Wednesday, April 05, 2006

The Saddest Thing In The World

Well, today at least......... Daily Record Story The remains of a woman suffering from post-natal depression, who disappeared over a year ago after dropping her son off at school have been found in a Glasgow park, having died of exposure on the evening of the date she had disappeared. I don't know why this makes me sad, why I had to take deep breaths at work to stop myself losing the plot as I read the story in the paper. Why this story in particular? I suppose the image of a woman who simply no longer cared where she was or what happened to her, stumbling around in some public park before falling asleep where she stood with exhaustion in the middle of the night is one I have a great deal of difficulty processing. She had done it before in 1996, but they found her a week later, dehydrated and suffering from hypothermia. This time she didn't make it. Maybe being ten years older didn't help. Maybe wandering out on a brutally cold night didn't help. Maybe not having the right treatment or support for her illness didn't help. Or maybe there was simply nothing anyone could have done to prevent her from making that final journey.

2 comments:

iLL Man said...

You're right, there are no answers. Just thinking about it makes me shudder though. I think the fact I can't dismiss it or filter it the way I do with 99% of news stories makes me seek an answer where none exists.

Rob7534 said...

From your description of the article, I can't help shake this overwhelming feeling of utter disapointment. To think this poor women had no motivation what-so-ever to get out of the park, go back home where it was safe and warm.

I have never heard of someone just Give-up like that. A total surrender. It's unnerving, I would imagine that after a while our own natural survival instinct would kick in. It didn't seem to for her, and that scares me for some reason.

I help but think about that.