I admit it. I'm scared for my life.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

Looking back at my life, all the times I should have been dead. And to think something I can't see could take me out, hurts.

If (I have to say "if" because part of me can't think of a"when" ) I do catch it, I'll die some forgotten nothing. Not even a marker.

Everything I tried to be, everything I hope for will be for not. I'll be just some dead homeless chick. Not worth a thought.

Seeing one's own mortality sucks

End of my dark rant.

[RandySF]

1. Just hang tight. We're here.

DM me if you want to.

[Moostache]

2. I have read your words...

I have internalized your poignancy and pain.
I will NOT forget...

We all shine on...through the impact and memories of others we touch in real and in virtual ways.

When you do pass, and I truly hope it is years from now and in peace and relative comfort, just know this - I have read you words, I have felt your thoughts through that effort - on your part, and on mine. Your life matters everyday, but today it matters because it helps put this desperate fight in perspective and gives me a tool to use with others.

Now, instead of only seeing fear and anger, I can offer an example of why we MUST fight on, why we MUST stay away from crowds and each other. Until the fight is won, whether temporarily or for good someday, we MUST keep going to install hope in the minds and spirits of everyone at greater risk than ourselves...

I share a predisposition to risk for this virus. It may claim me as well, but I have told my wife and children tonight about your story and WHY it is important to acknowledge and to inform others.

Stay safe.
Stay isolated.
But NEVER stay silent, your voice, your story, your influence go beyond what may seem possible...

Just as the virus can ripple out and infect, so too can HOPE....

Best wishes to you and to all of us living with these times and fearfully idiotic countrymen.

[cayugafalls]

3. You are worth more than a thought.

We are all scared. DU was here for me when I had some very dark times last year. I was not posting, but I was reading and I saw how close a community it was. It helped me.

DU is here for you now.

The virus is not a complete end. We are bombarded with the death, but 95% or more of people who get it survive.

I wish I could do more to alleviate your fear.

cayugafalls

[SamBob]

25. if it is one thing DU does for me

is that it gives me more hope that other's feel the same way i do, and research their asses off to make sure they are in the know...
because trump's people don't get it, while former trump supporters realized why we were worried about him being president in the first place.
I just hope there are more smart people out there than there are of people like the rioters.

[LuckyCharms]

4. I see your name here. I know you exist. You are important.

Your situation does not define you. You define you.

I don't know who you are. I have never met you. But I know you are there.

I have passing thoughts about every name that I see on this site. I don't know what the reason is, and you might not either, but you are here for a reason. We are all here for a reason, and we all have virtually no idea how important we truly are. We all have no idea of the lives that we touch on a daily basis.

Don't give up. Don't give in. You will get through this. And just maybe, life will take a turn that is so good, you never would have imagined it.

[sheshe2]

5. Please stay safe.

We are here for you.

[wendyb-NC]

6. Your meant to survive

we need you, so we can all be strong, and move forward and (re)build the our country for all.

[Newest Reality]

7. It is good to admit it.

I have contemplated death for a long time. I have even studied it in many ways.

The persona, of course has an issue with mortality. Contemplating it and facing squarely can actually be beneficial if you are open and willing. Survival of the organism is always in the background. We all face the inevitability. How investigating it is beneficial has to do with bring open and up front with it.

Life is certainly a round trip ticket. It is impermanent. Death comes with birth. Isn't it strange that we humans get to worry and be terrified of something that is actually natural and unavoidable? It can come any minute of any day for anyone, even without warning. It is not a matter of if, but when.

When you get old, you also start to see it was a series of mental states and stages revolving around a rather intangible "self" and constantly changing and that it really does go by rather quickly in retrospect.

Perhaps this is a good time for people to consider the ancient practice of contemplating the meaning and relationship of death to being alive. It does not have to be morbid, like this culture makes it seem where death is off in some other place or funeral home, etc. Depending on the person and their proclivities, coming to terms with one's mortality can be liberating and insightful, though it may take a little courage and patience. It can even reveal that mortality is alright. Think it through.

Would you want to be you as you have been forever? What would THAT be like? What would you do with being you for a million years, a billion, eternity? Maybe your essence and being are more to the point, not just the outfit/costume that is only a short-term rental and that is a fact of existence itself. One has a personal movie and is the stqr of their show. Some even see that and, knowing it is a movie, transcend that narrow view.

