I find lately that I am annoyed easily when I am interrupted in my grief. If I am working through something in my head and someone walks into my bubble..I am jolted and immediately in a funk. An interruption on top of my current interruption in life. Is that right to try to schedule out my grief work? Maybe it is because I am such a task oriented person. Each task having extreme importance to the next in sequence, and nothing becoming complete without all tasks being done correctly. Maybe I just need to pass out a checklist. Highlights of what I will be doing when you pass through the steel bars on my door…
1. I am currently wrapped in a cocoon asking questions of Why? I am trying to make sense of a senseless death. I am asking myself what signs did i miss in Fred’s life and in Fred’s conversations? I do not understand how could he could have hidden this? This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.
2. I am holding myself responsible. I dress myself in guilt & blame just like you dress yourself in a shirt and pants.
3. My makeup colors are shock and horror. They are a permanent. They will not come off, not matter how many tissues you hand me.
4. I ride a teeter totter of anger, rejection and abandonment.
5. I try to envision the relief and end of suffering for my Fred and beginning of the suffering for myself and my family.
6. I arrange my bangs to hide the marks of shame on my forehead.
7. I do not leave the castle, I have a safe place and I feel too vulnerable outside of my walls. The shards in my skin from the pointing and staring only make the huge gaping hole in my chest more confusing.
8. I do not want to go on with my life.
9. I am grieving in a complicated way that no one can explain to me. I have asked experts and friends but they all shake their head and comment how horrible it must feel. I turn from them and look on their walls, at the smiling pictures of children, and I wonder what time their son’s game starts and if I am keeping them.
That is the top 9. Simple tasks to do before moving into the high level extended list of mental chores…..
1. There is no family routine any longer. Rituals, traditions, functions, roles, availability, distance and relationships have changed. The family circle has broken and I spend time ignoring it while trying to bandage it. I know it makes no sense. But I hover over it…and I ignore it, while I wrap gauze around the severed bonds in hopes to save it, someday, later, because I am too tired to do it right now.
2. I am experiencing a communication shut-down and complete loss of signal. The tower cannot be reached due to heavy fog and constant drizzle.
3. I am playing a board game, called blame. Please call later, I am currently losing!
4. I am in the movie room, watching a reel that continuously loops while I have panic attack after panic attack in a rush of anxiety.
5. There is no cohesion. The bandages in task #1 are not sticking.
While I never complete any tasks on any of these lists, I continue to work them.
The confusion is tremendous, I am so confused about everything, everyday. What happened, Fred? How did this happen, Fred? How could you really do it? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you do it that way? Did you suffer at the end? Why didn’t anything I did help? Why wasn’t I enough? What more could I have done to help you, Fred? How could I have saved you? How could you actually do this? I ask questions in my head until my head becomes numb and blank. I get to a point where I just do not know anything anymore, can’t remember anything, don’t want to remember anything. How important is my life, actually? Am I also just expendable as what those that have forgotten Fred and moved on so easily? How can I go on living without Fred? How can I make it another day knowing there is a way out of pain, the same path that Fred walked? Why do I bother going through any of the daily tasks, the bigger pictures? Why do I go through the motions? What’s the point? What’s the use? Why bother getting back to the world when I feel that no one understands? Why get involved in anything when nothing compares anymore? Why get attached to people when they can be gone at any moment? How can I make any sense of losing you Fred? The rejection and loneliness? The absolute end of any future or present with you. How do I live with such a gaping wound?
And then I move to the list of dreams and future life. This is where the confusion for a survivor continues….Hope shows itself and you have to balance and work through feelings in order to take one step forward.
1. I will have a changed identity. I will have self-worth and will take care of myself. I will be a survivor that is strong.
2. I will love more, and deeper. I will have ended all relationships in my life that did not work for me for whatever reason. I will put more emphasis on good relationships.
3. I will have a greater appreciation for life, a greater gratitude for those in my life. I will have faith and hope. I will stay above the water for longer periods of time and I will venture to the shores often.
I still look for a pen to start marking off completed items…but cannot find one. I make 700 copies of my list a day, and never have any to pass along. I wash my face with a wire brush to erase the lines, the scars, the anguish and pain. I watch for you in the window, wondering if you will come to visit again…or if the list of lists has taken you to border with no passport.
I will light a candle and wait.
I will be patient and forgiving.
I will hope for more hope tomorrow.
I will wait for a friend.
I will wait for a friend….
I am so, so sorry for your pain! I literally cannot imagine the pain you feel as a mother and friend of Fred. I don’t know what your spiritual beliefs are, but I just finished a book that, in a roundabout way, helped me a little with Coty. It’s written by James Van Praagh, he’s a psychic/medium that the TV showed Ghost Whisperer was based on. I saw him in person two years ago in Denver and was amazed at his readings, but the book is called Growing Up in Heaven, so it’s about children of all ages who have passed before their parents. He does touch on suicide and not that I believe the same as him, that our souls have lived many lifetimes, but HE believes (and maybe it’s a straw I’m grasping onto because I like the IDEA) that in the cases of some suicides, their souls have things they have to learn and have been trying to learn for several lifetimes. When a soul is looking at it’s most recent life and sees mistakes and missed oportunities, it has the option to come back to earth and try again, to learn a lesson, or lessons, about self-love, etc. But then souls also have free will, and sometimes the soul just can’t make it through to the end of the lesson and free will comes in to play. *Shrugging* I don’t know. It’s a hard concept for me to wrap my mind around, but at the same time, I think of my cousin and if it’s all true, what Mr. Van Praagh believes, then Coty is in a beautiful place where he is doing what he loves, helping others, looking at this most recent life and trying to figure out what opportunities were missed. The author talks about the spirits leaving us signs all the time and I didn’t realize until I read that that in the week after Coty died I’d wake up at 2:15 (his bday is Feb. 15) or 5:29 (his mom’s bday is May 29)…Maybe those things don’t mean anything at all, but I’m willing to grab onto those and hold them close for comfort.
You are an amazing woman! You are helping so many of us while trying to grieve yourself; there are days I just want to shut down–and you helped me through that particular day last week. (HUGS)
And I know I’m not explaining that very well at all, I’m doing the book a horrible injustice. Like I said, it’s so hard for me to fathom parts of his book that I’m sure I’m butchering it. But he mentions readings he’s done over the years and those brought me comfort. I came away from the book feeling that Coty is with my grandpa and nephew, that they’re all watching us, guiding us and trying to send us little signals that they’re around. I also think sometimes that it’s all a bunch of crap he’s making up, but I’m willing to take the bait if it gives comfort and eases some of the pain–because until I have physical actual proof…I don’t truly, truly believe and I won’t have that proof until I take my last breath. So I guess in a way I’m a hypocrite: I believe, but I don’t believe. I guess it’s more of I WANT to believe, but prove it to me.
Don’t ever forget you’re loved and needed and very much wanted and very much treasured.
Thank you Mandi. I will check out the book, I think reading different perspectives helps. I can take things from each one that I believe in and it helps to read about “hope” in general. Sometimes when we read about things that we do not particulary believe in, it can spark something inside of us or remind us of what we really do believe in. Also, finding validation of what we want to believe in helps to comfort us.
I am so glad I can be here for you and be an outlet. That is my job and that is what I am here for.
Leslie
Damn you girls making me cry and such :). Leslie I get anger when I am trying to cry and something ruins it. I think it is natural to have certain reacts. I was told several times by a therapist (not for me just that I had a chance to speak to) that everything people do as a reaction to a loss by suicide is completely normal. No matter what it is. So know that nothing you do as a reaction is wrong.