read your blog in the Guardian and I was thinking about you on Christmas Eve & during the past few days, wondering how you are.
I worry anything I write makes me sound a bit weird and I don't want to cause you any upset or annoyance. I guess I just wanted to say people you don't know care about you Paul.
I used to work in the Oncology Department at Southend Hospital. Not in any practical capacity, you will be pleased to hear, but on the admin side of things where there are still stakes but much lower – it's the penny fountains vs the high roller blackjack tables. As matter of fact, I started out there as a volunteer and made myself indispensable and eventually they hired me to cover a long-term absence.
As I was working, I kept one eye on the patients in the waiting area. I brought water to those who were coughing and, when necessary, I sat with them and I helped them to sip it. I spoke to some of them and listened to what they told me and to their conversations with others. All of this observation confirmed to me a general truth that has been expressed many times before, by far brighter souls and with greater eloquence: That no matter the crisis, people will eventually sidle back towards their former baked-in dispositions. Cheerful people will be cheerful people again despite staring down the barrel of oblivion. If you are tenacious and ambitious and goal oriented, as I have good reason to believe that you are, then you will be those things once more, and in the most positive sense. Just give it time.
A dear friend to whom I had written over Christmas – a former co-worker from the Pathology Department – responded to me a few days ago with the news of the death of her mother. She had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and did not live for very long after her diagnosis. Her final days on Earth were filled with acceptance and gratitude for her life and love for her family. I was not surprised by this, but, in hindsight, it makes me wonder whether acceptance of some life-changing or life-ending condition isn't one of those processes that either expands or contracts to fill the time that is available. Hence your long road towards coming to terms, which at present appears to stretch beyond the horizon.
The music journalist, David Cavanagh, committed suicide by train. It was around this time of year. In a note that he left behind, he said that he had delayed his death by a few days out of consideration for those who might be trying to get home for Christmas. None of that is of any consolation to the driver of the train.
You have committed the cardinal Bond villain error of outlining in considerable detail your own plans, which makes me wonder whether you are there yet, standing at the point of no return. I know my way out of this world, after my turncoat immune system has finished setting up the dominoes and I hear the accelerated second-hand tick as they fall as a blur in rapid succession. Nobody else knows the details. I will not say goodbye to anyone, or give anyone reason to suspect that I might be about to put an end to things. I will just go.
I have no doubt that you ponder your death and the ways in which it might be achieved, but this signposting; you sound like someone who isn't ready to give up on life, but who is also flailing around for a good reason to live. I might add that, now I have expressly stated that I don't believe that you are at the point of wheeling yourself in front of a train, you will be morally accountable for the online beat-down and cancellation that I will receive should you choose to do so. Factor that variable into your moral equation that attempts to find a balance in the relative nature of human suffering. You are going to need a bigger whiteboard than the ones that TLR employees use to write down their daily platitudes.
You could instead, follow the approach that was advanced by a great thinker of a bygone age: Bring yourself, figuratively, to the end of the platform where it tails off and where you are apart from the other commuters, and then, from this isolated vantage, assess their common values, and, where you find such things wanting, replace them with different values.
In 2007, after months of being prodded and probed, I found myself sitting on a plastic chair at an arbitrary point along a hospital corridor, waiting for somebody to give me a diagnosis. I was in a great deal of pain. I was hunched over and trying not to black out. As I watched the pairs of legs going back and forth, it occurred to me that there was work to be done in this place. When my condition was stabilised, I signed on as a hospital volunteer. It was the best thing I could have done because, in the wake of my diagnosis, I was very angry at the world and it was consuming me. Putting all of that to one side, along with my fears and the minutiae of my illness, and focusing instead on the lives of others – making their problems my problems – freed me from my solipsism. I began to focus less upon myself, and I think that I may have done some good; I hope that I did. Furthermore, it brought me back into the world from which I had been estranged by my illness.
I suggest to you that there is something to be gained from seeking out work, perhaps a few hours a week, where there is no financial incentive (you do it because you want to do it) that brings you into contact with others who are on the back foot in some way or other. If you can make those people your focus and provide some practical assistance that moves them beyond dependency towards improvement and independence, then you will have less time to devote to the directorial nuances of your death and you will be more integrated into the fabric of society with all of its attendant joys and sorrows. It's not plain sailing and politics invariably dribbles down into whatever you are doing, as it does in all areas of life. However, If you can focus on the work, you cannot lose.
