20 months.

18: 46  At this time, twenty months ago, I had seen my son alive for the last time, but I didn't know it.  I was out and he had made his decision and unknown to me or to hid Dad upstairs, was just finishing things up by making his last few phone calls.  In the time that it will take me to write this, on that night, he will have taken himself away from the pain and desperate unhappiness with which he could no longer cope. 

As I type I glance down in the right hand corner of my laptop and watch the time pass and am acutely aware that as each second passes I am that much closer to that time.  I feel the panic starting to build as it always does as I allow myself to go to the sad place.  It's almost like even now, all these months later, there is still time for me to do something to head off Michael's suicide.  18:49

Today I've been reading back through comments I've been sent and I realize that many I've not responded to.  I think part of the reason for this is that writing about suicide, surviving suicide (not the attempt but the loss caused by), the loss of my son, mood disorders, leave me emotionally drained afterwards.  Please understand that for me this is a good thing.  But one of the comments I read today was one I had read before in response to something I had written about reducing the medication I take.  Although the comment was anonymous I knew right away who had written it and I trust this person completely and value their opinion.  The writer reminded me that having known me both on and off prescribed meds, their opinion was that I did much better on them than off. 

I do.  That doesn't mean I like to take them.  Meds have side affects and for me when I'm starting to feel better that part of my brain that wants to be like everyone else says "you're doing okay..you don't need the meds"..it happens every time!  Now, imagine someone with a more severe mood dysregulation and possibly stronger medication going through the same process.  The results can be terrible.  Normal emotional roller coaster rides are made far far far worse. Withdrawal, if unsupervised can have devastating physical side effects.  I'm bringing this up right now only because today was a beautiful day and although it is the 20-month anniversary of Michael's death I actually thought earlier this morning...."Hey. I'm doing okay..maybe today is a good day to start to cut back on medication x"....I'm a pretty smart woman, so what part of me just doesn't get it, even now???

Mikey really fought the whole idea of meds and he took strong medication that left him, at some times, in a fog.  He couldn't keep food down, his beautiful thick hair was falling out, he lost so much weight, his hands shook, and still he couldn't cope and couldn't get help and at the end he just quit taking everything.  19:09...slow deep breaths...I can feel it coming...in twenty minutes I will go and stand out on my patio where I found my boy. 

I am grateful that I have a support network to remind me that I do better by staying on the regime my doctor has me on for now.   Easier for me.  I'm a woman..(people are for more accepting of women taking mood regulation meds, than they are of men)  Does it come down to this??....I know of two men who will openly talk about the importance of them staying on their prescribed medication for mood dysregulation.  Two!  You guys are my heros!   Coming out of the "medication closet".  It shouldn't be an issue..but it is and it's part of the reason we lose people to suicide.  That's not to say that everyone taking meds for depression, or bipolar, or borderline, or any number of illnesses would end up committing suicide but we would lose fewer if there wasn't a stigma attached to mental disorders.  19:18......watching pictures of Michael on the digital frame. 

So...will go and place a pill under my tongue and go out onto the patio and light a candle for my boy. 
Michael, I love you.  I wish you could have stayed here with us.  We miss you so.

19:22.  Good night.

Strengths and weaknesses

A long time between posts.  There have been many times when I wanted to sit and write but didn't.  I worked so hard this summer at "getting better".  I don't think one "gets better" from the loss of a loved one to suicide.  That is the only perspective I can speak from. We may learn coping skills, we make medicate, meditate, drink, pray, run away; I've done all but the drink and that is only because I do medicate.  We read and we write and we weep.  We reach out to friends when we are frightened or feeling alone or just looking for some validation for the despair we feel.  This summer I've done all these things and because I have such wonderful friends and family I understand on the blackest days, the days when I don't think I can go, that I have to, and more than that, that I want to.  I just don't want to want to.  Does that make any sense? 

I've realized that I am a very strong woman.  But to my way of thinking, strength shouldn't be compared to emotion.  Yes, I weep every day.  That doesn't mean I'm weak.  It means, well, it means I am very sad and I miss my son and I am so sorry he had to suffer so before he chose to leave. 

