# What Mark Lazare is trying to do

**URL:** <http://discourse.iapct.org/t/what-mark-lazare-is-trying-to-do/12261>\
**Category:** CSG1997\
**Created:** [December 17, 1997, 6:34pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/what-mark-lazare-is-trying-to-do/12261 "1997-12-17T18:34:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Bill\_Powers1](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bill\_Powers1](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/Bill_Powers1)\
**Post date:** [December 17, 1997, 6:34pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/what-mark-lazare-is-trying-to-do/12261/1 "1997-12-17T18:34:11Z")

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[From Bill Powers (971217.1121 MST)]

Mike Acree (971217.0845)--

> If I'm satisfied in a given case that the intervener  
> is coming from the deep respect that I take Bill to be talking about, I  
> have nothing further to say, whatever his or her actual choice. I take  
> a similar attitude, incidentally, with issues like abortion and killing  
> animals for food. But I don't find such an attitude especially common,  
> and the so-called helping professions labor under a special handicap in  
> that regard, inasmuch as their training and socialization set them up to  
> think of themselves as experts who know better than other people how  
> they should run their lives. I'm not strictly denying that they ever  
> do, just pointing out that such expertise tends to make respect a  
> secondary issue.

Mike, you understand exactly what I'm talking about.

> Interesting, incidentally, how often life offers us the comfort of  
> learning that our friends were also suicidal in their youth.

For me, the critical point was in realizing that I was indeed free to end  
my life any time I wished. I could always do it, by stepping off a curb or  
giving a twitch to the steering wheel. Being free to end my life whenever I  
wished, I was also free to live it as I chose. This was all before control  
theory entered my mind as a psychological theory, but obviously the issue  
was control. Who would run my life? When I realized that I had \_always\_ had  
the choice to opt out, I realized that I was running and always had run my  
own life. It took me only about 35 more years to work out all the  
implications (the last major thing I worked out was that I had better, by  
damn, stop drinking).

Following on the heels of that first realization was another: that  
depression isn't a condition, but an episode. It has a beginning, a middle,  
and an end, each time. It was amazing how much difference it made to be  
able to say to myself, "This is the middle."

Best,

Bill P.