Yes, you still can write, speak in that way. I want you to know your words are not landing in a void. I hear you. I hope that it is a good thing for you to know that someone is listening. Your words matter.
Like many others, I came to this site through the Guardian. So much of what you have to say feels like you have been in my mind.
I am a paraplegic wheelchair user as a result of an accident almost 10 years ago. I had the same craving for death when I was in the hospital and I held on to the notion for a long time after. Death felt like a safety net.
Joy comes when I can get out of myself, when I can do something positive (anything positive) that requires my focus. Putting my pants on requires my focus, but that’s not what I mean. For me, it’s training my dog, playing a game or sport, growing something.
I have slowly moved into advocacy because it helps me to make meaning from my situation. Making meaning is a stage of grief, but it doesn’t mean I’ve romped through all the other stages and left them behind. I’m still bargaining, I’m still crying over the relentless oppression of permanence. Slowly, slowly the joyful moments began to occur more frequently than the desire for an end. I hope for you.
Been following you since reading your Guardian article. You are a really good writer. I recently went through a life changing accident that gave me a facial disfigurement. I've been very suicidal since and have been isolating myself which hasn't helped. Acceptance is difficult. I feel like I have shitty days and less shitty ones but they are all kind of shitty these days. I couldn't really walk for ten months due to a really bad knee injury from the accident. It's definitely difficult when working harder or doing something in a situation won't necessarily make it better and the situation is chronic.
It took me nearly 2 years to accept parkinson's disease and even now, l still have relapses where l weep with rage and impotence and have to pull myself out of depression. It's a continuous process, l think, trying to find the balance between despair and optimism. I'm not comparing my situation to yours, but many of us are dealing with very hard life situations. Sending love ❤️
I’m interested in the idea of wandering in the wilderness, as a thing that happens to most people at some point in life. One of the necessary underlying conditions it seems to me is that you don’t know how long the wilderness goes on for - otherwise it’s just waiting out a bad patch, which is experientially not the same. You’re maybe not in control of the timing, but you do still have a sense of an endpoint. It’s an order of magnitude bigger version of the transition one makes from being a young child, unable to tolerate eg boredom or an unpleasant task or not being home yet, because you don’t have any concept of time and the fact that the problematic thing will in fact end quite shortly. When you become an older child you realise these things do end, often predictably in one hour or whatever, and so you can in fact tolerate them. The step one makes in adulthood - and commonly I think in midlife - is confronting the possibility of tolerating non-ideal conditions that have no obvious end point, and generally if you can’t see an endpoint that means you can’t see the hinterland beyond either, and I think that’s what produces wilderness. Clearly these life conditions vary in terms of seriousness, and a lot of people will claim their conditions are permanent when they’re clearly not, or not necessarily. But some things - maybe certain kinds of poverty, chronic illness, your situation - are probably not going away so the goal becomes to find a way out of the wilderness those things have fostered, rather than wait for the day of improvement in the circumstances themselves. I don’t know quite where this gets us, I think really I’m just putting what you’re saying a different way, but I suppose the point is trying not to despair if the wilderness turns out to be longer than one thought. That’s bloody wilderness for you, it’s there in the essential nature of it.
A really good depiction of the relentlessness of grief which I highly recommend is the Capaldi Dr Who episode Heaven Sent. I’m not a Whovian at all and have seen hardly any, but this was a Christmas special a few years ago and it stands alone well. Sometimes I watch just the last few minutes on YouTube to remind myself of the imagery, and now that I think about it (this may help, or not) it involves a mountain.
My daughter was critically ill in 2016 at the age of 12. Everything changed. She asked me one day in hospital - "Why me"? the only answer I had was "Shit happens, it's happened to us". I can offer no words of hope, but remember your parents are clinging on to the idea that eventually you might find a reason to want to keep living. I hope you find it. Good luck.
