by Teresa Weimer

Created on: October 07, 2009   Last Updated: October 08, 2009

If life is about going 'full circle' then surely the completion of life ends with death. There is simply no way to escape the inevitable life cycle or as my son puts it "we all come with expiration dates". However, humans stand alone in their desire to die before their time is due. Only man contemplates his continued existence while other beings contemplate their survival.

Each year that I grow older I become more aware of my own mortality. I've become more in tune to the clock ticking inside of me as my hour glass drops yet another grain of sand with every breath I take. Even though I strongly believe in life after death, I am still terrified of the notion of dying; meaning the process not what comes next. My conscious mind knows that one day I will face my end and there's no way around it. Most of us fear the unknown, so a decision to die provides a sense of security in knowing how and when rather than chancing the odds in life's great crap shoot.

Death goes against the grain of the living, so our ability to digest, cope and understand the finality of death causes anxiety and fear for most of us rather than a welcomed feeling. I once teetered on the edge of suicide, so I understand all too well the mental and emotional burden which weakens a person to a level of utter desperation and despair. I once spent an evening with a neighbor I barely knew trying to help her see the value in her life as she suffered miserably with an addiction that robbed her of her will to survive.

People that want to die aren't operating on the same rational or emotional frequency as those that fight to survive. Whether it's accepting a terminal illness, a fear of suffering or an unshakable feeling of hopelessness, wanting to die supersedes one's deepest instinct to survive. Choosing your end is rooted in complexities even psychiatrists can't fully fathom.

No one can understand an individual's reasons for wanting to die. We can certainly try, but unless we've actually had a similar awareness at some point in our lives; the root cause is usually unimaginable. Some people just want peace; others seek vengeance while others want control. Regardless of the reason a person wants to die, it never diminishes their basic desire to live, it just overshadows it. Dying is the belief in a way out tied to a desire to end or prevent suffering. It means the circle finds its final closure, but if death wasn't eminent would the desire to die still exist? After all, isn't the notion of dying simply

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