Hi All,
It is has been a really long time since I last wrote. I am not quite sure where the Summer has gone. Here it is September already...huh. The Summer was fun, and chlorinated, and swimmy, and sunny. It was in many ways what the doctor ordered as the antidote towards the cold numbness of Winter and the startlingly alert Spring. My grief seems to have changed with the seasons and to have ended up somewhere new and different as we approach Fall. Winter was just nothingness. Spring was pain. Summer was perspective and some relief and some healing and some sadness too but Summer marked a more simple grief for me. I found myself more often missing my Dad and less often replaying the events that lead to his death. Not that I don't still do that a lot but I don't do it everyday or maybe it is everyday still but not for as long. That may surprise people not used to this sort of thing but the thoughts are frequent and by frequent, yes, I mean daily and in the beginning hourly. How did this happen? Why did I do this? Why did I say that? Why didn't I do or say? And then just the event itself as an image burned into my brain that may get smaller but wont go away. Surviving the suicide of my Dad is not how I thought it would be. I am not how I thought I would be.
I disappoint myself some days with how I cant just rise above it. I surprise myself other days with how far I've come and how much I've risen above it. Some days I feel strong and clear and ok. Other days I feel the opposite--and not as ok. Lately, I have been better about not questioning my own sanity. In the beginning I wondered often if his mental illness was happening to me. My therapist (God bless her) continues to assure me that this is not the case and as she is reassuring me I wonder how it must feel to have to reassure someone of the same exact thing almost every time you meet with them. She doesn't seem mad or surprised though, so I think it must be (at least a little) normal.
The times when I have disappointed myself the most are related to my family--not my children but my sister, my Mom, my husband. I cant even put into words how much I have wanted to save them from this pain, to protect them from this pain, and then when that failed how much I wanted to then (at least) be strong, sane, and helpful. I wanted to go on my first vacation since my Dad died and help everyone. I wanted to smile from the moment I woke up until the sun went down just out of gratitude and wisdom and compassion but instead I was exhausted, anxious, and emotional. Yes, I had moments of smiling and playing and relaxing but I also had a lot of other moments where I was just getting thru it. Slogging thru it. I might be the only person who ever slogged thru Amagansett but I did. I saw the beach and cried. I thought of how much my Dad loved the Jersey Shore and I cried. Tears down beneath my sunglasses. Tears while the kids made sand castles. Tears while my husband walked away with my daughter on the beach. Tears when no one was watching, tears when they were. I felt like a failure. It took me almost until the vacation was over to relax. It took until a few days ago to forgive myself for being hurt, selfish, sad and to accept that and own it.
9 months ago my Dad took his own life. The severity of the pain, the completeness the loss, shattered everything that I thought I knew about myself and about life. Where I sit tonite is in a new place and I am, in many ways, a new person. The other night a man was speaking at a meeting about being suicidal--I could barely sit and listen but I did. I wanted to say something to him after but the words would not come, stuck inside my throat they stayed. I thought You are important, I said nothing.
A week later I saw the same man. I walked straight up to him and I opened my mouth. I said, "I am sorry that I didn't say something to you the other night when you were speaking but I am really glad to see you here tonite. I said "Depression is awful and Im sorry you are going thru it." He smiled. I could tell it meant something. I felt the force of the words and then I grabbed his hand before I walked away and held it tight. He smiled.xx
It is has been a really long time since I last wrote. I am not quite sure where the Summer has gone. Here it is September already...huh. The Summer was fun, and chlorinated, and swimmy, and sunny. It was in many ways what the doctor ordered as the antidote towards the cold numbness of Winter and the startlingly alert Spring. My grief seems to have changed with the seasons and to have ended up somewhere new and different as we approach Fall. Winter was just nothingness. Spring was pain. Summer was perspective and some relief and some healing and some sadness too but Summer marked a more simple grief for me. I found myself more often missing my Dad and less often replaying the events that lead to his death. Not that I don't still do that a lot but I don't do it everyday or maybe it is everyday still but not for as long. That may surprise people not used to this sort of thing but the thoughts are frequent and by frequent, yes, I mean daily and in the beginning hourly. How did this happen? Why did I do this? Why did I say that? Why didn't I do or say? And then just the event itself as an image burned into my brain that may get smaller but wont go away. Surviving the suicide of my Dad is not how I thought it would be. I am not how I thought I would be.
I disappoint myself some days with how I cant just rise above it. I surprise myself other days with how far I've come and how much I've risen above it. Some days I feel strong and clear and ok. Other days I feel the opposite--and not as ok. Lately, I have been better about not questioning my own sanity. In the beginning I wondered often if his mental illness was happening to me. My therapist (God bless her) continues to assure me that this is not the case and as she is reassuring me I wonder how it must feel to have to reassure someone of the same exact thing almost every time you meet with them. She doesn't seem mad or surprised though, so I think it must be (at least a little) normal.
The times when I have disappointed myself the most are related to my family--not my children but my sister, my Mom, my husband. I cant even put into words how much I have wanted to save them from this pain, to protect them from this pain, and then when that failed how much I wanted to then (at least) be strong, sane, and helpful. I wanted to go on my first vacation since my Dad died and help everyone. I wanted to smile from the moment I woke up until the sun went down just out of gratitude and wisdom and compassion but instead I was exhausted, anxious, and emotional. Yes, I had moments of smiling and playing and relaxing but I also had a lot of other moments where I was just getting thru it. Slogging thru it. I might be the only person who ever slogged thru Amagansett but I did. I saw the beach and cried. I thought of how much my Dad loved the Jersey Shore and I cried. Tears down beneath my sunglasses. Tears while the kids made sand castles. Tears while my husband walked away with my daughter on the beach. Tears when no one was watching, tears when they were. I felt like a failure. It took me almost until the vacation was over to relax. It took until a few days ago to forgive myself for being hurt, selfish, sad and to accept that and own it.
9 months ago my Dad took his own life. The severity of the pain, the completeness the loss, shattered everything that I thought I knew about myself and about life. Where I sit tonite is in a new place and I am, in many ways, a new person. The other night a man was speaking at a meeting about being suicidal--I could barely sit and listen but I did. I wanted to say something to him after but the words would not come, stuck inside my throat they stayed. I thought You are important, I said nothing.
A week later I saw the same man. I walked straight up to him and I opened my mouth. I said, "I am sorry that I didn't say something to you the other night when you were speaking but I am really glad to see you here tonite. I said "Depression is awful and Im sorry you are going thru it." He smiled. I could tell it meant something. I felt the force of the words and then I grabbed his hand before I walked away and held it tight. He smiled.xx
