Realizations and Stark Reality

Its not that the realization hasn't hit me before. Nor that I haven't thought about it. It's the crazy waves that go through your mind at the oddest of times.
Sitting in a waiting room, at the grocery store, driving, watching tv.... its like you don't have control over your own brain anymore.  Sometimes it hits you at the least inopportune moment of time, when you don't need everyone and their mother to see you fall apart. 

The reality of, you will not be growing old with your loved one. You will not hold hands sitting on the back deck sipping ice tea. You will not go to dinner and snuggle at a movie, or take a vacation.... there are a billion more things I can name off, because my brain goes through them...alllllllll.

I also go through being angry. Screaming at him in the car when no one can hear me. Crying for him in the shower, where the water makes it look like i got soap in my eyes. Or just waiting for bedtime where the tears will surely show up and the different scenarios, what ifs, and instant replays will invade my thoughts. Honestly, if someone could actually see inside my head and read my thoughts and what goes through my brain, I'd scare the shit out of them and they'd institutionalize me. Then again, they say all us survivors go through this.. these crazy thoughts.

This past weekend I was angry. Angry that I'm dealing with an issue in the house that we had dealt with in the past and instead of just replacing we put a bandaid on it and hoped it fixed it. Well it didn't. So now I have to fork out replacing it all together because I just can't keep worrying about it and its one less thing for me to worry about in the future. But while going through it, I was very angry with him. Angry that, right this minute, I felt he took the easy way out, while I'm left here to suck it up and deal with life head on. Because I have to. I dont have a choice. Its not like you can just say, ya know what, I have decided I dont want to be an adult anymore and I'd like to give back my adulthood membership.. keep the fee's, just take the membership away.  No, its not that easy no matter how much we want to be able to do what all those meme's on facebook say.    I liked to say I know it wasn't easy for him, but I dont know. I dont know jack shit obviously. I didn't know it had gotten to this point. I didn't know he was this depressed. Maybe this wasn't an easy decision for him, and it was the hardest thing he's ever had to do. But the hardest thing I've ever had to do is face life and try to go on living without him. 

Waves of emotion

I haven't been great about keeping up on posting here. But then again this is for me to help myself and others, and honestly I've been in and out of a fog with Waves of Emotions sweeping across me.

I haven't been keeping up with family like I probably should. But I AM keeping up with my children and myself. We (Survivors) are told that if any time is a good time to be selfish, now is that time. Parts of me feel guilty about not being who I normally am with my circle of friends/family.  But then I remember. I will NEVER be who I was BEFORE it happened.  I will not know my "normal" of before, only my new normal of now...whatever that may be.

This is what I have to say about us changing.  In one way or another, everyone that knew my husband, worked with him, had an exchange of some sort with him, had him help you with his assortment of MacGeyver tricks, has been affected by his death. Whether its a smile that crosses your face when you hear a song he would sing and dance to, a computer question you know he would be able to answer, a joke he would tell, a classic car that would drive down the street that you know he would have loved.. all examples of how its affected you simply by remembering him.  People don't realize the ripple effect we have on the world, on others lives that are around us or come in contact with us. The simple act of smiling at someone could change their whole day. Think of a body of water.. Now think back to a time where something touched that water and you watched the ripples spread out across it. It doesn't matter the size of what touched the water, it was the simple act of touching it that changed it.

I am not the same person you remember. How could I be? How could any of us that have been touched by a tragedy such as this. My family is forever changed. Those that were with me when I got the call.. they will never be the same. To experience the shock first hand, to have to pick me up as I fell apart. To stand by my side and put everything in order when I could barely make sense of the words I had just heard. To those that were with my children, who went to sit at the hospital and lend their strength and support as they sat helplessly by watching the devastation unfold. These people who barely knew me or my family, that went out of their way to bring us food and supplies we didn't even know we needed. I am forever humbly grateful to these people. They may never know the extent of their actions and how it has affected myself and my children. The generosity, the out pouring of support and love that we have felt has at times been overwhelming.

Years ago when I lost my mom, I had some people who told me, you aren't the same person, you've changed.  I wanted to grab them and hold their face in my hands, look them in the eyes and say, "Of course I have, how could I not?"  So for anyone looking into the life of a survivor, or anyone who has lost a loved one, and thinking, "Man, they aren't who they used to be!", to you I say, BE THANKFUL THAT YOU ARE NOT IN THAT POSITION TO KNOW HOW THAT FEELS.

