Change is the only constant in life. Nothing lasts forever. Everyone will die. All true, but to the aptly named “survivor” of suicide this reality is coupled with confusion, guilt, shame and even blame. The survivor constantly plays detective, rewinding the tape playing in their head of what was last said, what you didn’t pick up on and why, somehow, you missed the signs.
All deaths leave you sad and in varying degrees of grief but suicide also adds unprepared, traumatized, and abandoned with the stigma of feeling labeled and alone.
Someone you love has ended their life and your life will be forever changed. Unlike dying from a disease, they chose death and if they wanted to, they could still be here. Suicide does end their life but I believe it wasn’t their choice to end their life, it was their choice to end their pain. A pain that is so deep and entrenched in their being nothing you could have said or done could take that pain away.
I’ve survived 3 suicides in my life time and have the “gift” of looking at suicide through a few different lenses. But I feel that with all people who chose to leave this life, the pain they carry is immense and becomes so burdensome they feel they can not keep carrying that load up the steep trail of life. I did not understand this pain, until my world, as I knew it, came crashing down upon me and I found myself wondering if I had the strength to pull myself through the portal of grief to whatever lay on the other side. Traumatic devastating loss requires you to go through grief and no one wants to go through the process of grieving. Might seem a lot easier to just keep busy, keep yourself occupied, just keep “moving forward”, bypass it, stuff it down, dumb it or pretend it’s not there.
Society will tell you how strong you are and how amazing you’re doing but eventually your thoughts will turn into feelings and feelings turn into emotions and if you refuse to acknowledge and actually feel your emotions – your emotions will settle in your brain and body and be a fast track to dis-ease. Unexpressed grief, creates emotional discord, anxiety, depression and eventually physical pain in the body.
It is my hope that you discover the love, grace and awareness - the physical sensation of what an insanely miraculous and priceless gift it is to be here having this human experience. I do believe we are spiritual beings having a human experience. We are all souls - eternal energy that never dissipates, only changes form and our lives here on Earth are miraculous. You have “survived” the hardship and you are standing here now. How you decide to live the rest of your life is yet to be discovered. Grief is the portal to what lies ahead.
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