suicide survivors

Day 12

This is actually my second “Day 12” post: I deleted the first one because out of my wounds, I may have wounded another. As I heard John Mark Comer state, “our wickedness is fueled by our wounds.” I was childish in venting my frustrations with a person to the public, and I owe that individual and anyone who read my first post an apology. This is not the time, place, or space to address something of that nature. Especially because I know that person is hurting, too.

It’s heavy. It’s burdensome. Thoughts and sentences and simple human interaction, right now, is hard for me, it’s hard for my family, and it’s hard for our entire community. We all need grace, and grace in abundance.

Most of the time, I simply feel sick. I have no appetite [but don’t worry, I am eating], I feel nauseous and out-of-it and sad. I feel grateful, I feel sad, and I feel numb. Humans are so complex, how is it that we feel so much at the same time?

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We have been provided for in every way from the generous people from our church: “Give us this day our daily bread,” comes alive when each meal we have has been provided, with each meal perfectly supplying enough for my family each day. That has been beautiful and heartwarming and uplifting. People have been the hands and feet of Jesus each day, serving us, providing for us, ministering to us, and caring for us, and it has been astonishing and incredible to experience.

I cannot over-emphasize how grateful I am for our community and how in-awe I am for how we have been treated and loved.

I’ve never felt more provided for or taken care of than I do right now. “God is near to the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit” Psalm 34:18. I believe that now more than ever, despite my inevitable deconstruction. I believe it’s far easier to dismiss God than to have faith and trust in him under circumstances like these — this is when faith and trust becomes real.

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Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning — Specifically Suicide Survivors

Saying “It doesn’t matter how they died,” is dismissive. When someone takes their own life, there is no natural cause, no illness, and no accident to blame.

Someone bereaved by suicide can only blame the person who committed the act, and his/her self. Suicide creates an arduous mental cycle. For me, it plays out something like this…

• I’m angry at my mom, she did this to me

• I’m confused. Why didn’t she reach out? Anyone would have helped her, I would have helped her

• I’m sad. She was in so much pain. What was she hopeless about? Why was she despairing?

• I’m confused and wounded. I don’t know what it’s like to have or to lose a child, but I cannot imagine she would give up life with her three living children because she was so desperate to be with her son. Her son, my brother, who also took his life.

• I’m sad, and I’m guilty. Did she know I loved her?

• I blame myself. Why didn’t I notice her? Why didn’t she want to confide in me? What did I miss?

And the cycle repeats. These are thoughts are examples of how suicide survivors think and process this type of death: grief from natural causes does not require this mental load. Thus, when one says that “it doesn’t matter how she died,” it points to their ignorance of the psychological impact and damage suicide survivors suffer.

Yes, all death is painful and comparing types of deaths certainly does not help anyone, but please try to understand the differences between a natural death and someone taking their own life.

Acknowledge the suicide survivor’s pain, and acknowledge your own pain. Vulnerability leads to life, bypassing of any type (spiritual bypassing, avoidance, denial, etc) leads to death. Take care of yourself — bypassing is not worth it.

Day 7

I’ve never appreciated the term “Celebration of Life,” but that’s exactly what we experienced today.

The sacred beauty of funerals presents itself in the friends who show up, the people who tune in, and the unique set of individuals determined to listen and observe the stories of a life once lived.

Today you found out how my mom died: you learned the news we wish we did not need to share. I hate that this is part of Mom’s story, and I hate that it is part of mine.

When I think back over the years, maybe every day we had with my mom since Patrick died was a miracle — maybe it was a miracle before even that. We’ll never know, and that’s severely painful.

I thought this past year was the best year of my life. I thought we were all having so much fun. It’s abysmally burdensome to reconcile, but I do know that multitudes of feelings may commingle — joy with sorrow, anger with relief, frustration with love.

As was said many times today, “May we never be defined by our worst moments.” My Momma was so beautiful, and she loved life, and she endured an unimaginable despair. Both were entirely true.