I did think freezing to death in your chair had a certain charm to it. The reality I suppose would have been utter shite, let’s face that if nothing else. I think there seems to be a small, somewhat tiny shift to your thinking. Praise be you’ve still got the most magnificent organ in your body in full working order! That is to be celebrated. Rather that than the Michael Jackson chap! (Not being glib). Keep going.
You're someone who has known exhilaration and joy, the dopamine hit of feeling your uniqueness in nature. It's hard to live without that, and to not be able to see ahead to feeling it again.
Work is good, of course, and it's better to work than not, but it's not exhilarating for most of us. Likewise finding a comfortable place to live, and getting good care. They're important, and it's healthy to appreciate what goes well for us, but again, maintaining the absence of misery is not the same as a few moments of breath-catching joy.
Are there any possibilities open to you that do excite you? Sailing? Paragliding? Fast cars?
Forgive me if these are wildly off the mark for you, but is there something you could plan for that would get your blood up?
Thank you for always being frank. I always look forward to your writing and selfishly want you to stay and believe you would be missed. But completely believe in your autonomy and your experiences as valid and important. I have learned so much from you.
I've been following your blog ever since Hanif Kureishi mentioned you in one of his essays (can't remember how I found him, come to think of it) and your pieces are always moving and thought provoking. I'm glad that your writings have been in The Guardian and are becoming more widely read. Best wishes for 2025, however you choose to spend the coming year. I will keep reading and appreciating you.
Paul, thank you so much for pouring your heart out. It's great to hear someone say the things that I've been thinking. My wife sustained an SCI C5-6 in September of this year. I too struggle with wondering when this will all become our "new normal". We/she soldiers on, heading down to PT to watch her on the STEM bike. Be well
Do you mean the train is unmanned? I have a friend who was a train driver and his first "jumper" survived ... sort of. He himself was totally traumatized and he packed it in. He has flashbacks still, decades later.
A very good friend broke her neck in a riding accident three years ago. She is paralysed from the neck down and has limited use of her hands. The thing that has made the most difference has been learning to drive again, and she regularly goes out on her own in an adapted van.
I first read your blog in the Guardian and I was thinking about you on Christmas Eve & during the past few days, wondering how you are.
I worry anything I write makes me sound a bit weird and I don't want to cause you any upset or annoyance. I guess I just wanted to say people you don't know care about you Paul.
I used to work in the Oncology Department at Southend Hospital. Not in any practical capacity, you will be pleased to hear, but on the admin side of things where there are still stakes but much lower – it's the penny fountains vs the high roller blackjack tables. As matter of fact, I started out there as a volunteer and made myself indispensable and eventually they hired me to cover a long-term absence.
As I was working, I kept one eye on the patients in the waiting area. I brought water to those who were coughing and, when necessary, I sat with them and I helped them to sip it. I spoke to some of them and listened to what they told me and to their conversations with others. All of this observation confirmed to me a general truth that has been expressed many times before, by far brighter souls and with greater eloquence: That no matter the crisis, people will eventually sidle back towards their former baked-in dispositions. Cheerful people will be cheerful people again despite staring down the barrel of oblivion. If you are tenacious and ambitious and goal oriented, as I have good reason to believe that you are, then you will be those things once more, and in the most positive sense. Just give it time.
A dear friend to whom I had written over Christmas – a former co-worker from the Pathology Department – responded to me a few days ago with the news of the death of her mother. She had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and did not live for very long after her diagnosis. Her final days on Earth were filled with acceptance and gratitude for her life and love for her family. I was not surprised by this, but, in hindsight, it makes me wonder whether acceptance of some life-changing or life-ending condition isn't one of those processes that either expands or contracts to fill the time that is available. Hence your long road towards coming to terms, which at present appears to stretch beyond the horizon.
The music journalist, David Cavanagh, committed suicide by train. It was around this time of year. In a note that he left behind, he said that he had delayed his death by a few days out of consideration for those who might be trying to get home for Christmas. None of that is of any consolation to the driver of the train.
You have committed the cardinal Bond villain error of outlining in considerable detail your own plans, which makes me wonder whether you are there yet, standing at the point of no return. I know my way out of this world, after my turncoat immune system has finished setting up the dominoes and I hear the accelerated second-hand tick as they fall as a blur in rapid succession. Nobody else knows the details. I will not say goodbye to anyone, or give anyone reason to suspect that I might be about to put an end to things. I will just go.
