It's there in black text on white.

[omaewokorosu]

Karu's brother mailed us a copy of Egg's death certificate and it took 10 days to get here; I suppose 10 days is better than never, but he was beginning to get concerned since he hadn't heard anything from us. Going from NJ to NY and it taking 10 days is a bit ridiculous, but so is everything else in this country. In any case... We got it.

This black text on white background paper with a raised seal and small Arial typeface is quite different than what we're used to seeing which is a literal typewriter impacting the letters onto the paper. Things change in 20-some years, huh...

Duo read it first since he was the one who got the mail and opened everything... Karu went through it next... And then I was the last to touch it.


It is officially a suicide, which I agree with if I am completely honest with everyone here, for reasons I will list plainly.

It is true, of course, that self-immolation isn't a common choice when it comes to suicide methods, especially in women:

While self-immolation is significant in certain populations, it is generally considered a less common suicide method in high-income countries, accounting for only 0.6%–1% of all suicides.

It is a lot more common amongst women in countries in the Middle East like Iran, and other developing nations, usually as a result of domestic violence or familial conflicts.

Egg isn't a woman in the Middle East or some other "under-developed" nation. She is a woman in the United States (considered worldwide as a developed country), where the stats are much, much lower.

However, being 0.6% or even 1% is still a higher number than 0%. It not being a common method chosen for suicide doesn't mean it's never chosen. Just very rarely. And knowing Egg, whose top choices in the past for suicide (according to The Vacation Recording Transcripts) were drowning and electrocution, I'm not shocked she chose a slow and painful way to die.

But why would someone choose this way to die?
Let's go over the day before her death. She was brought home from the rehab place by her son, the only child she had any sort of relationship with. On the drive home, he told her that she was trying to use him as some kind of therapist and he was unable to help her in that capacity. She needed a professional for things like that, and was in need of help he was unable to give her ever. This was more than just the occasional vent, this was the need for immediate psychiatric intervention. And Egg argued with him, saying she was fine and didn't need to go to a psychiatrist. She gave the same argument she gave to us March of 2024.

This argument probably activated her increasing paranoia (where she thought Spectrum was against her every time the cable went out, that the neighborhood kids were plotting against her and constantly vandalizing her house, that the city was out to get her, etc.). She now likely thought all of her kids were against her for one reason or another, that her family was gone, that something must've gotten to Rob and made him turn against her.

Everyone being against her meant that she was officially all alone in her world (which was a different world entirely from the shared reality you and I inhabit) and had no one to rely upon for anything. All she had was herself, due to her own actions she would never hold herself accountable for. What if she can no longer take care of herself? What if she can no longer pay her bills for whatever reason (she had problems writing out checks)? What if, what if, what if...

Now I can't claim to know what was going inside of her head, because I don't reside there and am thankful every day I don't and never did, but I do heavily suspect she heard voices (she had conversations with people who weren't there, as is evidenced in those April 2024 vacation recordings). Psychosis can hold hands with things like depression and anxiety (major depressive disorder with psychotic features, anxiety disorder with psychotic features) and it can also feature with bipolar disorder (specifically type I), which can be co-morbid with schizophrenia...

(Egg showed a lot of signs of schizophrenia, enough where she could be diagnosed with it; I'm not someone who can give her that though.)

It only takes one or even a couple of voices going, "You should just kill yourself because you're ruined now, your life is ruined, you're ruined, your family is ruined, it's all shit now so you should just die in a fire" to convince someone mentally compromised, "Yeah, that sounds like a great solution to my problems."

The point is the irrationality. You and I are completely rational human beings. Egg was becoming less and less capable of it before we left; Egg became incapable of rationality after. So of course you and me are going to say, "Setting yourself on fire is fucked up, who the hell would think that's a good idea?" and forgetting that someone irrational isn't going to have that same line of thinking.

Egg could've done it to get back at Rob as a fuck you.
Egg could've done it to get back at both Rob and Karu.
"You made me do this" guilt tripping as only a narcissist can do. Egg wasn't a full blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder but she was someone with a lot of narcissistic traits and features. She likely had a lot more mental illness than anyone ever knew, and because she refused treatment, it all got worse and worse and worse until it culminated in...this:

It's there in black text and printed on white paper sent through a black and white laser printer before being stamped with a seal authenticating that everything is true.

And Karu doesn't know how to feel about anything. Karu wrote this on FB:

I don't know how to feel about it, honestly. I know the four of us came up with an explanation of a freak accident but I wonder if we're all just trying to convince ourselves it was a fallen match head or some other thing to avoid looking at the elephant in the room. It's easier to say "it was just an accident" than admit it was intentional, that someone was that fucked in the head and would choose intentionally light themself on fire.

Sometimes the obvious explanation is the right one. And there are plenty of suicides where the person purposely makes it look like an accident or some kind of natural cause, so it could be that.
Aleks told me to not blame myself. This was not my fault. And I don't blame myself because I've been trying for years to get her to go back to a psychiatrist and back on medication for bipolar disorder and whatever else was bothering her. But she refused. Vehemently so. Insisted there was nothing wrong. I told her if she didn't get help and get on meds and stay on those meds I would leave. She refused. I held my bottom line and left.

I tried. My brothers both tried. She refused. You can't help someone who doesn't want help.
Aleks said, "You want to help and save all the kittens and you want to help and save everyone. You can't. No matter how much you want to, it's impossible. It hurts like hell, but that's life, that's reality. Sometimes you have to help yourself. You put the oxygen mask on yourself first before helping others on a plane."

I don't know how I feel. I did my best. I tried everything. Do it for me, do it for your granddaughter, do it for yourself. Nothing mattered.

It's just a strange feeling. What can I say?

To be quite honest, I don't know how to feel about it either. There is no sense of "victory", no sense of "evil has been vanquished". It's a feeling of sadness, of "another life lost to the darkness". But I don't know if Karu is even feeling that. I can't speak for them. I can only speak for myself...and I don't know what I feel.