Only Time

This past weekend was another tough weekend. Sunday in particular was a particularly emotional day.  I take these days as they come.  There no longer is the expectation that the pain will lessen.  But today was a better day so I want to look back and see if I can find out what happened and when to cause that wave to come and knock my off balance.  It might be because the other day I started to write about plans for Michael's birthday.  All it took on Sunday was to have our minister ask us to name who we wished could be there with us at Church.  My son was not a church goer but he is who I wanted.  The tears started and kept up all day.   This line is from "Finding Your Way After the Suicide of Someone you Love" and it seems to say what I feel perfectly. 
      
       "I felt like my cycle of pain...would continue year after year, and that was what I would call 'life' from now on"

     
These are the days I believe that I will never laugh with true happiness, rather than laughing out of politeness, and that I will never feel truly happy again.  I want to find a way to be happy with my life without dishonouring or being disloyal to my son and this is what I can't figure out how to do. 

In the book I'm reading the questions are posed," Will it always be this way?  Will it ever be possible to do more than just barely survive each day?"  Sometimes not.  But, sometimes.  And I hold onto that "Sometimes".  Right now I have no idea what it will be like to be a suicide survivor because I'm still in the process of taking the baby steps necessary to move towards some place of peace, some place of being able to deal with the overwhelming guilt, the unbearable pain of losing my beautiful boy and the internal struggle to keep myself in that pit of despair. 

I'm not there yet. Not by a long long way.  Only time will let me know if when I'm there. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0NoHN1TU5I

It's my bewitching hour or perhaps I should say, these are my bewitching hours.  Anytime after about noon I am most comfortable here at home.  I was up early and down to the coffee shop with my book before I usually get there but I was restless this morning and I've come to count on the ritual to provide the start to my day.  I meet with a friend or two, chat, solve the worlds problems and then seem ready to face the rest of the day in whatever way I can.    Three days ago I decided to increase one of my mood stabilizers (with Dr's okay) as I was really starting to have some very dark times.  And for the time being I've told myself that it's okay to use the drugs prescribed to do what they are supposed to do..which is really keep me functioning. 

Today is the 17 month anniversary of Michael's death.  Although he left us on a Thursday it was the 25th of the month.  Has there been any improvement for us?  No, not really.  We've come to understand the tears and rages and loneliness and regrets more, that's all.  We smile in remembrance more I guess. There was no smiling for the first very long time.  But it still seems such a waste to us.  And we remain convinced that more can and should be done to help people with mood disorders.  We need more research, more education, more understanding, more support, more acceptance.

I've just read a book by Michael J Fox:  Always Looking Up, The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist.
The book is uplifting because it is funny, sad, factual and honest.  It is mostly about his fight with Parkinson's Disease and the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson's research.  I have to admit that I read this book because in part of 1964, 1965 and 1966 my best friend was his sister Karen and a friend who had read the book before me knew this and told me she was sorry to have to tell me but that Karen had passed away.  I can't remember any of Karen's family although I know I've been to their house on the base. But at our 30th school reunion we met up again and what I remembered about her, her smile and giggles were the same as when we were 15.  Now, the Michael J Fox foundation raises millions and millions and millions of dollars and I wondered how people who don't have connections to wealthy and famous people do the same.  The Michael Cuccione Foundation in Vancouver does the same for cancer.  Michael Cuccione (the uncle) was a co-worker of mine.  Maybe I can ask him for suggestions.  I don't know...but my son can not have died for nothing.  My girlfriends boys cannot have died for nothing.  The youth who are dying from suicide every day here in our province...because there was no help for them...something must come from those souls who have left us here without them. 

I have joined the Mood Disorder Association of BC and will join the Mood Disorder Assocation of Canada as well as the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention.  But I'm just one grieving mom.  It's going to take more than just me. 

I'd love some feedback on what others are doing.  How are you managing? Are you moving on with your lives? 

For now I'm going to curl up with a book and spend the afternoon with my boy. 
Take care.

observations

Well, this is the third week back at work, and by third week I mean the fifth day, and by that I mean that I have just finished the 20th hour.  That's about all I can say about that.

I am very aware these days of life and lives around us moving on.  Our days pass but we remain in the same place.  I feel very disconnected from the real world.  That's just an observation, not a complaint.

The words don't come today for some reason, but I had to try. 

Another couple of observations:

• I can't deal with stress anymore
• I'm still angry, although not at my boy
• I will never have the opportunity to deal with a lot of my anger
• I like my grey hair
• I should not be working where I am working because I no longer believe in the system

I miss my son.  I can't describe the feeling..black, sharp-edged...ugly.

Time to go dig in the dirt.

On Getting on with things.

Because part of my reason for chronicling the journey I travel following my son's suicide, is to help others who find themselves in the same position,  there are some things I want to say about suicide.  Carla Fine, in her book No Time to Say Goodbye, says:

      Coping with any death is traumatic; suicide compounds the anguish because we are forced to deal with two traumatic events at the same time....the level of stress resulting from the suicide of a loved one is ranked as catastrophic...the initial impact of discovery scars us forever..."