Don't think for one moment that we don't wish things were back to the way they were, before, when life wasn't turned upside down and your hanging on with every bit of strength you have left, just trying to survive the next minute, the next hour, the next day.

You don't even recognize that person in the mirror at times. Bag's under their eyes, dark circles from lack of sleep. The hallows of their cheeks starting to be more pronounced from their lack of wanting to eat because food has no taste, their skin dry from lack of drinking because its the last thing on your mind. The hair done the best they can because either they're laying down more than normal or their showering more often so they have a place to cry where no one hears them.

Waves of emotion wash over you.. for me it was shock.. its been shock for 10 weeks... and I've finally realized the other day I have moved through that stage now.  I say "moved through" because its not, getting over it, and moving on.. you can't get over grief, and you can't move on.. what you can do is move through it. Each stage must touch you, you must feel it, you must acknowledge it and you must work through it. Grief is work, don't let anyone tell you differently. Its HARD work. It was 10 weeks of  SHOCK before I worked through that one. Today is 11 weeks.  And I can tell you this stage I've realized I'm in is one that I need to WORK THROUGH quickly.. This is not a healthy stage, nor one I want to spend time in.. Seems like a ridiculous thing to say, who would want to spend time in any of them. To be honest, SHOCK wasn't a bad stage to be in.. Made you numb to your emotions, to things you heard people say, to not giving a "d"uck about other peoples opinions. It helped get you through the nights and made it easier to get out of bed in the mornings.

This stage I have found myself in.. is Guilt. It is not a pretty stage to be in, and its quite destructive if you let it take hold.  I AM a survivor, and I will work through it. Waves of emotions take hold and pass over you like the waves of the ocean. One must let the waves pass through them and beware not to let them knock you over less they rip your feet out from under you like a riptide.

Survivor of Suicide

They say a journey begins with a single step. That's not always true. For us, it was as simple as one single action.

In January of 2016, our life took a drastic and irreversible change. My husband, my very best friend, my soulmate of over 20+ years, and my children's devoted dad, committed completed suicide (difference agencies actually ask you not to say committed, they do not want to condemn or stigmatize the person who has died or those who love them by using the wrong terminology). He left no note. No goodbyes, no last kisses, no last embrace. One second he was here and then with the pull of a trigger, he was gone.

I wasn't even in the same state when he did it. I relive that phone call every day. Like a record that's been scratched when it just keeps replaying the same words over and over again. I replay all the phone calls that my mind can remember, every single day, whether I want to or not.

I get angry with my husband at times for making this final decision. He would have called it the "Executive Decision".  That's what he called decisions where I have no input or choice to choose.  The destruction and devastation he left in his wake, at times seems  insurmountable.

My sweet, loving, generous husband suffered from horrible migraines for over 30 years, Chronic pain for 15+ yrs and the last two have been severe chronic pain. We tried everything to help resolve or at least lessen the pain he was in and the frequency, duration and severity of my husbands at times debilitating migraines.   Our family full heartily believes that my husband could no longer take the pain and the depression was so great he saw only one option, one way to end his pain.

I chose to go public with our story and my husbands decision, in hopes that those that are considering suicide, realize how much life is worth living, and those that are survivors know they are not alone. Suicide has a stigma to it. It's unnatural. It's in our natural animal instinct to want to survive, so for someone to chose to end their life, people don't understand that. And we all know, people are scared of what they don't know.

I'm hoping to share, touch and educate people that suicide is a problem. Depression is a problem. Chronic pain is a problem.  People with depression aren't just sad and can "snap" out of it. People with chronic pain don't just have a "low pain tolerance".

If you see someone struggling, ask them if they're ok. Ask them if they have a plan and are they considering suicide. For some people it's something they think about often, for others the fog comes over them so quickly you don't see it coming. People who commit (or as a book I read said, completed suicide), are sometimes some of the best actors and actresses there are. They wake up and put on the mask to cover their true feelings, each and everyday.

This was my husbands mercy.

Mer-cy :    An event to be grateful for, especially because the occurrence prevents something unpleasant or provides relief from suffering.  

We are survivors of suicide.