I have now reached a great precipice in my life. It’s been 14 months today since I lost my youngest daughter to suicide. And here I still sit, writing about the same horrible sorrow that I first wrote about in the very beginning. I have not moved on even one inch. I wrote this book which is the culmination of my search to make sense out of the senseless act that my daughter did. An act that she quoted “was the only thing that made sense.”
How does a mother come back from this? How does a mother who thought she was so connected to the very soul of her daughter get over something like this?
Over this last year I have marveled over some of the people that have lost children to suicide and their ability to at least give off an illusion of being able to make it in this world. I can’t even give off the illusion.
Please don’t think I’m feeling sorry for myself, because I’m not. I just do not know how to cope with this. I have times when the pain is not as intense, like when I’m with my other daughter. She makes me so happy and I love her so much. But I always go back to the deep depression and pain once I am back home and with my thoughts and memories again. You see, no one can help ease my pain and I don’t expect them to because it has to come from within me. But I don’t think it’s in me.
I see mothers that have lost their children to various means, and some recently, some I even know personally and they are able to get on the internet and still talk about other things, their faith in God, the achievements of others in their lives and I wonder why I can’t do this. I know they hurt as much as I do.
I feel so wounded. I feel like my very soul has been ripped out of my body and I am no longer the person I was. Everything I look at is painful.
I’m stuck in limbo. I can’t find a job. I feel uncomfortable being around too many people and I just …..well, I don’t know what to do anymore.
I guess when it comes down to it, no matter how much I understand depression and everything that is involved with it and even that I suffer from it myself….I can’t believe that Kaitlyn left me. I can’t believe she left her promising, successful life without so much as trying to get help. Only she knows those reasons. How could someone that was connected to me by our very souls just up and leave me? She left me knowing I adored her, that I would do anything for her. I would have done anything to have saved her, even given my own life. I loved her so much more than I love myself. I would have laid down my life for her. She hugged me tight as a toddler, she laid with me on the couch thousands of times to watch TV because she liked being with me. She got in my bed almost every Saturday when her father was at work and we would talk and talk. We talked about everything. And she LEFT me. She left me without giving me the opportunity to know that she was even in distress, without an opportunity to even help her. She left me. She left us all. The wound is as if it just happened yesterday.
I felt that when she died by my telling as many people as possible about hidden depression that her death would not be in vain. I have done this to the best of my ability. That mission is over and I feel like I’m no longer doing anything positive. My life is empty except for periods of happiness…but my overall life is miserable.
I don’t even know what I’m doing or saying anymore. I’m just ranting here tonight on the 14th month of her death (even though my blog may say 6-12-14, I am writing this on 6-11-14…my time zone does not coincide with this blog’s time zone).
Why do things like this happen? I know. There is no answer.
I know I have posted a lot the last few days. For those that subscribe to my blog, I’m sorry for filling up your inbox. But sometimes it has to come out and this is usually where it comes out.
My Bright Shining Star 
Rhonda, there is no getting over it. That is not something that will ever happen. The one thing and what seems to be the only thing, that happens is that you learn to deal with the pain over time. It has been 10 years this year for me, although the loss is a lot different from yours, but I still hurt, I still cry, I still wonder what happened and why it happened. My heart is always heavy with sadness because of how much I miss him. I have just learned to deal with the pain. There is no time limit on grief, no time limit on when the grieving will end because it really doesn’t ever end. I still play that day over and over in my head, the events that led up to that day, and the day itself… I know the answers and I know the situation and it does not make it any better… I have just learned to deal with it. 🙂
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I think Holly was brutally honest and right. It doesn’t matter how you wrap this up, yes, she up and left, that is a fact and it cannot be undone.
Whilst you may not see it or feel it, there is a gradual change in your writing. Now I know we have never met, blah de blah de blah… but yes you have almighty troughs, like this current period, but there is also an upshift in your sharing too. You write about good times, and you share some memories from years ago… I don’t think you would have or could have even considered that 3 months ago. So as much as you may discredit my version of the world, I do believe you are progressing (as an outsider; you may not see/feel it).
Anger and resentment are very real, but altogether natural reactions. You are obviously very angry at Kaitlyn, but at the same time want/need to mother and comfort her, but can’t.
I subscribe on WP, not email, so my inbox is happily empty, so there, that’s one thing less to worry over. I read your blog because I want to. You are never wrong or right; so just keep on being Rhonda.
SPIKE
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I had a friend who ended her life. I spoke to her earlier that same day. She left letters for a couple of people, not me. I spent MANY months so very angry at her for leaving me. I think it’s just part of losing someone to suicide.
