Beth Hatch’s Reviews > This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike. > Status Update

When they died I saw instantly that I had failed to lessen the impact of loss. I had instead overpaid for death by living so long with the idea of it in my mind, planning for its arrival, making sure the sheets were fresh. I learned that the proper way to prepare for someone’s death is by being alive in the same room with them for as long as you are allowed.

Anger that you shush will metastasize and can cause massive damage to yourself, your life, and those around you. Anger that remains unvented can lead to depression, suicide, and other self destructive behaviors. If anger isn’t correctly processed and expressed in a productive fashion, raw, unrefined, 100 percent natural anger can result in murder.

Love does not ask or even want you to change. But if you change, love is as excited about this change as you are, if not more so. And if you go back to the way you were before you changed, love will go back with you.

Pain is interesting. I dislike it immensely but I never experienced pain and boredom at the same time.

Loss creates a greater overall surface area within a person. You expand as a result of it. Thought it may well feel like the opposite. If you lose something or someone that is enormously important to you, there can be an overwhelming desire to stop living....don’t misunderstand me: the pain of your loss will remain with you for the rest of your life. But great joy will be there right beside it.

Time moves forward, never back. We look forward to a moment and then it arrives and an instant later it’s gone. Like something on the surface of a river that we reached for but did not touch in time and it carried on, away. You cannot be a prisoner of your past against your will. Because you can only love in the past inside your mind.

This is what I am saying: you hate your life. But you don’t know what life is. Life is too huge for you to possibly hate. If you hate life, you haven’t seen enough of it. If you hate you’re life, it’s because your life is too small and doesn’t fit you. However big you think you think your life is, it’s nothing compared to what’s out there.

I didn’t need a Destination or a plan or even a vague idea of what I was doing. If it was crazy or rash or insane or irresponsible, then it was all of those things, but it was also possible....In case of emergency, break glass. When your life reaches the state of emergency and the only thing you can do is to end it, maybe the thing to do is break it. Walk out the door. So I did.

If you believe suicide will bring you peace, or at least an end to everything you hate - you are displaying self-caring behavior. You are still able to actively seek solutions to you problems. You were willing to go to great lengths to provide what you believe will be soothing to yourself. This strikes me as optimistic.

Most of us have love in our lives. Most of us love other people. And are ourselves loved by other people but make no mistake, you are alone in the world. You born alone even if you were born cajoined. And you die alone unable to bring a single person with you.