Pelican

(((dbh)))

I am sorry about your loss.
I am sending encouragement and support as you find your way to healing.

DesertEyes

Oh dbh I am so sorry, that is just horrible. I'm glad you are working with your therapist and that you found a support group. Please keep posting here, we are all praying for you and hoping you heal quickly.

You are never alone. You've got 100,000 people right here on SR that understand what you are feeling because we have all been thru something similar. I had two aunts that died by suicide, they were younger than me and we were quite close. They were younger because I come from a crazy, dysfunctional, alcoholic family where nothing was normal. I don't need to explain, you understand.

You are so right. That has been my experience too.

That will not happen on SR, you will find plenty of support and prayers here.

(((( hugs )))))

Mike

PaperDolls

I'm sending love and prayers to you DBH. So sorry for your loss.

Sent from my iPad using SoberRecovery

lovejava

My mother committed suicide and I felt this way, too...I knew it would end the way it did back in March, and had known it like I've never been sure of anything before, for some time.

Of course, that somehow didn't make it easier and grieving a suicide is so unique because even if we thought it might happen, and the person had suffered for a long time, we didn't really have concrete evidence or belief that it would like someone who had a terminal illness that we knew was taking their life.

There's also some social stigma, which can prevent us from talking about it as much as some grieving people talk about the death of their loved one. For me, I also have felt like I don't want to bring anyone else down and they always seem to feel very sorry for me, mixed with being obviously horrified by the circumstance, so that I try not to bum anyone out by talking about it too much.

Grieving over a suicide can be slow and the stages of grief can be delayed because of the layers of sadness, guilt, shame, anger constantly peel back to reveal themselves again and again.

I am sorry for your loss and I know how helpless it feels. I had to also learn to stop second-guessing myself as to whether I could have done something if I had listened more closely, if I hadn't been estranged from my mother until just before her death, etc, etc, etc. It's a slow process to heal and I'm still working on it.

Soberpotamus

I'm so very sorry for your loss! Reading this brought tears to my eyes...

I'm the only child of an alcoholic (mom) who committed suicide by drug overdose three years ago. My heart goes out to you.

lovejava

This is how my mother died as well.

Soberpotamus

Oh wow, I relate sooooo much! We must have been through very similar circumstance! It's hard. I was also estranged from my mom, by choice, eight months prior. I live with guilt.

lovejava

Oh I can relate. So strange, my mother and I had been estranged for 8 months, too, before just the week before her death. Strange coincidence...although since this last time I got sober, I don't believe in coincidences anymore, but in my Higher Power's will for me and others. It brings us together in strange ways! I was very newly sober when she died, and how I stayed sober, I have no idea, but I'm so glad I was before the worst hit!

DreamsofSerenity

Lovejava,

I experienced people acting horrified over my sister's suicide too. In fact, that was one of the most difficult things for me to deal with. I remember the day I told my current therapist what had happened. She just stared at me with her mouth agape, totally speechless. (I never went back to her).

Everytime I brought up my sister's suicide to my ex, he changed the subject. Actually, outside of my family there isn't a single person I can talk with about my sister's death, and it is not because of my uncomfortability with it, but theirs! I don't know why, but this really hurts me.

theuncertainty

I'm so sorry for your loss.

I was so close to taking that step so many times. One of the factors that started my wake-up call that I needed to leave AXH was realizing one night that I'd been sitting on the edge of the tub for a Very Long Time contemplating methods and weighing factors such as how painful it might be vs. how much of a mess it'd make vs. certainty. And only once did DS creep into those musings: how likely would it be that he'd find me rather than his passed-out dad. Even that thought didn't scare me.

The thing is about being in a spot where suicide appears to be a viable option (from my experience) is that normal emotions didn't really factor into the contemplations, because I hadn't experienced any real feelings for a while. What I'd been through, what I was going through, with AXH didn't even cause emotions any more. Overwhelmed, hurting is a close description, but that implies a feeling, too. I couldn't cope anymore. I didn't know what to do. I just knew I wanted it to stop.

Had my family known, I doubt they could've done much to change my mind. It's one thing to be told: this will pass, you'll feel better, suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems. And quite another to _believe_ it and feel hope that stuff will change. (Did I mention I wasn't feeling much of any emotions? And hope, well, hope is an emotion.)

My father attempted to kill himself years back; my younger brother, who was in college at the time, found him and got help that saved his life. We were horrified that we had no idea that he was feeling things were that hopeless. And I think that is what generated our guilt and our rounds of second-guessing and what-ifs: not knowing enough to know that Dad needed help. How could we not? We love him so. We should have known.

And now, from this side of dealing with my own suicide thoughts, I can understand a bit of why we didn't see it with Dad.

Which is all a very rambly way to let you know, well I don't really know what.... I understand a bit of how you're feeling. And I can also see how my family wouldn't have known how close I was. And if they didn't know that, they couldn't possibly have convinced me to change my mind.

Please be gentle with yourself and your grief.
Sitting with you and wishing you a measure of peace and continued strength.

Seren

dbh

I'm so glad you have resources available for IRL support! You and your whole family are in my prayers. Grief is such a personal experience and each person has their own timeline. Please take good care!

dbh

I can't even begin to thank everyone enough for the support that I have gotten here.

When I get through this I hope that I can return this support to others.

theuncertainty, reading your message today helped me a great deal. Thank you for sharing your story. My sister died from an overdose. She sat in a room in their finished basement with three bottles of pills and a glass of water. Over the past month, I have sat in that room many times trying to think what could have possibly been going through her mind prior to taking the pills. She was devoted to her son and also very close to my mother. I know she would never intentionally hurt either one of them. It makes me so sad to think of the pain that she must have been in to follow through. Now I'm wondering if she just felt numb too.

I'm also wondering how many times she thought about doing it but didn't.

I did make it to a "Suicide Survivors" support group last weekend. Walking through the door was so much harder than I thought it was going to be. I almost didn't get out of my car.

I'm glad I forced myself to go. I think I cried almost the entire meeting. Similar to my first Al-Anon meeting. I couldn't share (I could barely talk), but the groups seems warm and welcoming. They meet twice a month and I plan to go back next week.

Not sure why I was so worried about being judged. Someone in the group joked about how she wished she came from a "normal" family. I guess I'm going to fit in just fine.

With love and gratitude,

db