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I don’t even know if you read my blog. In it I try to convey my feelings and thoughts, good and bad, for whomever but mostly for others in my position. I am further down this grief path but some days it’s two steps forward and five steps back. Grief is an unforgiving teacher that seems to take more than it gives in the beginning. As time wears on, you will find that there are revelations that you will connect to your loss. It hardly seems fair that we must learn whatever wisdom comes from a loss so tragic. But, you have already experienced this…you have written a book. You will continue to gain insight if you are open to it as I think most of us do who have lost children to suicide …we are always seeking answers. There are still chapters to be written.
I felt the same way about my son who died by suicide. We were very close and yet I would not get to know that he was suffering so badly that he would take his own life. I have been mad at God…not my son. After all… it is God who knows everything everywhere about everybody. After my initial anger subsided enough for me to take in God’s prevailing wisdom in all of this…my heart became more accepting of this horrible place where I dwell now….life without my wonderful son. I mean, what can I do about it? NOTHING except to say that the only thing I can hang on to is my faithful belief in life everlasting. If I did not truly believe then I would be in absolute terror all the rest of my life. Believe it or not, there is joy in that faith and belief. Now, I must share that there is hope and that all is not lost…even when we think it has been. Otherwise, what is my life about?
Sorry for the long reply. It came flooding from my heart.
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I lost my mother to suicide almost 2 and a half years ago. We had much the same relationship that you describe you had with Kaitlyn. I am so very angry with my mom for leaving me with this pain for the rest of my life. I saw her the night before she hung herself. We ate dinner together for one last time, but only she knew that it would be the last time. Less than 24 hours later, I received the phone call that she had taken her own life. She literally broke my heart.
I know what you are going through and how tough it is. Everyone is different in how they deal with this. I chose to move on and “forget” as best I could. Of course, there really is no such thing as forgetting in this case. I relive all of it like rewinding a videotape over and over again.
Please take care and know that it does get better but there will always be a scar.
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Thank you Holly. I’m so sorry you are sad as well. I can’t even begin to figure out how to deal with Kaitlyn’s loss.
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Thank you Spike. I know it sounds like I’m angry at Kaitlyn but it’s more like utter confusion at how she could leave the ones she loved the way she did. I speak of my own sadness but it hurt so many others as well. I have never even hinted that I was angry with her since her death, and I know this post sounded like it….it’s just that I’m so very hurt. And I do feel left, because I am left. Left with this empty shell of a life that I can only find momentary happiness in. But I DO understand depression. I also understand suicidal ideation as I have experienced it way more than once in the not distant past. I know how it is to love people so very much but feel like you can’t live in this world another minute. That is why I’ve never been angry with her. But I feel left. I am left. There’s no getting around that. Whether she was so far into depression that she did not see an option other than what she did….the fact remains that she is gone. I can’t undo it and that fact makes me feel so powerless and I am in this case.
Spike I do write of my memories of her, all the good times, and I have written about them all this time….so that is really nothing new. It’s just the good memories are fused to the pain and cannot bseparateded right now.
Thank you for trying to make me feel better. You really do help me whether you know it or not.
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I know Pam. Maybe if I didn’t understand how one feels to be suicidal I might really be angry at her. But I understand if unfortunately. But even so….I am so hurt. And I’m hurt that she hurt so much to do it. It just hurts all the way around.
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I really hope I can one day get to the point of accepting what happened and not being mad at God for allowing it to happen. So far I’m not there yet and I’m sorry if this offends religious people. I believe in Him. I’ve gone to church every Sunday except when sick or on vacation ever since our girls were born. But I’ve not gone since Kaitlyn died. Maybe he can be patient with me.
I have written a book yes, but I still don’t feel like it has reached as many people as I wanted it to, though if it saved only one person, it was worth it. If nothing else, it is a tribute to my daughter and a little insight.
I’m rather an odd beastie. (I’m using a phrase Maleficent used on the movie yesterday) in that my feelings are ever changing and fluctuating from day to day, sometimes from hour to hour. Sometimes I want tor write pages and pages. Sometimes I want to write nothing at all. Sometimes I think writing is a good thing. Sometimes I think I do too much of it and ought to say my use to be normal private self. I’m way too sensitive and even more so since Kaitlyn died. If I had a dollar every time someone told me I ought to grow some thicker skin I would be rich. But I just can’t change that aspect of myself. My skin never builds the calluses it needs to acquire so I will not feel pain easily.