Be Well. Relax.

[pecosbob]

8. I won't forget

[captain queeg]

9. Went and looked at your journal

Things sound real tough. Not going to spew BS about it’s always darkest before the dawn, but each day brings new possibilities. I hope you have a comfortable night and something good comes to you tomorrow. Hang in there

[GulfCoast66]

10. Every DU member that reads your post is with you.

I’m a cancer survivor although it was caught early and solved with a simple surgery with no follow up treatment. No reason to feel sorry for me.

But my point is there were 3 weeks when the issue was in doubt.

I can honestly say, once I accepted my own mortality my actual life became more fulfilling. The wife and I are both furloughed. But we are finding ways to laugh at our new found poverty. Although we really aren’t poor at all. Just have no income for the first time in 40 years.

I will be thinking of you.

[PatrickforO]

11. You're not nobody.

You are worth a thought, and you are far, far more than nothing.

[world wide wally]

12. Your vote matters as much as Trump's

Hang in there.

[Brainfodder]

13. You aren't alone, but as it turns out, most of us don't amount to much.

So don't sweat it.

[Gothmog]

14. Please stay safe

[onecaliberal]

15. You matter to me. Please do everything you can to keep yourself safe.

[Warpy]

16. They still don't know who will develop serious disease

or who won't even run a fever. They're guessing it's some genetic quirk, just the luck of the draw. They won't know how lethal this thing is until they get it together to do universal antigen/antibody testing. Right now, data yesterday from the Pine Street Inn in Boston, a big homeless shelter with an older population of all men with a lot of health issues is making them rethink a lot of things about this virus.

Universal testing won't happen until Dumbass is booted out of office, so hang in there. I think that's what's keeping me alive these days. I want to see him GONE.

[subana]

17. yes, it's scary but that doesn't mean we should give up

Looking back at my life, all the times I should have been dead. And to think something I can't see could take me out, hurts.

it reminds me of something from HBO's miniseries Chernobyl. The military was evacuating everyone in the area. One soldier found an old woman who was in her barn milking her cow. She was about 80 yrs old & had lived through many changes. She began to list all of the things she's seen in her life, the revolution, Stalin, the great war, they fought against Hitler trying to take over the country. Her parents & 2 sisters had died her brothers who had fought in the war never returned from the war. She said through all of that, she stayed in her home, she said after all of that, now you want me to leave because of something I can't see at all?

Sometimes the things you can't see are even more dangerous than the things you can see.

[SunSeeker]

18. You mean something to us. Hang in there.

[fierywoman]

19. I love the name you've chosen to use for yourself here, and I must say that every time I

read it, it gives ME a boost to go and do my stuff! Yeah, a lot of us could have been dead before this moment but instead we're here on a Sunday night; I'm so grateful to you all.

[Cha]

20. May We All Come Through this, Lady Freedom Returns!

And, be able to vote to kick the FUBARED Clusterfuck OUT

[sprinkleeninow]

21. Each and every human being has worth and not simply an afterthought.

We are the 'crown' of creation.

You are in my heart of hearts.

Good for you to reach out to this community here.

It is such a sorrowful time we share in.

I pray circumstances will turn positive for you speedily. It is possible!

💛🌈🐦🙏

[Meowmee]

22. I am battling it right now

You have value. Don’t give up

[murielm99]

23. You are worthwhile.

We love you here. You are NOT a nothing!

Many of us here are scared for our lives. You are not alone in that.

[Jamastiene]

24. You are not alone.

They will most likely find my skeleton about a year after I die. That will only be because being dead will keep me from paying taxes and it takes the city where I live about that long to foreclose and take your property when you quit paying taxes on it.

Someone asked about which song you want someone to play for you when you die. I answered as if there is or will ever be anyone who would play it for me. There will be no one who will. I have shit for a family and the local gay community is too racist for me to be able to stand them. So, alone, I will stay for life.

In reality, because of where I live, and after seeing how they circled my aunt like sharks in the water before she died, I know what will really happen. If I am unlucky and cannot die at home and have to die in a hospital or Hospice in my county, the damn preachers and other overbearing right wing Christian assholes here will preach at me and not leave me alone while I am dying. When my aunt was in Hospice of Richmond County, every single time I would go see her, she had no less than 3 or 4 of them in her room praying loudly and preaching and being obnoxious and refusing to fucking leave for family to visit. When she lay dying at the VA in Fayetteville, a preaching was yelling in her face and asking her if she believed in God. That was while she was dying.

