I, Stefano and the multiple sclerosis: to die completely

“As you know well and we talked many times, I have been decided to die completely for a year.” “Dying completely.” My psychoanalyst looks at me with a sad smile and echoes me. Yeah, why did I say so? Die completely.

In over twenty years of analysis I understood how much the analytical therapy travels rather than on the declared sentences, on the unrealized words, on the Freudian taps (those who do not know the meaning), on the stumbles, on the gestures that came out by chance. Psychoanalysis is not a press release. And as soon as I realized that I had offered a nice case of Freudian taps, I understood. I understood why people continue to react in a certain way to my decision to die.

There has been an emotional wave of affection, pain, understanding and also indignation for my case. I received and I am receiving love and closeness. And the reaction of others was if possible the best I could have. But there is a peculiarity that left me perplexed.

In part I have already died

Everyone is surprised by my tranquility. From my friends of the heart to the close friends to acquaintances everyone tells me, why do you worry about me, don’t worry about how I am, do you see what a generous person you are, in this situation you can still worry about others? And I reply, and why shouldn’t I? And that phrase of this morning, who slipped me automatically out of the mouth with my analyst, made me understand. I partially are already dead.

Days ago I wrote a public post in which I confessed that it hurts to leave life but for how it is life out there, it has been no longer for me for some time. In the tranquility with which I worry about others, the others who perhaps feel pain for me, the others who have landed and would not like to get lost, I realize that I was already partially dead. Life for me is a segment, which goes from point a to point B. People are alive, travel along this segment and live life in all its aspects. They make children, they see them grow, work or lose their jobs or change it, they live a family, a couple, problems live, the losses the mourning the conquests the affections the relationships the projects the future the pleasures the beauties The holidays the holidays the free time the nonsense the lightness and also heaviness, but in any case they live, live life.

A progressive loss of freedom

I lived a life together with the disease, I realized some dreams, I fell in love, I have tried to make projects, but for many years and in recent times in strong progression I have been an inert body in all maneuvered and managed by others. No libertto. I write this column with the three fingers that remain of the right hand that remains for me and with the vocal dictation. I was raised by the bed recently and I have the deductible of an hour, before being brought to the toilet, where in three quarters of now my assistant will artificially empty my intestine. He will clean me and will lift me, always on a dead weight, he will cover me and will place me on the sofa where I await the home physiotherapist. A chat with her and then greet her and be brought in the shower. I will be washed and dressed for the night and resting, literally resting because I no longer have the strength to stay straight with the bust, above the table set. My husband back from outside will straighten me from behind, will cook and take me. He will let me rest after dinner, he will wash my teeth, he will bring me back to the table because I feel bad to just be moved to the sofa, he will put a TV series that I can hear even if I am bent down, at a certain time he will bring me to bed where he will make me cateterism and will turn to me on his favorite side to feel less pain. Tomorrow day starting from 9:00 will be exactly identical to that of today. The variables only will have been the nightpains, incontinence, spasms, the quality of assistance, that is, of the hands on my body. The week will be so. The month will be so. Every now and then I will have small exits, those where people see me and stop me on the street. Those in which I still do everything today to feel a little alive: public interventions on the end of life, appeals to the population, some quick encounter. But they are rare events, increasingly rare. In the meantime, the months go on and the hot ones approach. In the meantime, my disability increases. If I lived this year’s summer, it would be an even hotter summer than last and with more on my body 12 months of clinical disease progression.

Do you understand why I’m quiet when I write cordial messages to friends who greet me? Do you understand why I am interested in knowing about their lives, rather than mine? Do you understand why is everything that is happening normal for me? Because the people and friends around are much closer to that point A. instead, biological functions and separate consciousness, I am much closer to point B and not from today.

Beyond me there is the world of the living

That’s why suffering fear me more than death. That’s why time is scrolling slow and violent. That’s why I can’t answer the people who want to give me gifts or offer dinners before my disappearance. Not because I am depressed: never been. But why If I could do those things, indeed if I had still done them, I certainly would not have decided to take that step. The inexorable continuity of gestures maneuvers routine rawl pains, spread in a few square meters between bed armchair and toilet, shows me “Life out there” like a showcase, a demo, something beautiful but that no longer belongs to me. From outside you see nothing: you see a nice smile and the same voice as always, except when Biascica from fatigue. From outside I am 50 years old and I would also take them well. Those who live my daily lives, my husband Stefano and the assistants, those who live my body, sovereign of my hours, understand very well why I am so quiet in the face of such a choice. My analyst also understands it well.

I will never be grateful enough to analytical therapy for finding myself and my ideals and what I wanted to be, I will never be grateful enough to this last wave of affection and understanding of the people whoas I said in a famous TV service that told me, me greet from the world of living.

Other stories of Vanity Fair that may interest you:

– I Stefano and Multiple Sclerosis: my appeal to Giorgia Meloni

• I Stefano and the multiple chosen, a beauty of beauty
• I Stefano and Multiple Sclerosis: a signature for us and for you

– I Stefano and the multiple sclerosis: the hour of air

–I, Stefano and Multiple Sclerosis: we are also more

-I, Stefano and multiple sclerosis: violated intimacy

-I, Stefano and Multiple Sclerosis: the contagion

-I, Stefano and multiple sclerosis: it was so feeling free …

Photo Courtesy of Guido Harari