h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

...not even in an environment where that would be entirely possible:

I'm on sick leave for anxiety and depression. I have lost the most important person in my life and am having a tough time coping with it.

There. That wasn't so difficult.

I hope when I find myself in your situation I can find a way to move on. I rather like the mantra used by Louis Wu in Larry Niven's Ringworld books that goes something like "I'll get over this sometime, why not now?"

Although I can not talk with any real understanding I know some other people on h2g2 who have had to deal with bereavement. Do you want to discuss it?

Pimms

Well, I guess it's there to be discussed. I wrote it in such a public place to make sure I couldn't succumb to escapism here. I've done that too much already in real life.

Usually I despise letting complete strangers know your sorrows, because it often brings an unbearable lightness to the handling of the issue, but it's different on h2g2. There's a protective distance here, as well as a lot of friendly and intelligent people who can be trusted not to misuse such information.

I don't know how much I'm willing to reveal, though.

There's one thing that came to my mind. I think I read someplace that you're in your late thirties. To not have had to mourn although you are almost twice my age makes you look incredibly lucky and somehow innocent in my eyes.

It's funny, because you must be more experienced than me in almost everything. But I can't imagine what my life would have been like if this hadn't happened, so a life without grief amazes me every time.

Thanks for the

Oh, I've been to funerals of relatives a generation or two older, and I've cried in sympathy with a friend my own age whose husband died unexpectedly, but these were fairly easy for me to cope with and move on from. The most difficult thing was how to talk to the ones left behind - there are a couple of entries that can be found by searching for 'bereavement' on h2g2 that I scanned after posting here yesterday, and it seems it is a common problem.

If my wife or child died it would be a different situation, and I hope it never happens.

h2g2 can be treated a bit like Callahan's Bar in the books of Spider Robinson - say as much or as little as you like. Being nosy is not polite.

You must be some lurker to have deduced an age for me - I'm pretty sure I've never been exact. As you suggest identifiable personal detail is generally avoided. If you've lurked that much I doubt you need telling that there are several discussion forums where no doubt there are researchers less 'lucky' than me to chat with (if you are so inclined).

Pimms (using the smiley is easy, and I always find it nice to receive)

I'm not *that* bad a lurker. I just had a look at some of your conversations to see if I wanted to reply to your post. Even h2g2, which is absolutely the friendliest place I've come across on the net, has its own share of less-than-kind persons.

I don't want to search out troubled people. Other people's misery doesn't make me feel better, it just makes me miserable. It's not very conserting when in a bad place to talk to someone whose world is falling to pieces.

I don't mean to belittle your life. Although I see things sometimes in black and white, I know that in reality everything is much more complicated.

Hey, "May you live in Interesting Times" is a curse. I'm not sorry that I have been spared tragedy. I'm just aware that sometimes I have been tactless, because I don't understand what someone else is feeling. I try, but I don't want to hurt your feelings by mistake.

Pimms

Feel free to chat with me on any other topic of interest - how about origami