PART SIX - a continuation of "The Paranoia Made Me Do It"

John walked along the pathway, hands in his pockets, head to the ground, depressed and lonely. He came to the beach to be alone, and met a suspicious psychotherapist who insisted on helping him.

He sat down on a bench under a tree at the side of the path. He had to get his thoughts together. He needed a notebook to divise a plan; a plan for living his life. He had to write down his goals and the steps that would lead him to them. He had to figure things out.

But he had nothing to write on. Besides, how many notebooks had there been in the past? A hundred? How many times had he made plans and never followed through with them? This thought made him angry. He was mad at himself. He hated the world.

His frown was deep. He had been emotionally out of whack for years. Now the thoughts of suicide returned. Was that the real reason he came to the beach, to kill himself?

They came and went, but he'd been having these thoughts of suicide for almost a year now. Yet he was still alive. So he doubted he was suicidal. He knew that people who really wanted to kill themselves did it. They figured out a way, and then just did it. They didn't make excuses. They didn't get rescued. They died.

Isn't a failed attempt at suicide merely a cry for attention? The person didn't really want to die. They wanted help.

The fact of the matter was, although he had been having intrusive thoughts, sometimes obsessive thoughts, of putting a gun to his had and pulling the trigger, he knew he would not do it. He would not want his two small daughers to go through the misery and emotional anguish of losing their daddy like that.

So, was he really suicidal? Suicide happens everyday, and loved ones are left behind to grieve. Yet he couldn't bring himself to do it because he didn't want to be the cause of his children's pain. He rationalized his reluctance with two choices: live and suffer, or die and let the kids suffer.

So maybe he wasn't suicidal. Maybe he was just on his way to it. Perhaps fantasizing about it was just one of the first stages leading up to it. How many more stages to go, he wondered?

He hated this intellectualizing game. More often than not, it led to confusion. He was sick and tired of self-diagnosing himself. Clearly something was wrong with him. That much he knew. But what? Was it depression? Was he a Manic-Depressive, Bipolar?

He knew people like that. He listened to them talk at the Twelve Step meeting he attended, and his symptoms did match theirs. He had seen programs on TV and read enough books to be familiar with the subject. But how could he really know without going to a doctor? How could he be one of those people without the label being officially stamped on him by a shrink?

He had every intention of seeing one. For the past two years he had been putting it off for various reasons. Sure, all the "reasons" were real. But what it all amounted to was procrastination and fear.

But lately things had gotten bad. His emotions were so up and down with mood swings that he eventually overcame every good excuse for putting off a visit to a doctor. Every excuse except for one.

Now he justified his procrastination by clinging to the fact that he couldn't really afford it. His insurance would only co-pay twenty visits a year. Then he was on his own. And he certainly couldn't pay a hundred dollars an hour, even if it was only one hour a week.

All fun thoughts to race around the mind of a neurotic thinker. It's enough to make one seek solace in the atmosphere of an empty beach.

Then a therapist shows up, willing to treat him for free. "How weird is that," he thought? "That's enough to make anyone suspicious."

John got up from the bench to look for a way out of the garden.