October 2011

"I still feel the guilt as some of my family still blames me for his death"

Just because someone believes something about you does not make it true. Don't let them do that to you. Every one of us have made parenting mistakes. We have made bad choices in a lot of relationships. But that does not mean we meant our poor choices to be harmful to others. It happens sometimes, but there is a huge difference between making poor choices and planning something bad against a person.

For all of you that still struggle with this, a good way too look at it is like this ... if they would have called you and told you they were about to kill themselves, would you have ~ if you believed they meant it~ would you have said, "OK" and not cared? NO! Most of us would have tried to race to where they were to stop it. We would have done everything we knew to do to prevent their death. Even in cases where a mate was very abusive, it's rare for the person to really wish them dead and mean it. The abused may have those thoughts, but they don't really want them dead. They just want out of the situation they are in. 

I had a wife here once that had been in a bad domestic violence situation. This man was so mean that his family members wouldn't even go check on him when she called and told them he was suicidal, not even his brothers. It was 3 days before they went and found him. Fortunately she managed to escape, he may have taken her with him. She emailed me and told me that she felt so guilty because for the first time in years she didn't have to fear for her life or the lives of her children and it was a relief. That is NOT a reason for guilt! This man had a good side that she loved and missed, and she had to grieve him and heal. But it's completely normal to feel relief in her situation and no one should feel guilty about it. 

I hear many of you, especially parents, that had kids on drugs or bipolar kids ... completely out of control. You can't be a huggy, fun parent in those situations. Be realistic and be fair to yourself!! I know personally that it's a living hell if you can't get them on meds. It drains you physically and emotionally, and you're just trying to make it through the day without too many 'encounters'. Most bipolar people self-medicate with anything they can ... drugs, drink, whatever ... unless they are on med's to stabilize them. (They are out for what they want at that moment and nothing matters but getting their way) I completely understand what you went through. 

Anyway, my point is you have to look at this in a realistic perspective when you look back on it. In the depths of our pain, our love for them overshadows all the other stuff. I understand that. But you can't help someone that doesn't want help, no matter how much you WANT to help them. That is a true reality, no matter who you are. 

Come on, stop beating yourself up and put that energy into healing. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I repeat: you did the best you could do at that time with what you knew at the time. (I'm not saying to stop talking about it. I know you have to talk it out until you can lay it to rest, so please keep talking. It's part of the healing process.)

Fighting the depression

"I stopped caring about everything after his death.  I stopped celebrating holidays that were his favorites (Halloween,Christmas and Thanksgiving). Will this ever get easier?"

I may sound a little harsh in this, but I say it in love, I promise. We can stop caring about things (most of us do after a suicide) but we cannot stop fighting to heal and fighting to take our lives back. We usually want to run all the people out of our lives so we can be left alone to cry and hurt. But that is not fighting to heal. I forced myself to walk around a mall or Target or someplace just to make me go be around people occasionally. (I didn't have to run anyone out, they were gone) I drug myself to the mirror and gave myself pep talks ... "Louise, you are not singled out, this happens to thousands of people every year. They live through it and so will you. You pull yourself together and have the best day you can make. You  are not going to remain a victim in this. You may have been a victim the night it happened, but now you are a survivor. Not just a survivor, but a SURVIVOR! Now you get it together, girl." ....

Have you ever heard the saying "Don't let death swallow your life"? It applies here.

You force yourself to do things you don't want to do because if you don't, you will care less and less everyday. It won't be long until you are one of the ones that say they will never have a good life again. It's so easy to just let emotion take over and slide into that black pit. It's effortless. But it is SO worth the fight to become determined to reclaim your life and grit your teeth and go after it. I would have missed so many wonderful things with my girls and grandkids and yes, even friends, if I would have given up. Please take control of your emotions and don't let emotions control you.

If you don't know how to do that, let me help you. Instead of listening to sad music, play something that will lift your spirits. My girls used to roll their eyes at me because I would dance around my kitchen, with tears streaming down my face, singing "if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands" The singing and dancing may have been a pathetic effort, but it was the best I could do, and it was a start. I did that when everything inside me was screaming, "SHUT UP and go back to bed. Life sucks and you don't even mean what you're saying" ... you do it anyway, because emotion is not our guide. If it is, it will drag you all over the place and you will be an unstable mess. Self-discipline comes when you control your emotions and take charge of your life to make it what you want it to be. Fight to reclaim your life, guys. It takes time, but no matter how long you've been a survivor, you can start now and make it happen. You won't regret it.

Rituals on death date

"I have since started holding his yearly memorial with my brother who lost his oldest son 3 months prior to my sons death."

Not all survivors agree with me, but this is something I have always refused to do. I make no acknowledgement of his death date. It was hard work, but I'm glad I did it. There have even been a couple years where I didn't even realize what day it was until I got Tender Day email. I determined right from the start that his life was not about the way he died and his death date is not something I want to have 'remembrance' of. He was SO much more than his death, and I will not let the way he died define his life.

So instead, we celebrate his life on his birthday. We have brownies and mint-cho-chip ice cream (his two favorites) and celebrate that he was "ours". I love it and I will never stop doing it, even if I have to do it all alone. I celebrate my son and I will until we are reunited.   ♥

One of the things that was a vital part of my healing .... Rob is not just in my past, he is also in my future. He is as much in my future as he was in my past. Get ahold of that and  it will help you see this separation as a temporary one and not permanent. 

I care,
Louise