Content note: This episode includes discussion of suicide, physician-assisted death, psychosis, and serious illness. The caller and their late partner met when they were nineteen. For the better part of a decade they were each other's person, the one you call with good news, bad news, or at 4am when you can't stop thinking about what it will feel like to stop existing. For most of that time, the caller was the one afraid of death. Their partner wasn't. Then their partner, searching for anything that might work against treatment-resistant depression, tried psilocybin. It went badly enough that they developed schizophrenia. The person who used to be at peace with the idea of nothing spent the rest of their life terrified of a very specific something, an afterlife they'd seen in that trip and believed was waiting for them. What follows is not a straight line. There's electroconvulsive therapy and the brain damage that came with it. A period that looked, briefly, like hope: the partner coming out as trans, seeming more alive than they had in years. A breakup that was really an act of care. A vein at the temple that only shows when someone is dangerously underweight, and doctors who looked past it. And, in the end, something the caller is careful to call by its real name: a death with dignity, chosen with a death doula, not a crisis. The caller talks about all of it, including where they are now: still afraid of death, but less afraid than before, because for the first time in their life they're the one hoping something comes next. Not despite what happened to their partner, but because of it. Stay through to the very end of this one. Our caller shared a story after our conversation was over that's worth the listen. In this conversation: What it means to lose someone who was, for years, more at peace with death than you wereA mushroom trip that triggered psychosis, and the years-long shift that followed: electroconvulsive therapy, a gender transition, a slow physical declineTalking a partner through the idea of dying by choice, and the legal patchwork around death with dignityA friend's theory that memory is physical, and what that means for griefGrowing a bat flower, and what it means to still want to see something bloomBook recommendation: The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov — see the full list of Anonymous Book Recommendations here. Video Episode: If you'd like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube. About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness. Stay Connected 🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com 📰 Substack: When We Die Talks 📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks ▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks ✉️ Email: zach@whenwedietalks.com Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