I just hope I can die at home. I'd rather leave a skeleton than endure that. I just hope I can die at home. That is my only wish in life left now. No good is possible. Only bad. My only wish is to not be tortured by overbearing fucking Christian assholes and not to have my god awful shit excuse for an abusive mother desecrate my body like she has planned out already to do without asking me.

Maybe I will know and can play my favorite song while I am dying. Otherwise, it is going to be pure Hell having them all circle me like they did my aunt. I'd rather be in Hell than have to endure them and their praying and preaching and shoving their shit down my throat while I lay dying. I can't wait to get to the real Hell to get the fuck away from the goddamn Bible Belt.

I don't have as much of a problem dying alone and uncared for as I do with the thought of that. So, dying alone isn't the worst to me. Dying surrounded by right wing Christian strangers shoving their shit down my damn throat would be worse. It's highly likely that is what will happen too. I'd rather die alone, as far away from them as possible and to not have to hear their hateful shit and have it shoved down my throat.

I will be forgotten, sure. I don't even care if they put me in an unmarked potter's field either, because my mother has money and decided what would happen to my body when I die without even asking me if I wanted to be cremated and trapped with her and a bunch of preachy ass strangers. I do not. I would rather take the potter's field, but I will have to try to die at home to get the upgrade to a potter's field, which means I will have to suffer and die miserably. I already know it is going to be painful, last for a long time, and be torturous, but will be the only way to avoid that shit show and desecration of my body against my wishes.

If I had my say, I would not be caught dead in nondescript boxy shaped building my mother calls a mausoleum (I've seen cardboard boxes that looked more like mausoleums than that plain, boring building) surrounded by her abusive ashes and a bunch of preachy, overbearing strangers who were all preachy gasbags who would not respect anyone else's freedom from religion. Plus, it is on a busy highway and across from the worst area of town where they burn household garbage all day every day and the local chapter of the KKK is headquartered there. That is the last place I would ever want to be.

That does not sound like "rest in peace" at all to me. It sounds like Hell on Earth foisted on me as my final resting place. I'd rather eat shit and die somewhere where no one ever finds my body. Most likely, I will have to suffer long and hard at home to avoid anyone knowing I am dead, in hopes that they will only have a skeleton when they find me, and maybe they won't find me until my mother is dead and she cannot swoop in like the domineering horror show she is and force that on my body for eternity. I want the fire ants to finally have my flesh. I don't care what they do with my bones. Bury them in my backyard would be my final wishes, after letting the fire ants have my flesh. Anything but the horror of being preached to while I leave this world then being shoved in a boxy, ugly building full of strangers and my abusive ass mother's ashes for eternity. I just hope I can manage to endure whatever pain I have to endure to stay home to die, without being preached at, then let the fire ants have my flesh and that I can outlive my mother. If only I can do that, I might not have to have my body desecrated and stored somewhere I'd never want to be for eternity.

Potter's field will do, if it has to be. I cannot afford to override her plans for my damn body when I die. The state of North Carolina allows her to decide what happens to my body, WITHOUT my consent, which is a crock of shit and another reason I despise this damn state. So, my only hope is to outlive her and die at home, alone. That is my only hope now.

[EndlessWire]

30. Many years ago

I had a dream. It was of a tunnel. There was a man at the entrance urging me to come with him. I was afraid and felt like if I went into the tunnel, I would not be able to return.

When I awoke, my left arm was sore. I called my mother and told her about the dream, and I asked her if anyone had died. The next day, she called me to tell me that my uncle had died. He was found behind the steering wheel of his car, reaching with his left arm toward the dashboard.

I don't think that things will be nearly as bad as it seems now to you, when you pass away.

My personal, recent experience with an unattended death is that it is so horribly grisly that, if you want to get even with someone, just die alone at home.

They won't find bones. The smell is so absolutely horrendous, and the black flies that will multiply like a scene from a horror show infesting your windows, will all give it away. The house may have to be torn down because of the stench. Now, that's a statement!

Try to live. You won't need your body when you go, anyway. You should try to stick around to see what happens next.

