My son had parts of him that he shared with very few of us. After his death I found some his poetry on his computer. It is very dark, very personal, full of pain. The title above is the last line of a poem he wrote in February. I haven't reached the point where I feel I am strong enough to share them, but his writings demonstrate his need for some kind of respite from his terrible emotional pain.
At Michael's funeral, our minister spoke of depression and mental illness. Still, people differentiate between depression, mood disorders and mental illness. It seems to be that there may be no stigma attached to the first two, but as soon as the word "mental" is tacked on, then emotionally many just back away. People are just uncomfortable with, embarassed by or unable to express any kind of condolence with anything "mental". I know some people think, "Oh Michael. Well, yes, he was mentally ill, you know." Had you known or seen my son, you would have had no idea that he suffered from depression and a terrible fear of being abandoned by those he loved and needed (a major symptom of Borderline Personality Disorder). He was handsome, funny, articulate, creative, professional in his work. Only those of us very very close to him knew the hell he was going through.
I was the only person who believed my son when he told me he was going to kill himself. Over and over he told me. One of the last things he said to me, about a week before he died was, "You just don't get it Mom. I AM going to do it. It's just a matter of how, and when." Five months before Michael died I told my doctor that I had accepted the reality of the possibility that I might lose my son. Still, I prayed for help. I tried making a deal with God, by telling him that if He would help my son he could have me. I got sick over the winter and I though, "Yes! God listened." But God doesn't bargain as far as I can tell. Many days in the last month I would drive to or from work and pray today wouldn't be the day that God would take Michael. Yet, on the night that I walked in the front door and immediately saw him hanging from the noose he had made from an electrical chord and hung over the beam on the patio, my brain registered, "So. It's come." During the chaos with followed I fought that thought, praying the advance life support people could revive him, slapping myself so I would wake up, screaming at God and others. Michael's sisters had had time to consider the possibility that he might not be strong enough to make it..so acknowledge the possibility of his death..but for any of us there was no time to say goodbye. His Dad and I said goodbye in the ambulance, where perhaps his soul might still have been close enough to have "heard."
But friends and family who had no realization of the depth of despair were left wondering how he could leave and not say goodbye. At the end he was very tired and confused and terrified. He did leave notes for some of us. And he wrote his beautiful three year old daughter a long and loving letter which at some point when she is older, we hope she will understand.
This is a quotation from Night Falls Fast by Kay Redfield Jamison, "Death by suicide is not a gentle deathbed gathering; it rips apart lives and beliefs, and it sets its survivors on a prolonged and devastating journey."
Today has been an okay day, a day of distractions, of trying to keep my brain from going to the sad place. I thank God for every minute I had with my son, but given the chance would argue a case with Him for giving him back. I need my son. I miss him so much.
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