Suicide is sadistic. And masochistic. Sometimes both.

In “Attempted Suicide in Adolescence: The Suicide Sequence,” Jack Novick turns to “sadomasochistic pathology with the delusion of omnipotence as a core fantasy.” Novick establishes that this pathology often manifests itself in “the tendancy to make the therapist responsible for whether the patient lives or dies.”

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Novick, “Attempted Suicide in Adolescence: The Suicide Sequence,” in Essential Papers, 524-48. See also, Hendin, “Psychotherapy and Suicide”; Birtchnell, “Psychotherapeutic Considerations in the Management of Suicidal Patients.”

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News soon reaches the Grand Executive of the Healthcare Industry who decides he must see for himself. The Grand Executive arrives in the plaza and surveys the scene and discerns the danger and quickly Christ is arrested. He is charged with charlatanism and thrown in jail. One evening the Grand Executive visits Jesus alone in his jail cell. For some time they sit facing each other in silence until the Grand Executive begin to speak. He explains to Jesus that Jesus’s chance to work miracles for the masses was two millennia ago and that that window has long been closed. And besides, says the Grand Executive, you won’t be here forever. You can’t be here forever. This is not what is written. You’ve gone off script. This, what you’re doing, right here, is not part of the story. You are trying to squeeze in a coming between comings and that is too many comings. Were you so lonely up there? Did you not get enough adulation from afar? Are you that starved for attention? If all this human suffering bothers you so much could your god not have done better from the very beginning? The sins of the Father, as they say. And the Grand Executive has a point.

And so you just had to make an appearance, continues the Grand Executive, pulling out your magic wand and wave it all around. No, said the Grand Health Executive, shaking his head with disappointment. This simply won’t do. It’s time for you to go. This is our time, he continued, to provide heath care within reasonable parameters at profitable healthcare rates. It is a sacred trust. An unbreakable bond made in your absence and instead of your presence.

And with that the Grand Executive stands up and walks out of the jail cell, leaving the cell door wide open. You are free to go, he says. And don’t worry. Our people have already labeled you a con man and a scourge on society and the throngs of people who once cried out your name now want to string you up and stone you while you hang. How’s that for adulation?

This last story comes from Chapter Fourteen, “Know Your Healthcare Rights.”