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On the controversy over the Tiptree award.
I am fine with the award being renamed. I am not fine with the people calling Alice Sheldon's killing of her husband before killing herself "murder" or calling Alice Sheldon a "murderer."
1. Depression is a disability. Depressed people need caregivers too. Alice Sheldon was chronically depressed. Mr. Sheldon was Alice Sheldon's caregiver for a long time, and then he started needing care as well*, but the only one available to give it (due to the American healthcare non-system) was Alice Sheldon. Being a caregiver is a heavy burden. Being a caregiver while you are depressed is beyond my ken, but I can imagine it.
2. I have no sympathy for caregivers who kill the person they were caring for as a way of quitting their job. But I have firsthand experience with caring for a totally disabled person, and of caring for someone who sometimes battles with depression. I know the gut punch of having to ask, "do you actually want to die now, in which case I will help you find a way, or are you just saying that because you are depressed and in despair." I know what it's like to realize that the only end to your beloved's pain and to your stress and lack of sleep and heartache will be death, and to know that death is taking far too fucking long to arrive.
3. Calling what Alice Sheldon did "murder" is a horrible mislabeling that oversimplifies a complex situation and creates a villain where none existed. Everything I've read of what is known about how Alice Sheldon ended her life says that, and everything I've experienced as a caregiver agrees with that analysis.
* Sheldon's biographer says that Mr. Sheldon was active and not really in need of care well into the 80's, but he did become ill towards the end. Just how ill, and how much care he required during his final illness, is unknown. https://www.julie-phillips.com/wp/?p=1052
1. Depression is a disability. Depressed people need caregivers too. Alice Sheldon was chronically depressed. Mr. Sheldon was Alice Sheldon's caregiver for a long time, and then he started needing care as well*, but the only one available to give it (due to the American healthcare non-system) was Alice Sheldon. Being a caregiver is a heavy burden. Being a caregiver while you are depressed is beyond my ken, but I can imagine it.
2. I have no sympathy for caregivers who kill the person they were caring for as a way of quitting their job. But I have firsthand experience with caring for a totally disabled person, and of caring for someone who sometimes battles with depression. I know the gut punch of having to ask, "do you actually want to die now, in which case I will help you find a way, or are you just saying that because you are depressed and in despair." I know what it's like to realize that the only end to your beloved's pain and to your stress and lack of sleep and heartache will be death, and to know that death is taking far too fucking long to arrive.
3. Calling what Alice Sheldon did "murder" is a horrible mislabeling that oversimplifies a complex situation and creates a villain where none existed. Everything I've read of what is known about how Alice Sheldon ended her life says that, and everything I've experienced as a caregiver agrees with that analysis.
* Sheldon's biographer says that Mr. Sheldon was active and not really in need of care well into the 80's, but he did become ill towards the end. Just how ill, and how much care he required during his final illness, is unknown. https://www.julie-phillips.com/wp/?p=1052
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