I will never be the same person I was 15 months ago again.  I feel guilty that I am alive and Michael is not.  There is nothing that can or will ever change those feelings.  But Michael lives on in my heart and will forever.  Apparently, according to the "experts" in order to move on, I must begin to be able to separate Michael from his suicide.  I'm not there yet and I don't feel guilty about not being there yet.  One day, with luck that process might begin. 

I have "friends" who no longer talk to me and I know it's because they are uncomfortable with the manner of Michael's death.  They feel that suicide is a sin.  Fundamentalists.  In their book Suicide and It's Aftermath:  Understanding and Counseling the Survivors, Charles Ruby and David Clark point out that the Christian view of suicide as sinful and forbidden evolved in the second half of the first millenium AD.  Did we understand depression, mood disorders, psychiatric illness then?   Hardly.   Why do some churchs still judge? Is our God not a God of compassion and of understanding?  That's my belief and I'm comforted by Rubey and Clark's theory that it's unlikely that God judges suicide as either moral or immoral because He understand that a person who takes his or her life is "experiencing the kind of pain that is the hallmark of illness or depression"  When Michael died, a Catholic priest who Michael had talked to many times, came to our house and sprinkled Holy Water over the ground where Mikey lay.  My minister has been here a number of times and we go out and stand  and pray where Michael left us.  So...here is my advice on this, if any of you are finding the same thing...or worry that your loved one's leaving damned them eternally.  Please don't let yourself be taken down that road. 

I question daily what Michael would want me to be doing.  I've been told that he would want me to be living my life, to be carrying on.  I do this every day just be waking up, breathing, getting through the day, going to bed, waking up, breathing....it's enough for me right now. These are still such early days.   I understood my son, and he understood me.  We were cut from the same cloth.  I have struggled with debilitating depression most of mylife.   The mood swings started in my late teens.  I passed these genes on to my children.  Michael will understand my struggle.  The one thing I do know for certain is that Michael would not want me to take my life to follow him.  He took himself away from us for a number of reasons and some of those reasons were very unselfish reasons. I do not believe suicide is selfish, that is is a coward's way out, that it is a sin.  I believe a healthy person does not take his or her own life.  I believe that despite all our wonderful achievements with medicine, we have not figured out how to cure things like depression, BiPolar, Boderline, Schizophrenia. I believe that not enough resources are put into these illness because there is still some kind of stigma attached to those things "mental". 

 Michael will not be saying, "C'mon Mom, get on with your life", because he will understand that sometimes you just can't.  As I said before, maybe, hopefully, there will be a time when I want to make plans.  Or maybe not..I don't know.  But in the meantime I will advocate for my son, for other's like him....did you know that not so long ago the Cancer was whispered, much like suicide is now whispered?  It's by shouting the words that we contribute to understanding and acceptance of things.  So..SUICIDE IS A PERMANENT SOLUTION TO A TREATABLE ILLNESS.  SUICIDE IS PREVENTABLE. 

 Michael, I love you. 

missing Michael

This morning brought us a little nice weather so I've been planting.  I'm changing the colours in the little back yard we have to be more blues and whites. I have a nice look bluish-mauvish hydrangea sitting out where I want to plant it, a white azalea, white irises and three pink bleeding hearts, all on the west side of the yard.  There is still lots of room over there for more.  A friend in Ontario is sending me some white climbing hydrangea cuttings and I'm thinking of a rhodie for the corner. The other side is coming together slowly..in the meantime the pansies are so pretty.  My oldest daughter sent a planter filled with whites...My "Michael's garden". 

My husband has just uploaded (downloaded?) some Jim Croce music and it's playing while I sit here taking very slow deep breaths in, reminding myself how much Mikey loved music.  So I'll listen because he, like his dad, found solace in it.  I don't yet. 

My last entry was about planning a fund raiser in Michael's memory.  This week I'll be meeting with someone from the University Michael graduated from about having a commemorative scholarship made in his name, in the discipline he was in.  Up until now all donations in his name have gone to support DBT (dialectical behavioural therapy) and Suicide Awareness and the Mood Disorders Association of BC, but we don't want Michael's life to be identified by only that part of his life.  He was SO much more than that. 

Monday morning I am making my second attempt at going back to work.  The return will be very gradual and I would be lying if I said I was looking forward to it.  The truth is I'm terrified.  Part of me feels so strongly that I'm betraying my boy and the other part feels I am showing him "they" have not defeated our family.  Please God, let some good come of this. 

There's a line in the song I am listening to right now.."and sometimes at night I think I hear you calling my name.  These dreams they keep me goin' these days."

