What to say to Suicide Survivors
Speech to the Suicide Survivors
Suicide survivors have a common thread, even if our individual stories vary. Our common thread is a complicated grief. The stigma attached to suicide runs deep even in those that won’t admit it. People offer up “it is just like they died from a heart attach” We don’t blame the heart attack victim or the cancer victim for their disease. It is not the same. Suicide is not the same. When I was asked to share my story with other survivors, I had to ask “Why?” Why would I share this? It is two reasons. One: Because mental pain will often eventually equate to physical pain and by allowing others to see your pain it somehow lessens.. more about that later… and Two: a hope to allow others that feel shame and guilt to share too, by any avenue they can.
I was 40 Five years ago my world was crushed and I was catapulted into a place survivors are too familiar with. A place where you are certain you are in a movie. You are in a movie full of intense fear and chaos and panic. Where the only safe place to be is completely disembodied. The only safe place for my brain to be was separate from me. In the layer of disconnection I was safer from the reality of my husband’s suicide.
I lived in and out of this movie for two years. I was diagnosed with PTSD. My son was diagnosed with PTSD. We moved across the State — twice. I searched for answers anywhere I could. You see my husband had a business partner he was very much afraid of : and my husband was not afraid of anyone. But, he felt disconnected. He felt like he was in big trouble. Over the course of a week a powerful man had convinced my husband that he was going to be sued, lose everything he had worked so hard for and worse — that he could be arrested and go to jail for fraud. He was mislead into believing he was a complete fault for a failed business. He thought he had no one to turn to and we would all be better off without him and he thought he was saving me and his kids and his business.
His fear transferred to my very being. I cried to anyone that would listen; friends, attorneys, even the poor Walgreens cashier I cried to her “my husband killed himself!” I could not contain the pain in my body. I sobbed to anyone that would listen somehow hoping the pain oozing from every pore — maybe these people could take a tiny bit of this pain. And they did but I feared such a tremendous amount and was so afraid. I tried to fix the suicide over and over and over.
Survival mode is a place you all are aware of. It became familiar, normal, oddly energizing and it was killing me slowly.
Two years later, I found myself lying on a table looking at an ultrasound… I knew what the lump was. When the doctor came in and asked “Do you have a history of breast cancer in your family?” and I sat up and screamed “NO?!” in a way that sounded a a little bit like a question…. It was the same “NO?!” I felt and said when the police asked me if my husband had any weapons in his truck. The “No!” wasn’t true, as desperately as I wanted it to be. My entire being simply could not accept this.
Some days, two years later I STILL can’t believe everything we went through, my two little kids and I.
Once I got through another level of surviving, I found myself getting very quiet. I learned about myself again. I learned gratitude. It seems polar opposite feelings are a gift. From fear and despair I find gratitude and hope. From loneliness I find a quiet calm.
So, most days now I write down 4 things that keep me in a better place:
Gratitude — Something specific to that day. A sunset, a pretty view, a nice gesture observed,
Joy — Some thing that made me say in my heart “This. This is why I live!”
Something Beautiful I ate that day — I love food! But often it is not about the food but rather the people we are with and the feeling get with eating and sharing food
Lessons Learned — How to say now with grace. How to have self compassion and set boundaries.
So, I ask myself why would I share my story? Why would I share the most painful part of myself? Why would I do this today? Because we need one another. Connection. It is a basic human fundamental need. And maybe by sharing a painful story it lessens it grip and might not completely ruin us.