Thank you for my Momma’s beautiful Celebration of Life. She would have loved it 🩷

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning — Specifically for Suicide Survivors

If a cause of death is not published immediately, it is likely because it is due to a highly sensitive cause of death – such as suicide – It is rude to ask the family “What happened?” prior to the family’s announcement. Curiosity is natural, but respect the family when a cause of death is not mentioned.
Do not ask someone how their loved one took their life. This is also quite rude and this information rarely helps.
Do not ask if “foul play” was involved. Suicide is one of the harshest ways someone can die — a survivor of suicide wishes more than anything else that their loved one did not take their life.
Do not ask if their loved one left a note.

Everyone wants to make sense of a horrible situation, but most questions of this nature are extremely insensitive to suicide survivors.

Future Ways to Help

Listen. Create a safe space for the wounded. A survivor may want to share details such as how their loved one died, this is a privilege and not a right. This sacred information should be honored with respect and reverence.

Reminder for the GoFund Me set up for my Daddy. Our family has an immense amount of trauma to rehabilitate from.

Thank you for loving my Momma 💙

Day 11

When my eyes open in the morning, a fresh onset of “this is life now” sets in and burrows sorrow deeper and deeper into my soul. Heaviness surrounds me in the black room and my tired eyes do not search for light, they simply stare at the ceiling, wishing my Mom was still here. Deep breath. The pain accompanies me every moment, but the dark quiet incubates it. Here, it’s raw and vulnerable and sad.

I’ve never been very good about jumping out of the bed and getting ready for the day, but now getting out of bed requires much more effort than simply awakening from a sleepy stupor.

We went to the zoo today, which I suppose is good, but I have very little interest in doing much right now. Exhaustion has set in – at first I was not sleeping, now I am sleeping at night and napping during the day. No matter what time or where I sleep, persistent dreams come alive. I am so out of sorts.

Daily Tip for Communicating with a Person in Mourning

I love your daily messages. Some via text, some via instant messenger, some commenting on these posts. I have not responded much to them, but I do appreciate them. Facebook comments are the easiest [quickest, really] to read right now, but I like the instant messages / texts too. I am just a little slower at opening those. Your messages help. I like reading about your experience and it feels validating and comforting to see your support, prayers, and encouragement.

Day 10

Day by day, more people leave, and tomorrow our last visitors will travel home. My nuclear family, all that remains, will experience one week together before some return home to North Carolina.

Then the “new normal” will really start to settle as we grasp for new routines.

My mind strives to protect me by covering me mainly in denial. Most of the time, reality feels miles away. I dream constantly of my Mother: dreams telling her why she shouldn’t leave, dreams of me finding her in witness protection, dreams that continue to deny reality. A properly-working mind knows when one has the capacity to wake up to reality, but for now my mind operates mainly from shock and denial.

I am anxious for when my mind will allow me to feel everything it must, for “pain demands to be felt,” and thus it’s only a matter of time.

Today, I am simply grateful again for everyone’s phenomenal support.

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

The less decisions a person in mourning needs to make, the better. Mourning requires an enormous amount of mental energy, and helping make a decision alleviates a bit of mental fatigue.

Day 9

Our second church service since Mom left us filled me with encouragement once more. A healthy amount of tears dripped from my sore eyes onto my pallid cheeks as we sang of God’s good plans, his faithfulness, and his constance. All of which I believe, and I mean really believe.

However, I mentioned the dissonance between faith and desperate circumstances during Mom’s Celebration of Life, and I want to share more of what exactly that looks like. Suffering forces people to confront their inmost beliefs, and that is completely healthy and can become beautiful. My Mom loved Jesus with her entire being: the cacophony of confusion left in her wake prompts intense introspection and deconstruction.

Our Father in heaven,

your name be honored as holy.

Your kingdom come,

Your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And do not bring us into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.