Miss you Mikey.

broken limbs among the flowers

Months and months ago..probably shortly after Michael died, our counsellor said to us that one day we would find that we hadn't cried that day.  Then it might be that we hadn't cried for a couple of days.  I didn't believe her.  But then one day it happened.  I realized that I hadn't cried the day before and I felt terrible, wondering how I could have not shed a tear for Michael, for our family, for myself.  Let me say here that because there are moments, days even, when I don't cry,  does not mean that there are moments or days when Michael isn't in my thoughts.  It's difficult to explain, but if you can imagine viewing everything through a sheer curtain, that's what life is like now.  I view everything through a curtain of memories of Michael. 

This morning though is a morning of tears.  Michael's candle is burning and our digital picture of frame of pictures of Michael is on and I look at those pictures and am still struck by the unreality of this.  This cannot be.  He can't be gone.  Not forever!?  Am I waiting for him to come back?  Waiting for him to say God gave him another chance to come back if he wanted to, and he did want to?  I would still make that bargain with my God.  I will go and Michael can just come back to those who love and need him. 

For now I will go outside and work on the little area I have as Michael's garden.  His angel fell and it's leg broke off the other day.  I had a moment of panic and then realized that there is something very special about broken angels so Michael's broken angel is sitting amidst the primulas with his leg propped up beside him.  I love it. 

confessions of a grieving mom.

I forgot that I get more out of writing than I give.  Feedback from friends, old and new, helps me so much.
I've been away for a few days and had some realizations about things that have happened since Michael's death so I'm going to write again  Because if you are in our position or know someone who is, maybe knowing that someone else feels these things will bring a bit of a feeling of normalcy.

1.  I cannot bear to hear a child cry. It breaks my heart because I can see they are trying to understand and it's just to much for them right now.

2.  I cannot bear the sound of an angry voice.

3.  I am angry because I think I am the only person who believed Michael was going to take himself away from us.  The only one...and I don't understand this. 

4.  I believe that I know myself better than anyone else and I believe I know that what I feel is real is is not going to ever get better.  This is about more than grief.  This is about being broken.  Being broken is okay, lots of things are broken and still function, they just function in a different way.  I am not the same person I was thirteen and a half months ago. 

5.  I am sorry for so many things I did in my life. But things done cannot be undone.  They can't be changed.  They can sometimes be forgiven but sometimes they can only be accepted or acknowledged as just being or having happened.  That's me.  It goes something like this:  "Yes, been there, done that, wish I hadn't but I did. It's something I have to live with".

6.  I love my son and I will always honour the decision that was only his to make...but I wish he had been able to get the help he needed to stay with us. 

7.  I play Animal Crossing because Michael's character is still on there.

Confessions.

Steps

5:30 a.m. I am lighting the first candle of my day.  Early morning has always been my favourite time of day.  I was looking back through my baby books the other day and saw in Michael's that some of the entries had started with comments like "Baby boy, you are still asleep as it's early morning...".  Now, even though he is no longer here in body, I continue to write to him early in the morning. 

About a month ago I was able to stop taking one of the meds I'd been taking for nearly three years.  Although that is a good thing, one of the results is that I have distressing dreams.  Sometimes Michael is in my dreams but not often.  Someone who knows about dreams and their significance would probably have a hay day with them, but I'm not interested in trying to figure them out.  Every night I fall asleep hoping he will visit me in my dreams.  I'm tired this morning but after a dream much like Toad's Wild Ride last night I'm afraid to go back to bed. 

One of the effects of Michael's suicide last year my fear of committing to anything.  I have probably mentioned in earlier posts that I am a volunteer pianist at church.  The night Michael died I had gone to choir practice, even though he had been telling me he was going to kill himself.  What was I thinking at that point???? I don't understand how I could have left, but I think I must have believed that it was just another very bad night that he would get through.  I would only be gone for an hour or so and then I would be home and we would work together at keeping him safe.  But I never got the chance.  He killed himself while I was out and while his dad was upstairs.  Somehow God must have given me a bit of a warning because I remember opening the front door and looking directly at where he was.    I'm digressing...what I started to say is that I find it very hard to go to choir practice (or anything else) in the evenings now because I am afraid something bad will happen while I am out.  This is why I haven't been able to return to work.   The thought of my workplace reminds me of those last six months with Michael and it brings on a real blanket of anxiety, almost a feeling of suffocation.  I'm not explaining it very well but what I'm trying to say is that now, a year after his death, I'm starting to understand some of the feelings I'm having.  It's almost like there are layers to grief and the top layer has peeled away exposing a different fresh layer.  This layer is different but it's still raw and painful and frightening. 

My minister commented the other day on the fact that I seemed to "be doing okay."   She's right.  I am doing okay.  But I do okay by doing the things I need to do and avoiding the things I need to avoid.  When the ability to do that is taken away from me I start to flounder.  This is what happens when I feel I have to commit to something other than my family.  I can't do it.  I'm afraid.  I need it to be okay for me to be afraid.  The time will come, I believe, when my soul will have healed enough for me to do these things.  That time just isn't yet.  I'm sorry if I disappoint people but right now I'm the person walking in my shoes and I'm doing the best I can.  The love and support of friends and family continue to give me strength to get through my days.  But it's baby steps and I'm okay with baby steps.