One the other hand, I saw my son as a strong man who fought long and hard to stay healthy but was eventually betrayed by the chemicals in his brain causing his mood dysregulation, by the medical system who cannot help so many, by Health Canada for ignoring his diagnosis and refusing him the help he needed to successfully return to work. I do not see his act as one of weakness, but as one of despair and strength to end is pain  before his illness took him to places and decisions he did not want to go to or make.    Healthy people do not do this.  Desperate, frightened, pained people do, people whose ability to cope with the pain in their life has been surpassed.  We are not the ones to judge what causes pain to another.  God know this.  God doesn't judge those who commit suicide.  He understands.  He is a compassionate God who sees the suffering I believe honestly that He gave my boy the emotional strength to take his own life.  Michael was terrified of dying but more terrified of living.  He prayed to God that he had known as a child, believed in but only really went to in times of trouble. 

My worst times are when I rememer our last two years and recall how frightened and lonely his was after his marriage ended, how he grieved for times he couldn't spend with his child.  I think those memories are harder than his death.  Because the night he committed suicide I knew his pain had ended. 

I have poems he wrote about what was going on in his soul as he was deciding to stay or leave.  They are heart breaking because I feel so strongly there should be choices other than living or dying.  There should be help.  And there is so very little. 

I have a friend who has a son going through what my son went through.  He no longer wants to live.  His mother is dying of cancer.  He has other issues but talks suicide.  He can't get help..please God don't let us lose him too because we don't really know what to do to help these people.

I would like to hear from anyone who is in a similar situation.  Here in our little town we are starting a suicide survivor group.  I think there are 7 or 8 families who have lost children to suicide.  Way too many...any is too many.

I'm a bit sleepy now..it was an emotional day..but I needed to check back in...this is my place of safety and support.  I'm going to go and write to my son now.

Waves

Today marks another tiny milestone along the way; I have completed everything to do with Michael's estate.  This has been a difficult process.  I really dragged my feet on it, I  admit.  When Michael died he didn't leave a will so it turned out that I had to apply to administer his estate.  The lawyers suggested I use a lawyer to do this and their estimated cost was between $3 000 and $5 000.  I felt that the lawyers had already taken too much money and I felt and still do that they contributed in their way to the terrible stress my son was under.  So, I went to Staples and bought a Probate kit ($39)  After 16 months,  a few mistakes, about $500, and with help from a friendly woman at the probate office, my local notary, and a wonderful girl at our bank...it's all done.  But it saddens me because I feel like it's a thread that held me to my boy and it's been broken.  This feeling will pass I know but it's a sad feeling nonetheless.

I've put on a movie, lit Michael's candle, closed the blinds and shut out the world for the rest of the day.  This is self indulgence, I know but I have a wicked summer cold and it feels right to sniffle and shuffle about in big clothes.  It's mid-July, and I want to turn on the fireplace.  I might.  One of the things I'm learning  is that it's okay for me to do things to make myself feel better. 

Here' s something else I've been doing the past few weeks: taking movies out from the library and watching them during the day.  Such a peacful way to take my mind off myself and the dark thoughts that persist.  Today I'm watching Julie and Julia and I love it.   It reminds me how much I love to cook..but I've really gotten out the habit.  The focus of my day is still, then, to get through it without making it worse.  I've had a couple of days over the last few weeks where I've not been successful at all.  I have made them worse. It's such an easy thing to do...far easier than you'd think.

When I started to write today and had things I wanted to say but it was mostly just to check in.  I'm going to take my cold and curl up under a blanket and watch my movie.  I miss my boy. It's almost 17 months.  It can't be that long.  How have we survived without him?  God what I would give to see him smile once again or to hear him laugh.  So...here it comes...the wave.  But it will pass as it always does.  The sun is trying to shine so I'm going to open the blinds and try to brighten my thoughts. 

Remembering

Standing upstairs ironing just now I was listening the radio, a station called "The Crooner's Lounge" from somewhere..and "I'll Remember You" came on.  Naturally I was thinking of Michael and it came to me that people shouldn't have to remember their children in the sense that those of us who have lost children remember them.  To me, remembering  means recalling from somewhere in our memory and I wonder if any of us every have a moment when we feel that our child is actually gone.   Remembering incidents, funny and sad things..that's different. My feeling is that the soul of our child is always with us, especially the mothers among us. 

On a different thought:  I don't read back through my posts to I don't know if I've done this already but here is a list of books I have found helpful over the past 16 months.

• Touched by Suicide, Hope and Healing After Loss, Michael F. Myers, M.D. and Carla Fine
• No Time to Say Goodbye, Carla Fine,
• Suicide Survivors Handbook, A guide for The Bereaved and Those Who Wish To Help Them, Trudy Carlson
• Healing After the Suicide of a Loved One, Ann Smolin, C.S.W. and John Guinan, Ph.D,
• Night Falls Fast, Understanding Suicide, Kay Redfield Jamison
• An Unquiet Mind, Kay Redfield Jamison, and
• A Brilliant Madness, Living With Manic-Depressive Illness, Patty Duke and Gloria Hochman.

