apoptosis

apoptosis, a type of programmed cell death, is the process where a cell, in a multicellular organism, commits suicide in a highly deliberate and orderly fashion. one of the mechanisms which activates apoptosis is when the cell stop receiving positive signals from other cells and receives negative signals from within.

i got introduced to the process of apoptosis from a general biology reading last year and coincidentally the protagonist of a book i was reading for leisure in the same period, the good patient, also mentions apoptosis as a metaphor for her own behavior.

it is also a convenient explanation for my attitude and the choices i made last year. with the beginning of another period of depressive disorder, i became blocked from receiving the positive signals and obviously started receiving negative signals. it's just all part of my programmed death. it also explains why, in my own head, life ends at around 30. there is absolutely nothing planned for beyond that.

i was telling will that my diary has become rather bland and that i can't write anymore. either i can no longer verbalize my thoughts and feelings or i no longer have thoughts and feelings. he asked if i have lost something and i said yes, i think i've lost a part of me. i've started to fragment and fall away, at the same time my emotions are being inhibited. the scope of my emotions have shrunk, nothing lies beyond 'ok' (which to me, is semantically null) and 'irritated'; i no longer possess that fiery temper which arians are known for.

people are generally more comfortable when someone talks about his/her own suicide highly colored with emotions; because one can then just rub it off as easily as chalkdust on a blackboard, thinking 's/he'll get over it.' what makes people uneasy is when suicide is talked about impassively, because by then all protestations against suicide will be unheeded, because his/her receptor for positive signals have been blocked, any everything is just engulfed by the negative signals from within.

~ by marycherry on 17 February, 2006.