Anyway, thank you for your insightful reply. I hope I can get to at least where you are.
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Thank you for sharing your experience with me. I don’t think I remember you ever sharing with me that your mother took her own life. I am so sorry about your losing her and especially like this. Kaitlyn broke my heart too. But in order to save my sanity I realize that no one’s love could have saved her….not even mine. But then again…..even that does not help in the way one feels when someone leaves them like this. She just had such giftes and talents and intelligence that I wish she would have tried to save. But maybe she thought she had too much to lose by admitting she had a problem. All these things I think are true….but it also helps me not to be angry with her. So instead of being angry with her, I’m angry at everything else. I know that does not make sense.
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Perhaps it is the religious aspect that has been the most disappointing to those of us who have been faithful for most of our lives. I will say this….I have become more spiritual and less religious since my son’s death. Church no longer fills the gap. I attend less frequently but read more…hungrily searching. That is where I am now…and peace does come in the middle of this tempest. You have that to look forward to, but it is a process.
All I begged for in the beginning was peace because my heart was so very devastated and in a trillion fragments. It is with God’s help that my heart has been reconstructed and my mind, too. There was no way I could ever have believed that I would be saying this but here I am. I, too was very sensitive and would get angry at anyone for anything and I didn’t mind telling it like it was. I still feel this way on some days but I have seen a mellower side appearing. i don’t think you can go through what we have been through and not change…it can go badly or it can go well.
You said: “Maybe he can be patient with me…”
I believe He will.
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I was very angry (bitter is a better word) with my late wife. I blamed her for choosing to leave me all alone… not through suicide, but through smoking. Anger at the “is she hadn’t have smoked, she’d still be here”. Senseless anger, bitterness and regrets… all par for the grieving course I guess.
Keep writing… can’t do any harm. Be safe.
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I see that you already have an Anonymous who comments on your blog, so any comments I make going forward, I will use Anony12319 instead of just Anonymous. I am not the same Anonymous you were already communicating with. I just wanted to let you know to avoid any confusion!
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Thank you. That would have been confusing. 🙂
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It is exactly 17 months since Vic passed. The pain is no longer as raw as it was. It is however there and nothing will make it go away. I miss her every single day of my life and I am filled with bitterness because of her death. gentle thoughts and hugs from me to you.
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Thank you so much for your comments. I am so sorry that you suffer so much. I don’t think my suffering will ever lessen. At least it does not seem so…..ever.
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I lost my sister to suicide 3 years ago.. that means that my mother also lost her daughter, like you. I can promise you it gets easier. Yes, we still cry, somewhat regularly.. There are definite triggers. But, we get out of bed every day, and we move forward. The grieving process, however, does take a while. 3 years later, I’m just now really getting into therapy and overcoming some things. I think the most important thing is to not think about yourself. What I mean is, that suicide is way more complicated than that. Just because your daughter left you, doesn’t mean she didn’t love you, or that she wasn’t going to miss you. My sister wrote, in her goodbye letter to me, that the hardest part of it was leaving her family behind. But when you’re have that tunnel vision, you just can’t come up for air. I myself, having dealt with bouts of depression and suicide attempts, can guarantee that it has nothing to do with other people. The urge comes from within.. I never once thought that I didn’t love my family, thus I will kill myself. It’s always been about something more, something deeper.
I hope I’m not rambling too much and I hope I haven’t offended you in any way! I’m just trying to bring some peace to your life. Suicide is possibly the most complicated form of death. It’s way more than just a loved one dying. You’re left with a million questions that just may go unanswered. It’s hard, it’s complex, it’s not pretty. But for you, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. You can come out of this grief even if it takes a while. Know that you are loved and thought about.
Many positive vibes coming your way,
-Hilary
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Thank you Hilary and you did not offend me in any way whatsoever and you did not ramble. I understand and agree with everything you wrote. I know Kaitlyn loved me and the rest of her family very much and she knew we loved her. I also know how it feels to be so loved and have a good life and still want to die. It’s horrible and you’re right, it has nothing to do with others and it does come from within.
Losing someone to suicide that you loved with your entire being is a very complex loss as you say. It’s not a natural death…it’s not anything else, but its where your loved one was so miserable they didn’t want to live any longer and with it is a vast array of horrible feelings those that are left behind are left to deal with. But I know she loved me. I’m not angry with her. I never have been and never will. It’s just that sometimes I do feel so “left” even if I do understand the complexities of the reason someone takes their own life.
Ultimately, it’s just all so horrible.
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