I have no doubt that you ponder your death and the ways in which it might be achieved, but this signposting; you sound like someone who isn't ready to give up on life, but who is also flailing around for a good reason to live. I might add that, now I have expressly stated that I don't believe that you are at the point of wheeling yourself in front of a train, you will be morally accountable for the online beat-down and cancellation that I will receive should you choose to do so. Factor that variable into your moral equation that attempts to find a balance in the relative nature of human suffering. You are going to need a bigger whiteboard than the ones that TLR employees use to write down their daily platitudes.
You could instead, follow the approach that was advanced by a great thinker of a bygone age: Bring yourself, figuratively, to the end of the platform where it tails off and where you are apart from the other commuters, and then, from this isolated vantage, assess their common values, and, where you find such things wanting, replace them with different values.
In 2007, after months of being prodded and probed, I found myself sitting on a plastic chair at an arbitrary point along a hospital corridor, waiting for somebody to give me a diagnosis. I was in a great deal of pain. I was hunched over and trying not to black out. As I watched the pairs of legs going back and forth, it occurred to me that there was work to be done in this place. When my condition was stabilised, I signed on as a hospital volunteer. It was the best thing I could have done because, in the wake of my diagnosis, I was very angry at the world and it was consuming me. Putting all of that to one side, along with my fears and the minutiae of my illness, and focusing instead on the lives of others – making their problems my problems – freed me from my solipsism. I began to focus less upon myself, and I think that I may have done some good; I hope that I did. Furthermore, it brought me back into the world from which I had been estranged by my illness.
I suggest to you that there is something to be gained from seeking out work, perhaps a few hours a week, where there is no financial incentive (you do it because you want to do it) that brings you into contact with others who are on the back foot in some way or other. If you can make those people your focus and provide some practical assistance that moves them beyond dependency towards improvement and independence, then you will have less time to devote to the directorial nuances of your death and you will be more integrated into the fabric of society with all of its attendant joys and sorrows. It's not plain sailing and politics invariably dribbles down into whatever you are doing, as it does in all areas of life. However, If you can focus on the work, you cannot lose.
Yes, you still can write, speak in that way. I want you to know your words are not landing in a void. I hear you. I hope that it is a good thing for you to know that someone is listening. Your words matter.
Like many others, I came to this site through the Guardian. So much of what you have to say feels like you have been in my mind.
I am a paraplegic wheelchair user as a result of an accident almost 10 years ago. I had the same craving for death when I was in the hospital and I held on to the notion for a long time after. Death felt like a safety net.
Joy comes when I can get out of myself, when I can do something positive (anything positive) that requires my focus. Putting my pants on requires my focus, but that’s not what I mean. For me, it’s training my dog, playing a game or sport, growing something.
I have slowly moved into advocacy because it helps me to make meaning from my situation. Making meaning is a stage of grief, but it doesn’t mean I’ve romped through all the other stages and left them behind. I’m still bargaining, I’m still crying over the relentless oppression of permanence. Slowly, slowly the joyful moments began to occur more frequently than the desire for an end. I hope for you.
Been following you since reading your Guardian article. You are a really good writer. I recently went through a life changing accident that gave me a facial disfigurement. I've been very suicidal since and have been isolating myself which hasn't helped. Acceptance is difficult. I feel like I have shitty days and less shitty ones but they are all kind of shitty these days. I couldn't really walk for ten months due to a really bad knee injury from the accident. It's definitely difficult when working harder or doing something in a situation won't necessarily make it better and the situation is chronic.