Matthew 6:9-13, CSB

Now, please understand, I’m not looking for answers and I do not plan to provide any at this time, but I do want to share the questions clamoring in my mind. Thoughts that, perhaps, cloud your mind as well. Maybe sharing my thoughts will help those echoing the same to feel less alone and less afraid, because two thoughts can be true at the same time: one can trust God and be utterly confused and skeptical at the same time. Thus, my questions:

• Good fathers are supposed to protect their family. Why don’t you [God] protect mine?

• If Jesus is the abundant life, how could my mom die? She loved him.

• If he [God] knew what Mom needed, why weren’t her needs met?

I’ve said this so many times — I believe that God can do all things, but I fear what he will allow to happen. This is precisely why: I have not experienced twice how despair and hopelessness kill those whom I love, and those who legitimately love Jesus.

Today, I was incredibly overwhelmed by the generosity and the care from mine and Scott’s small group. They ensured our current needs were met and provided provisions for our future needs. My family has experienced such incredible and support from people being the hands and feet of Jesus, and, because of them, right now my faith remains strong. I wrestle through these complex questions, but it is abundantly clear that we have our daily bread, that God is providing and caring for us, and that we will get through this. I cannot thank our community enough for all they have done. You have eclipsed this horribly dark and tragic time with light and love and I am amazed and humbled at all of this. Thank you.

Tips for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

Acknowledging the situation is better than avoiding the topic altogether. It may be awkward to speak up, but a simple “I see you,” goes a long way 💙

Day 8

Funeral preparations cease but a few friends and family members from out of town remain close. Reality slowly creeps in as the whispers of finding a “new normal” lingers just around the corner. In a matter of days, most of the world will return to work while we begin to reorganize our lives.

My Daddy, of course, will have the most significant adjustment for his day-to-day life. Already, he sleeps without my Mom, but he has not had to experience a “typical” day without her. They were partners, they were friends, and they were lovers. I always thought they really would be that couple from The Notebook: I never thought this could happen.

Their relationship was an anchor in my life. They endured and overcame agonizing trauma together again and again and again, and they were the best of friends. Growing up, I always wanted a marriage like theirs. Since getting married, I still wanted a relationship like theirs! My marvelous husband and I watched their love for one another with reverence and admiration. They were such an amazing team. They loved being together and they loved each other well. It’s difficult not to be really angry with my mom when I think of their truly inspirational marriage… and then it’s really, really, really sad.

As my brother Luke reminded, my siblings and I had never known a world without Mom until eight days ago.

Rehabilitation — that’s the word that keeps bustling through my mind. Learning to live without Mom feels like rehabilitating back into normal society: walking, driving, talking, biking, writing, smiling, and so much more, feels so foreign and unnatural. I feel as though I can barely hold a thought or concept in my mind.

Denial persists more than anything right now, a dull ache thumps within me at all times, but most of the time I can’t believe my Mom’s gone and I can’t believe my mom left me feels like a distant thought and not an annihilating reality. My Momma, I still mumble in shock. Moments of mayhem pierce me to the core, preparing me for when the shock wears off and when I’ll have to truly face this menacing reality.

My Mom grounded and anchored my life, creating stability and safety. What now?

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

I have provided many things not to say — all of which from comments multiple people have made, not just one-off comments as to not single anyone out — but there are so many good things people say as well.

“I’m sorry” feels like such a weak thing to say, but it encompasses a tremendous amount of emotion and care. The short phrase empathizes with the mourners and often creates an understanding between two hurting people.

Future Ways to Help

Small tasks are incredibly helpful — doing a load of laundry, wiping down a counter, calling to set up a dental appointment. Sometimes it’s hard for me to even remember to put a pair of shoes on – it’s invaluable to notice those little things that may be neglected and to help one another out.

We’re a grieving community, and we’ve got this 💙

I Write to the Griever; I Write to the Friend

Shame cloaks one in fear. Fear keeps one in isolation. Isolation repeats the cycle.

