My ex killed himself three years ago this Valentine's Day, and I'm starting to feel it.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Georgia
Posts: 3,062
Although my divorce and my FIL suicide was many years ago, I feel like I'm finally dealing with the loss associated with each now that I'm sober. My first couple of years of sobriety were about me, but now I feel like I'm getting outside of myself and dealing with different levels of loss I've experienced in my past that was related to my drinking and using. I'm sorry you are sad. I have found blessings in feelings. Thinking of you.
now's the time
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 2,181
Thank you. There is a lot of kindness on this thread and it means a lot to me.
A guy we knew, a photographer, had a photo on facebook of the two of us when we'd just met. I wrote to him about it and he's going to send me a high res copy. I'm moving into a new apartment next month, it'll be my first sober apartment, and I think I'll put the photograph up somewhere.
I had another ex die (it was a shorter fling; but also a suicide, and he was also an addict) and I have his picture up. Just a little one, to remind me of him when he was happy. But the second ex was too complicated and I was too angry. I didn't date for four years after him because it frightened me so much that I'd trusted someone who became dangerous. I forgive him, or I think I just started to. I think that's why this hurts.
It's really settling in for me that he died when we were 29. It already feels weird to be older than he'll ever be. I can't believe it's real. He had so much time to figure out a way to be happy.
It's so surreal to me that he did it on my sobriety date. This time of night 3 years ago I was vomiting blood. I ended up at the hospital. The doctor was my age and he was condescending. I had an IV and went home and finally decided to quit drinking. And I got eight months. How could he die on that day? It feels too symbolic. I already don't like how neatly that fact fits him into my life like a character when he was a real person. I feel like we were so young, he had time to love only a few people and I'm one of them. I have a responsibility to remember him. And I can already feel how he's turned in my mind into a symbol. I feel like I've deliberately forgotten things about him that now I wish I remembered.
A guy we knew, a photographer, had a photo on facebook of the two of us when we'd just met. I wrote to him about it and he's going to send me a high res copy. I'm moving into a new apartment next month, it'll be my first sober apartment, and I think I'll put the photograph up somewhere.
I had another ex die (it was a shorter fling; but also a suicide, and he was also an addict) and I have his picture up. Just a little one, to remind me of him when he was happy. But the second ex was too complicated and I was too angry. I didn't date for four years after him because it frightened me so much that I'd trusted someone who became dangerous. I forgive him, or I think I just started to. I think that's why this hurts.
It's really settling in for me that he died when we were 29. It already feels weird to be older than he'll ever be. I can't believe it's real. He had so much time to figure out a way to be happy.
It's so surreal to me that he did it on my sobriety date. This time of night 3 years ago I was vomiting blood. I ended up at the hospital. The doctor was my age and he was condescending. I had an IV and went home and finally decided to quit drinking. And I got eight months. How could he die on that day? It feels too symbolic. I already don't like how neatly that fact fits him into my life like a character when he was a real person. I feel like we were so young, he had time to love only a few people and I'm one of them. I have a responsibility to remember him. And I can already feel how he's turned in my mind into a symbol. I feel like I've deliberately forgotten things about him that now I wish I remembered.
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: The Deep South
Posts: 14,636
Hi, Fantail. My mom, an alcoholic and prescription drug addict, committed suicide. It took me about three years before I could get sober and grieve properly.
Allow yourself to feel whatever comes up. It's ok. All of it.
I had so many different emotions. They're all valid.
Allow yourself to feel whatever comes up. It's ok. All of it.
I had so many different emotions. They're all valid.
now's the time
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 2,181
Thank you.
I'm here and I'm sober, which I need to remind myself is not nothing. Felt like crying a lot of the day but didn't. But I cried yesterday and the day before and it's actually the first time I have. I remember when I first found out I would have dreams that I was crying, but I don't think I ever did in waking life.
So I guess this is processing.
I hate knowing that the events that I was a part of started the slide that ended up with him dead. I know that it isn't my fault. But if we could rewind and we'd never met, a lot of the things that went wrong for him might not have.
I think next year I need to be off the grid for this holiday. I can't think of anything now except for the vulnerable people who it harms. The suicide rates are alarming yearly, apparently. It breaks my heart. What a stupid, stupid thing to hurt our loneliest people over. A day with no special significance in any of our lives.
OK. Some more crying it seems. And then bed and hopefully this intensity will die down when the date is over. I hope I hope.
I'm here and I'm sober, which I need to remind myself is not nothing. Felt like crying a lot of the day but didn't. But I cried yesterday and the day before and it's actually the first time I have. I remember when I first found out I would have dreams that I was crying, but I don't think I ever did in waking life.
So I guess this is processing.
I hate knowing that the events that I was a part of started the slide that ended up with him dead. I know that it isn't my fault. But if we could rewind and we'd never met, a lot of the things that went wrong for him might not have.
I think next year I need to be off the grid for this holiday. I can't think of anything now except for the vulnerable people who it harms. The suicide rates are alarming yearly, apparently. It breaks my heart. What a stupid, stupid thing to hurt our loneliest people over. A day with no special significance in any of our lives.
OK. Some more crying it seems. And then bed and hopefully this intensity will die down when the date is over. I hope I hope.
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: The Deep South
Posts: 14,636
Originally Posted by fantail 
Soberpotamus, I am so sorry. You must have been made very strong by that. 
I don't know how I would manage this any closer to my heart. It frightens me to even imagine.
I don't know how I would manage this any closer to my heart. It frightens me to even imagine.
I think it crushed me, to be honest. I know it did.
But ... we live. And I think, if anything, it helped me clarify and prioritize my life goals. It made me want to get sober and really live.
