Zoe_Blunt's blog

I have locked myself in the bedroom and the man I love is outside, screaming “Go fuck yourself!” over and over and pounding on the door. I am crying so hard I feel like I’m going to puke my guts out.

Again.

This is the sixth or seventh time this has happened in the past year. I’ve lost count. It’s always something I did, or didn’t do, or something I said, or didn’t say, and he blows up like a roadside bomb.

What can I say about a man who says he loves me but treats me like shit?

What can I say about why I put up with it?

Right after Thanksgiving dinner, my father poured a glass of wine for his wife Karen and gave her a kiss. Then he went out, as he often did, to sit on the pier and enjoy the city lights reflecting on the ocean.

The next morning, after looking all over the house for him, Karen found my father in the garage, hanging by his neck from the rafters.

He did not leave a note. The family is in shock. They can’t understand why a healthy, fit man who had everything would commit suicide.

The Wild and the Human

Activists share skills at forest defense “boot camp,” June 1 - 7

This article was first posted on Guerrilla News Network October 26, 2006.

The Downtown Eastside neighborhood of Vancouver, BC is notorious for two reasons. It is the poorest urban neighborhood in the country, and it hosts North America’s largest open drug market. Advocates say more than three thousand people are homeless in Vancouver, most of them in the Downtown Eastside. Many are mentally ill or addicted to crack or heroin.