It’s the tragic irony that prohibits us from knowing how to reach out to others when we need them most, and it’s often that same irony that keeps others from reaching out to us.

The concealment of shame safely shields one from oneself and from others – at times I have been afraid to voice my concerns and share my story simply because the story itself frightened me. Sharing makes life’s nightmares more real. Other times, the fear of another’s someone misunderstanding has kept my fingers from typing and my mouth from speaking.

But where does one turn when he or she internalizes those matters that are too dangerous to share with others?

I look to words – to books and to music, to poems and to plays – but what happens when there are no words?

The prevalence of centuries of literature whispers God’s mercy: one looks to the Psalms for comfort and contrition, the Old Testament stories and New Testament parables for history and application, and the prophecy books for detailed truth of who God has always been. These precious words preserve timeless truth. It is God who bestows light and life into man, and man who reflects the image of God (Genesis 1, John 1).

Mankind mirrors fractures of God’s mercy, not because God’s mercy is broken, but because we are broken and fallen creatures. Mercy cracks through the brokenness of man, reflecting the glory of God, through the gift of man’s words.

Words meant to heal, words crafted to explain, words written to comfort. Words to bring the shamed out of isolation and into compassion: words powerful enough to help the confused and broken feel understood and validated.

I didn’t get those words. I couldn’t find them.

When my world fell apart, I fell with it, and there were so few resources to explain. No one writes about the loss of a sibling, though most of the deceased are survived by siblings. It’s rare for young people to experience and detail loss.

And grieving a “complicated death” (ie: suicide, murder)? Some psychologists write to attempt to explain, but few first-hand accounts exist. These deaths are shrouded in the shame of the survived, leaving the survived isolated, tabooed, and unreached.

I intend to share the depths of a griever’s experience as a sibling, as a friend, as a woman, as a youth, and as a survivor. In weeks to come, I will share excerpts from my journals to convey the intensities of loss and the miracles of mercy. Some excerpts may be incredibly intense and seem hopeless, but these are the details of redemption and lament.

In the end, we’re each the griever and the friend.

So, let’s break the cycle. Truth is not powerless. Isolation, shame, and fear are powerless.

Grays, Blues, and Splatters of Red

Apprehension gathers around my temples and sends shakes into my hands.

I feel calm: I smile to myself as I peer into my rear-view mirror, fighting the duplicity of my inner turmoil. We’re nearing the end of the year, the end of the decade. So many endings. 2020 looms menacingly behind a two-week’s notice, and its emanate arrival bubbles conflict within me.

bubbling… boiling… overflowing… overwhelming… apprehending.

I don’t feel calm: tears kiss my quivering lip, fear desires to relinquish the skirmish in my mind.

Am I going to believe what I know to be true?

I know God is good. I know 2020 will hold good things. I know I’ve had a lot of joyous moments in 2019. I know the progression of time is natural. I know ending the year numerically/measurably separates me from pretty terrible experiences from 2019.

This year feels like finishing a chapter of a Stephen King novel; the horror is over, but the adrenaline from terrors pulsates through one’s veins and makes him aware that the books is not finished and that more trepidation awaits. With apprehension, the reader begins the next chapter.

I know I’m not living-out a horror novel, however, Jesus literally promised “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). I know that, and that’s easy [for me] to believe. He also declared, “I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance” (John 10:10) and compared, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him” (Matthew 7:11). Somehow, those two facts are a bit harder for me to believe.

These truths I know, but I battle each day to believe them. I echo a millennia-old cry: “I believe! Help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24).

I exhale, imagining the year altogether. An overwhelming year amplified by increased stressors from the past few weeks. I’m tired of fighting. I reminisce on the past year in color: grays, blues, and splatters of red.

Gray. The color of endings—colors fade into a vortex of grays. From dust we came and to dust we return (Genesis 3:10). It’s the color of loss, of hopelessness, of abandonment, of absence. A sky convulsing with beating rains.

