I don't tell stories about my spouse often because I don't feel like they're my stories to tell. But they have struggled with mental illness, which is a bit like saying that Tokyo has struggled with Godzilla. When we first met they were totally unmedicated (it's okay, so was I) and were not doing well, apart from their life totally falling apart.
Some days, the only thing I had was begging. I would cry and say, "Please," through the tears because I had nothing else to do or say. Sometimes it was please don't leave, sometimes it was please don't give up, sometimes it was just please, to them, to god, to whatever.
It's not good. It's very much not good. It tears a piece of yourself out and uses it to power the invocation. Humans aren't meant to beg abjectly, or maybe we are but we don't know how to do it properly. We're not meant to live at rock bottom. I'd argue that we're not actually meant to reach rock bottom, that when we do, it represents a failure somewhere. I don't hold with the idea that one has to hit rock bottom to recover. But that's neither here nor there.
I don't know where my rock bottom is in many ways, for which I'm profoundly grateful, but I do know what it'll take to make me debase myself, to throw pride out the window and beg. I know that I would beg for my life, all other things being equal. I would beg for other people's lives. My pride is worth relatively little to me. I don't say this as a mark of pride, by the way. One should value oneself enough to care about debasing one's coinage, so to speak. I don't really. I'm not worth very much to myself and that's another sign that there was a failure somewhere.
I don't have a moral to this story. Just something that was brought to mind for reasons which are probably apparent if you follow me.
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