Three books given to me by close friends, but ones I've not read yet are:

• Peace Begins With Me, Ted Kuntz, M. Ed
• Overcomers, Inc.  Lynne Klippel, and
• Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert.

In the first group above, the last two are specific to dealing with Manic Depressive Illness as well as some about Borderline Personality Disorder.  The first five deal with the aftermath left when a loved one chooses to end their life.  I still read them because at times when I question my sanity it helps to hear/read that these are thoughts many of us have. 

Last September just before the start of the Suicide Awareness gathering in Vancouver, we met a couple vacationing from the US.  We were wearing our t-shirts with Michael's picture and Suicide Prevention Week printed on them and they came up to us and asked if the picture on the t-shirt was our son and then asked when we had lost him. Then they told us they had lost their boy a few years ago. He had only been 12.  Only twelve years old..and they had been blindsided because they'd had no indication of the degree of his despair.  At my darkest times, I know that I was allowed to "prepare" myself for my son's death.  Although it made for years of worrying because it has  been my deepest fear for years, it also gave me a bit of an emotional overcoat I think.  Because of this I've never asked myself  "Why, where did this come from"..not in the true sense of the question.  I think I've asked myself "why MY boy....why no help?"...but those are different questions. 

Each of the books on suicide that I've listed above has a  comprehensive reading list and  support groups directory  There are many online support groups.  I have tried a couple but feel too disconnected from the ones I've tried.  Sadly, that is only because there are so many of us who have lost friends and family to suicide.  So very many. 

I'm working on finding meaning in Michael's suicide and in my own life.

If at first you don't succeed

Well, THAT didn't work.

Step one: open closet door;
Step two: run hands over shirts, hoodies, golf pullovers
Step three: breathe deeply;
Step four: bury face in brown hoodie;
Step five: breathe deeply:
Step six: Cry, and
Step seven: close closet door.

I will try another day.

14 months plus

I had one minute of insight into Michael's suicide today and I can remember it to re-tell it but the moment has passed and the questions have started again.  This is how it went:

I had wanted to have a memory quilt made for Michael's daughter and I wanted something in his handwriting to her to photo copy.  The only thing she has is his suicide letter to her and I asked her mother if it would be alright to photocopy a line of it to put in the quilt and in going through papers to file Michael's income tax I found it.   The line reads "I will love you always and forever.  Love, Daddy" and then the date he wrote the later.  That date was 15 days before he killed himself and I realized that when my granddaughter is older she may ask why Daddy wrote a letter two weeks before he committed suicide.

I believe Michael had decided to take himself away from this earth, from his suffering, from the demons in his life unless one thing in his life changed and I believe he held out hope for that one thing until the late afternoon he died.  I think something must happen inside a person's soul when that time comes because he made phone calls but certainly to those he knew would stop him he didn't let on it would be his last phone call.  I do know he did let one person know what he was going to do and that person did nothing.  He made that phone call about ten minutes before he hung himself.  How I wish that person had called the police, the ambulance, us.....anyone...or said..."just wait five minutes, I will come over"...the phone call from Michael might have been one last call for help, or it may not have.  It may have been a "please take care of my family" call, I really don't know because I can never ask.  The pain would be too great.  I do know what triggered his decision that day, that hour, that minute and there is no blame to be attached to that.  But I wonder why the person he spoke to, the person he told he was going to kill himself, the person who knew he was unstable, didn't call anyone. If he had had another half hour I would have been home.  I can't stop these thoughts.  They drive me crazy, they give me nightmares.  they keep me broken.

I know this kind of thinking is common to suicide survivors.  Maybe the specifics vary a little but the unanswerable questions, by their nature, will never stop.  It was fourteen months yesterday that Michael ended his life.  Our pain is as great as it was the night he died.  I still wait for the phone to ring and every now and then I send an email to his account(s).  Please don't misunderstand me.  I am NOT looking for peace.  I am NOT looking for happiness.  I am looking for my son..I want him back. I will miss him with every fibre of my heart and soul until I join him.  But I will NEVER ever turn my back or ignore anyone asking for help.  In memory of my beautiful son who never turned his back on someone in need I will try.  Trying is better than not trying...I know I am rambling but my thinking is all over the place this afternoon. 

Will talk again soon.

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.