Dear Paul
It took me nearly 2 years to accept parkinson's disease and even now, l still have relapses where l weep with rage and impotence and have to pull myself out of depression. It's a continuous process, l think, trying to find the balance between despair and optimism. I'm not comparing my situation to yours, but many of us are dealing with very hard life situations. Sending love ❤️
I’m interested in the idea of wandering in the wilderness, as a thing that happens to most people at some point in life. One of the necessary underlying conditions it seems to me is that you don’t know how long the wilderness goes on for - otherwise it’s just waiting out a bad patch, which is experientially not the same. You’re maybe not in control of the timing, but you do still have a sense of an endpoint. It’s an order of magnitude bigger version of the transition one makes from being a young child, unable to tolerate eg boredom or an unpleasant task or not being home yet, because you don’t have any concept of time and the fact that the problematic thing will in fact end quite shortly. When you become an older child you realise these things do end, often predictably in one hour or whatever, and so you can in fact tolerate them. The step one makes in adulthood - and commonly I think in midlife - is confronting the possibility of tolerating non-ideal conditions that have no obvious end point, and generally if you can’t see an endpoint that means you can’t see the hinterland beyond either, and I think that’s what produces wilderness. Clearly these life conditions vary in terms of seriousness, and a lot of people will claim their conditions are permanent when they’re clearly not, or not necessarily. But some things - maybe certain kinds of poverty, chronic illness, your situation - are probably not going away so the goal becomes to find a way out of the wilderness those things have fostered, rather than wait for the day of improvement in the circumstances themselves. I don’t know quite where this gets us, I think really I’m just putting what you’re saying a different way, but I suppose the point is trying not to despair if the wilderness turns out to be longer than one thought. That’s bloody wilderness for you, it’s there in the essential nature of it.
A really good depiction of the relentlessness of grief which I highly recommend is the Capaldi Dr Who episode Heaven Sent. I’m not a Whovian at all and have seen hardly any, but this was a Christmas special a few years ago and it stands alone well. Sometimes I watch just the last few minutes on YouTube to remind myself of the imagery, and now that I think about it (this may help, or not) it involves a mountain.
Hi Paul. I love reading your words.
My daughter was critically ill in 2016 at the age of 12. Everything changed. She asked me one day in hospital - "Why me"? the only answer I had was "Shit happens, it's happened to us". I can offer no words of hope, but remember your parents are clinging on to the idea that eventually you might find a reason to want to keep living. I hope you find it. Good luck.
Paul’s parents are also doing time with no prospect of parole
I did think freezing to death in your chair had a certain charm to it. The reality I suppose would have been utter shite, let’s face that if nothing else. I think there seems to be a small, somewhat tiny shift to your thinking. Praise be you’ve still got the most magnificent organ in your body in full working order! That is to be celebrated. Rather that than the Michael Jackson chap! (Not being glib). Keep going.
You're someone who has known exhilaration and joy, the dopamine hit of feeling your uniqueness in nature. It's hard to live without that, and to not be able to see ahead to feeling it again.
Work is good, of course, and it's better to work than not, but it's not exhilarating for most of us. Likewise finding a comfortable place to live, and getting good care. They're important, and it's healthy to appreciate what goes well for us, but again, maintaining the absence of misery is not the same as a few moments of breath-catching joy.
Are there any possibilities open to you that do excite you? Sailing? Paragliding? Fast cars?
Forgive me if these are wildly off the mark for you, but is there something you could plan for that would get your blood up?
All the best to you as we head into 2025.
There is a young fellow named Paul
Who says " I could just end it all"
But your writing's insiteful
Heartwrenching, delightful
And educates us - one and all.
Thank you for always being frank. I always look forward to your writing and selfishly want you to stay and believe you would be missed. But completely believe in your autonomy and your experiences as valid and important. I have learned so much from you.
I've been following your blog ever since Hanif Kureishi mentioned you in one of his essays (can't remember how I found him, come to think of it) and your pieces are always moving and thought provoking. I'm glad that your writings have been in The Guardian and are becoming more widely read. Best wishes for 2025, however you choose to spend the coming year. I will keep reading and appreciating you.
Paul, thank you so much for pouring your heart out. It's great to hear someone say the things that I've been thinking. My wife sustained an SCI C5-6 in September of this year. I too struggle with wondering when this will all become our "new normal". We/she soldiers on, heading down to PT to watch her on the STEM bike. Be well
Best album ever.
Do you mean the train is unmanned? I have a friend who was a train driver and his first "jumper" survived ... sort of. He himself was totally traumatized and he packed it in. He has flashbacks still, decades later.
A very good friend broke her neck in a riding accident three years ago. She is paralysed from the neck down and has limited use of her hands. The thing that has made the most difference has been learning to drive again, and she regularly goes out on her own in an adapted van.