I was on the phone with Madge Tullis the other day. Madge’s husband Ken was a repeated suicide attempter and he speaks about how to help people who attempt suicide. It occurred to me that for a short period of time (four months), I was the sister of an attempter. Near Halloween 1992, Denise swallowed 250 aspirin that led to a hospital trip and a visit to the local psychiatric hospital. It was there that her bulimia and depression were revealed. When I came home from college at Thanksgiving, I remember feeling a little nervous. How had things changed? I did feel differently about my sister. It didn’t make me care about her any less, but somehow life was just a little different because she had tried to end her life. She was date raped right before Christmas and there’s a part of me that still believes she would be here if that hadn’t happened. She was working hard to get her eating habits and her depression on track but she struggled, fighting another uphill battle after the rape. Sadly, she only reached out to several people after the rape. Most of us found out after she died. Many of us would have been in line to help her if she could have reached out. But she couldn’t see beyond that pain and built a brick wall around herself. It doesn’t matter if you lost someone to suicide, or you almost lost someone to suicide, there is grief and loss in it all. Yet there also is hope, no matter what you’ve been through. After all, life wouldn’t be worth living if we didn’t have hope for the future and the path in front of us.
Adventures of getting to my first support group March 23, 2009
I can still remember attending my first survivors of suicide support group. I was an intern at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs the summer after Denise died. It was a difficult time as spending time at the OTC was something I had dreamed about and I wasn’t going to give that up because of her death. The internship came three weeks after Denise died. I still believe she had something to do with it because she knew how much I loved it there. It was a difficult summer though because I was away from my family and friends and trying to cope with people I barely knew. I located the local support group, HEARTBEAT, and made plans to go. I didn’t have a car so one of my fellow interns, Newsha, agreed to drive me. Newsha and I recently got back in touch via Facebook which is what stimulated the memory. I can remember we were standing in the lounge area of our dorm and there was another intern from Denmark there. Newsha is Iranian and the other guy (whose name I don’t remember) wanted to know where we were going. Newsha told him it was none of his business. When I look back on it now, I see that Newsha just wanted to protect me from explaining and the stigma of suicide. There is a funny ending to this though, it turned out the support group met only two blocks away from the entrance of the OTC. I could have walked.
How we all are connected March 22, 2009
One important piece of my grief journey has been connection that my sister and I still have, even though she hasn’t been here in this “life” for 16 years. I know she is with me and that she still is my biggest cheerleader, leading me to help other people. She was the one person who truly knew what I wanted out of life although this was something I probably never would have admitted at 21, the age I was when she died. She was the one who went into the Eddie Bauer store when I was off at college and inquired about getting me a job. She sent me some great pictures she drew and encouragement right before Christmas 1992 when I was off at college, running around like a crazy woman with everything I had to do between classes and the Ball State newspaper. What I didn’t know was that she was suffering through her own pain but it was important to keep supporting me. Today, she brings me opportunity to help other people through telling her story and connecting me with people who are working through their own suicide losses and/or people who can help get my story out to the public. I feel in many ways that our bond is stronger now than it was when she was alive, but we never had a chance to forge an adult sibling bond because we both were on the cusp of young adulthood when she died. We all have this opportunity to continue to connect to our loved ones who have died if we choose to allow them to continue to be part of our lives. I find great comfort in that.
A warm morning March 19, 2009
This morning it seemed exceptionally warm (well, warmer than it should be this time of year but it still seemed warmer than the last few mornings). I looked up at the park when I was walking Nestle and Hattie and saw the trees turning green. It’s mornings like these that I think I am reminded of how my losses, particularly that of my sister, have made me feel, see, hear, smell, and taste more intensely. Because a life that I cared about is gone, I have a stronger sense of the importance of each day and what I don’t want to miss.
Sixteen years…almost as long as she was with us March 18, 2009
Sixteen years ago today, my sister Denise, at age 17, walked in front of a train. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. And in other ways, it’s hard to believe that at one time I had another sister. I think the biggest lesson I have learned in these sixteen years is that she is still with me, she is still a part of my life, although not in the same way she was before when she was alive. Our bond is strong and I know she is my biggest cheerleader, walking beside me, wanting to help me be who I’m supposed to be and accomplish my goals. And I think she is at peace with ending her life. She couldn’t have known the pain it would cause us, but at the time she could only see a few inches in front of her and making her pain stop. I am lucky to have such a strong sense of her being with me, our deceased loved ones are with us all if we choose to feel them.
www.bereavedbysuicide.com March 11, 2009
My intention of starting this blog is because in about a month we will launch the first phase of www.bereavedbysuicide.com. The new web site will be the first global resource for suicide survivors, or the bereaved by suicide– the people left behind after a suicide. Slowly, there is more interest in outwardly helping people who are left behind after a suicide. It’s a treacherous road for the bereaved because many issues surround suicide from the stigma of the act itself to the mental illness and/or anything that led up to someone taking his or her own life. This leaves the survivors feeling guilty for a multitude of feelings and emotions– guilty for feeling relieved that a person who struggled is now out of his or her pain; guilty for not “seeing” the suicide coming; guilty for not telling that person how much he/she cared about them; and the list goes on. We each have unique issues in grief because we are individual people who bring our individual selves into grief of an individual person. Grief is a multifaceted process and one that takes time to travel through. It’s a road none of us asked for and suicide provides a kink in that journey because suicide does not follow what we call the natural course of life. But the intention of www.bereavedbysuicide.com is to be a main resource to help people surviving a suicide to find peace on such a rocky road.
The reality of suicide March 11, 2009
Suicide struck my personal world again with the death of my husband’s cousin yesterday. We had just hung up the phone (since I am out of town) and he called me back ten minutes later with the news. All I can think to describe it as that it whacked me on the head. Even this morning, it took me part of the day to get to a place where I could work, where I felt like the shock had somewhat worn off enough. I can’t seem to get my head wrapped around that this has affected my husband’s family. And it reminds me of the importance of helping families after a suicide. I don’t feel that I didn’t do enough to help his cousin because I didn’t know him. I still don’t know the whole story. What I do know is that he left behind a wife, a mom, a dad, three siblings, and countless friends and relatives who are now on a journey I’ve been on for 16 years.