Blue. The color of sadness—shades of somberness in waves of emotion. As deep as the ocean, as expansive as the sky.

Red. The color of passion—drops from the hands, the feet, and the head of Christ. It indicates hurt. Likewise, it’s the color of life, of love, of anger, of danger, and of longing.

Apprehension gnawing at my soul and shivering in my hands, I petition myself again: Am I going to believe what I know to be true?

I know James was earnest when writing “the testing of your faith produces endurance,” (James 1:4). I know that God works all things together for good (Romans 8:28). I know that it is God who works within me (Philippians 2:13).

But oh, how hard it is for me to believe that my pain will not be wasted. How easy it is for me to believe that all of this is for nothing. That my pain is meaningless, that my words are meaningless, that I am a failure because I do not always believe the truth that I know, and that my pain will be wasted because it’s not easy for me to believe in goodness.

It’s hard to see the world around you when you’re filtered through gray, blue, and red. I am of little faith. I cling to the truths I know—I see God’s mercy, provision, and grace all around me—even while I shudder at thoughts of the future.

Yes, I’m happy to leave 2019. But 2020 will be the first year of my life without Patrick, and that’s never something I wanted to write. I will no longer live in the year of his death. The closer we get to the date, the more apprehensive I become.

It’s not that I don’t trust God with the future. I do. It’s simply hard to look forward to an unknown that currently holds little tangible hope–yet, my hope is in Christ and I know that my hope will not be put to shame (Romans 5:5).

Hebrews 11, a chapter exemplifying people of great faith, begins with “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not yet seen,” Hebrews 11:1. I have faith that God will bring good things from the dark year I’ve endured, but I also know the reality of their lives: “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (verse 13).

“Remember the promises of God,” many tell me. I remember them, I acknowledge them, and I cling to them, but I know that I might not live to see his promises fulfilled.

I—we, my friends—may never witness one drop of goodness to come from the tragedies in our lives, but we will experience God’s faithfulness. While not tangibly measurable, if we surrender ourselves to Christ, we are guaranteed to see some promises fulfilled. We will experience sanctification. We will experience knowledge and growth. My broken perspective doesn’t make God’s workmanship any less true.

We might not see the goodness amidst the darkness of today, but we can see God’s faithfulness. We can see God’s mercy, and we can trust God even when we cannot seem to believe.

Pain’s Assault

Just when I think I’m going to be okay, the Pain materializes, reeling me backwards. He grips me by the waist and drags me back, viciously ripping through the cavern between my lungs. I attempt to remain calm, strong, and steady, but the horror engulfs my helpless body, robbing my mind of the ability to fight; so I let Pain do what he must until I’m numb and lifeless. Sometimes there are tears, more often it’s a silent defeat. The ambush renders me vulnerable and knocked down: my fears and my weakness keep me pinned to the floor. He hijacks me of all breath, and I halt: If I process enough now, maybe he won’t attack me for a little while longer. If I stay here long enough, maybe I’ll learn how to get up again. With new crevices carved into the cavern between my lungs, I’m weak, I’m alone, and it it’s dark. Oh so very dark.

I’m weary. My eyes year to rest and the gloom tempts me to surrender. Alone, this Pain attacked me. Pain contends to conquer as tears swallow my widening pupils, and, for a moment, he does win.

He comes haphazardly, begging for me to release him—Pain reminds me to feel. He reminds me to heal. He reminds me to rest. He humiliates me.

When I’m hapless in his grasp and I think that all is lost, Pain flees. My pupils dilate to a soothing light—the Father. As suddenly as Pain assaulted, Christ enters, picking me up and tenderly drawing me into him. He pierces through my shame, in my sorrow, and amidst my pain and becomes my strength. While I am oh so weak, he carries my burden in exchange for his own. He liberates me from my despair, calming all my fears, and restores me in his presence and with his community. He reminds me of his faithfulness amidst a world prone to abandonment.