[Jamastiene]

31. I live in the Bible Belt in a small town and I'm gay, plus I have a mother hellbent

on telling lies about me and keeping me from keeping friends when I manage to make any.

There won't be all that, I don't think, because I have so many fire ants anyhow. Fire ants can do away with entire animals and leave only bones overnight. They take every bit of the flesh.

I just wish time would go by faster until I can go.

I do want to die alone. It's the only way I will feel safe from that pro-rape family of mine and from being trapped next to my mother forever, against my wishes. I hated it when she would grab my jaw and say over and over again to me as a child, for hours on end, "We don't hug in this family. Hugging is a sign of weakness. I will knock your head off." "Quit your crying. Crying doesn't solve anything. I'll knock your head off. "We don't cry in this family. Crying is a sign of weakness." "There is no such thing as love. Everyone has a motive."

Yes, I know my mother hated me. She despised me. If your own mother doesn't love you, you are totally alone and no one ever can or will.

Over and over and over again she said that stuff to me, hours on end, until my aunt would come home from work and make her take her medicine and get off me. The rest of the time, she was so violent in the ways she would pinch different parts of my body and hold my face down in the dog piss (she insisted on being their sole discipline, so they pissed everywhere and were so nervous they would piss where they stood when she came in the room), and beat me. My aunt would send me off to various relatives who didn't want to have to put up me either. I was hated from birth. They should have kept her in the nuthouse. Now, the only way I will ever be able to end the misery is when I finally get to die and that is IF I can do it in a way that will ensure she doesn't get to trap me next to her forever. If she does, that won't be "rest in peace." It'll be forever. I think things will never get better for me. It's too late. I just have to suffer a life sentence of a life that was worthless from the get go. I'm an extra. While good people die, people who are loved, I live and live and live. I'll be here with the roaches when the rest of the human species is gone. That's how it feels sometimes.

"Get right with God." at the local mental health (tax dollars at work) didn't help after getting raped for being gay. The police didn't help either. They told me to go to church. The only way I could be safe is if there was a bad enough smell and flies around my body and I was gone. Preach to that and trap that next to my mother for eternity.

I know I am going to hurt and suffer when I die. I wouldn't be so lucky as to go in my sleep. It will probably be slow and painful for me, but everything between now and then is going to feel horrible too. When musicians are making music for their fans, for this Covid-19 thing, I know it is not for me. It is for the rest of the people who are too good to have to endure being cooped up and alone. I don't feel that togetherness everyone else feels, because I am expected to spend all my time either alone or around people who think I should be forced to be straight until I "like it." That's never going to fly. Alone is better. Alone is always better, because of how people think of me, always as less than. I have been dehumanized to that point now. I can't feel like I am human. I know I am not like everyone else. I am not too good to have to endure this social distancing thing. It's all I know at this point. I am expected to take it while everyone else is too good for it. So, I'm less than everyone else. Years ago when I said something about it, I was told to quit whining and get a hobby. That should fill the void. Music was all that ever came close to filling the void. My perfect life would be enough weed to last and always have the music playing. Of course, I live in a state that still won't even legalize medical marijuana and I don't know anyone or trust anyone enough to just go buy it illegally nowadays. I wish I did know someone. I could "socially distance" forever in my locked home and feel safer. That would be a major upgrade to seeing everyone else online and on TV lose their minds for having to temporarily do something I've been doing for decades now. People really are that spoiled to being loved by human beings. Must be nice. I will never have that. I was cut off long ago and put in my place and told to accept either rejection or rape. Rejection it is then.

[EndlessWire]

33. You need a good lover.

Someone to hold you and help you to heal. There is nothing wrong with that.

[captain queeg]

26. How are you feeling today? I hope you slept well and are ok and maybe feeling better.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

27. Not really

Under lockdown in a hotel. The city is partnering with hotels to get the homeless off the streets during the state issued lockdown.
I am staying away from everyone. The case managers come, I suit up. Gloves, mask, sunglasses.

[captain queeg]

28. I'm glad to hear you got into a motel

I’d seen seen that in your journal, that Tucson was doing that. How long can you stay there? At least it’s a safe place and you can take a shower and stuff

[Lady Freedom Returns]

29. Till they get me an apartment or we get the all clear.

[Hekate]

32. You are here. You are one of us. You are not nothing. Your dark thoughts are part of the times ....

...we are living through. But we are living through them together. Honest.