So, in doing what she did, she ultimately helped me. And I think she'd be glad for that.
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: The Deep South
Posts: 14,636
But I think it's important that you know it's ok to feel anything -- all those conflicting emotions, they're normal. They're all valid. You don't have to make sense of things. In time, the pain lessens.
I just want to give you some hope.
I just want to give you some hope.
now's the time
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 2,181
Today I just felt spent. Hungover kind of. Emotions remind me of binges sometimes. I look forward to eventually having other metaphors to understand them with.
A very nice coworker asked me, "Did you have a valentine?" and then "Why did you laugh?" and then thankfully got called away. I don't know what I would have said, knowing me probably something naked.
I need to get some meaning in my life. This experience has me realizing that after a brief effort my first two months or so to do the whole spiritual searching thing, I settled back into my default "life is probably meaningless so be nice and try to enjoy it" mode. Which is a valid philosophy. But it's really just the other side of my nihilistic I'm-going-to-drink-myself-to-death-because-nothing-matters routine. If I sit here relying on the subjective experience to justify itself and everything else, then his short life of pain takes me right back to the absence of meaning. When it's in the large abstract, I'm comfortable saying that the huge amount of unwarranted pain in the world precludes me from certain beliefs but otherwise just points me towards accepting that I don't know. But when it's this close to me, that's not enough.
No idea what this means for me. But I'm recognizing that other tragedies will come to me and to people I care about, and I am a person who will need to find some kind of meaning there or I will probably give up.
Ugh. Spiritual work.
A very nice coworker asked me, "Did you have a valentine?" and then "Why did you laugh?" and then thankfully got called away. I don't know what I would have said, knowing me probably something naked.
I need to get some meaning in my life. This experience has me realizing that after a brief effort my first two months or so to do the whole spiritual searching thing, I settled back into my default "life is probably meaningless so be nice and try to enjoy it" mode. Which is a valid philosophy. But it's really just the other side of my nihilistic I'm-going-to-drink-myself-to-death-because-nothing-matters routine. If I sit here relying on the subjective experience to justify itself and everything else, then his short life of pain takes me right back to the absence of meaning. When it's in the large abstract, I'm comfortable saying that the huge amount of unwarranted pain in the world precludes me from certain beliefs but otherwise just points me towards accepting that I don't know. But when it's this close to me, that's not enough.
No idea what this means for me. But I'm recognizing that other tragedies will come to me and to people I care about, and I am a person who will need to find some kind of meaning there or I will probably give up.
Ugh. Spiritual work.
Sober Alcoholic
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 3,539
Hi Fantail. I have been silently following this thread with interest. I can relate to the your feelings of nihilism. This was me for most of life. I did not see any other way of dealing realistically with reality. The vast amount of pain and suffering in the world made the experience of it seem quite meaningless. 'Making the best of it', that is, feeling the least about of pain possible seemed the only suitable way to deal with it all.
I'm reminded of a story. The story was told to a group of us during a week long seminar about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It was about a woman who's husband had brought home a firearm for the protection of his family. His wife was not completely comfortable with the gun, but allowed it to be kept in a drawer next to the bed for protection. Soon after this the husband went on a business trip.
One night while he was gone the woman was awakened by someone in her bedroom. She was very frightened, and believing it was an intruder she took out the gun and fired it. It turned out to have been her child making the noise, and the child was shot dead.
The group of us hearing this story were asked to think about what we might do to help this woman to recover from this horrendous event. We were told that we would be asked to give our suggestions at the end of the week.
All week we struggled with this. We spoke to each other inside and outside of the seminar trying to come up with something that might help this woman to deal with the tragedy. We were at a loss. It was a meaningless event, and it could not be undone.
At the end of the week we were asked for our suggestions. We had very little to offer. Then we heard the end of the story.
For some time the woman had struggled to find some meaning in the death of her child. Then, she decided she had to make it meaningful. She went around and spoke at gun safety classes. She told her story, in all its horrendous detail, to group after group after group. She told it to anyone who would listen. She was determined to make her child's death count for something. She spoke until she was sure she had prevented other deaths.
Was her experience meaningless? I guess it depends on what time frame you are referring to.
You are a bright and perceptive individual fantail, and while you did not cause what happened to your ex I have every confidence you will be able to find some meaning in it.
I'm reminded of a story. The story was told to a group of us during a week long seminar about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It was about a woman who's husband had brought home a firearm for the protection of his family. His wife was not completely comfortable with the gun, but allowed it to be kept in a drawer next to the bed for protection. Soon after this the husband went on a business trip.
One night while he was gone the woman was awakened by someone in her bedroom. She was very frightened, and believing it was an intruder she took out the gun and fired it. It turned out to have been her child making the noise, and the child was shot dead.
The group of us hearing this story were asked to think about what we might do to help this woman to recover from this horrendous event. We were told that we would be asked to give our suggestions at the end of the week.
All week we struggled with this. We spoke to each other inside and outside of the seminar trying to come up with something that might help this woman to deal with the tragedy. We were at a loss. It was a meaningless event, and it could not be undone.
At the end of the week we were asked for our suggestions. We had very little to offer. Then we heard the end of the story.
For some time the woman had struggled to find some meaning in the death of her child. Then, she decided she had to make it meaningful. She went around and spoke at gun safety classes. She told her story, in all its horrendous detail, to group after group after group. She told it to anyone who would listen. She was determined to make her child's death count for something. She spoke until she was sure she had prevented other deaths.
Was her experience meaningless? I guess it depends on what time frame you are referring to.
You are a bright and perceptive individual fantail, and while you did not cause what happened to your ex I have every confidence you will be able to find some meaning in it.
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