While I lie bruised and bleeding, he cleanses me of the wounds and addresses each trauma as it arises, assault after assault, revealing the the stripes he paid for my ransom.

I crumble before him, grateful, humble, and in awe of this loving Father. He dresses my wounds and sends me back to my safe community—his church, his nurses—who see my lacerations and come along my side to help me heal.

No, they weren’t assaulted by Pain this time, but their pasts preserve the stories of their own scars. This time, they’re stronger and they’re waiting to help change my wounds. They don’t have my PTSD, they don’t live with my the memories, and they don’t know my horrors, but they see the manifestations of my fresh injuies.

With God guiding us all, they come along my side and teach me how to walk again. I’m nimble and uncoordinated, requiring tenderness and patience. I’m more sensitive than before. I’m afraid, but I don’t want to be paralyzed forever, so I continue learning to walk by pressing into God and into his church.

I’m a survivor. I survived the initial assault. I live in the aftershock. The horror has ceased, but its affects linger on.

— — —

I am healing—slowly, messily, gracefully, and dutifully—healing.

The days fluctuate: some are easier than others, some I cannot seem to concentrate and conceal the tears. Others follow the pattern detailed above; sometimes the emotions surprise me and I feel like I should be “over it” by now, holding myself to a nearly impossible standard that, in turn, prompts me to feel failure, inadequacy, and guilt. Grief is love that has lost its object of affection, and one cannot simply terminate one’s love, even if that love has been stripped from him or her.

So, I take “one step forward, and five steps behind,” and my healing progresses.

In the first three months after Patrick died, absolutely nothing made sense anymore. All of my hopes and dreams and understandings collapsed within those months, and I was terribly afraid to live and to breathe and to know and to be known by others. I was angry with God and angry with myself. Disillusioned and then disappointed, I thwarted any intrusive thoughts of hope and of goodness. Life couldn’t be good, I thought. But, realistically, I was [am?] afraid to hope that life could be good again. My hopes had been so violently stolen from me that I dreaded the thought of hoping again. How can one continue to hope when someone else continuously takes everything she’s hoped for? No, I won’t reduce myself to hoping again, I bitterly resolved.

Hope is a terrifying thing. While alive, she helps us receive joy and cherish moments of mundanity, but if she perishes, we’re left behind with the trauma and disappointment of “hope deferred” (Proverbs 13:12).

Nothing made sense anymore, and I did not want to make sense of anything my family and I were left behind with. I harbored so much pain that I became too terrified to face it alone. Most people I live near hardly knew Patrick—I cannot emphasize how isolated that can make one feel—and yet those nearest to me continue to graciously love, support, and encourage me despite my inability to pour myself out at this time. God’s kindness and mercy broke through my “shelter” of self-preservation and He’s teaching me how to breathe in this new rhythm of life.

Perhaps we search for depth in others because it helps us process the depth of ourselves; we need one another and speaking helps more than I can explain. At first, I was so afraid to voice my pain. I was afraid that those around me would not be able to “handle” the truth of where my heart resides and would invalidate my feelings and my questionings, but, nonetheless, those in my life persisted to investigate my heart despite my protests. God has opened my eyes and continuously opens them to see his mercy, and my dear friends continuously pursue me to show me how much they care about me.

In this season, I don’t have much to give. I’m overflowing with questions and slowly coming to a new understanding of life itself. I am inquisitive and I am learning.

I have to remind myself that the worst has already passed, and now I can enjoy a season of disciplined healing: one cannot heal if he or she lacks the willingness to do so. Every day is new, every moment is precious. I see and feel new growth and new life all around me as I rest in God and I pursue healing in the shelter of his love. God has been so kind to remove my fears and to reveal new truths to me.

I am hurting, and this will always hurt, but I am happy and I am abiding in peace.

Exposed