The touch of trauma – suicide.

I often wonder what my life would be like.

I did wonder, often over the past few years. Many hurdles, so many curve balls, I managed to dodge so many or take them on and recover.

I did not expect this one. Suicide, a word we all fear saying, I must admit I am still hesitant as if I say it, it becomes more real. What’s real you say?

The fact that one minute your life was perfect (well had been) and the next it’s not. It’s gone, in an instant. One phone call changed it all.

The police at my door the night before, our last conversation where you were so lost, so confused.

Where to from here?

The days are long, the nights even more so. It seems the nights have become even more sleepless as the mind wonders. I only had you for a short time but we had memories from a long time, so I wonder how the minds of those who had you for even longer are managing.

I am sure they are not.

The tears come at the most random of times. It could be at the bakery where we had a joke about the long jam cream donuts, the songs you sang to in the car, the random places we visited or even the small sayings or just waking and sitting at window and having three coffees before 8am!

Trauma results in so much….. unease, confusion, disconnection, solitude, drive, guilt – as though you could have changed it and you question over and over how.

You can read books on how to manage the loss of someone by suicide but to be honest only some of the points are valid.

Some not.

Each journey it’s own. Each journey takes its own path, its own time.

I see, so far on my journey, the fear of reconnecting. The fear of moving further from my home than 50km. The fear of laughter, the fear of being with the family I love and know love me beyond words. I fear having touched them by suicide and more has made me even more of a ‘curse’ than before. Not that I am a curse but when so many curve balls hit you sometimes you wonder.

It’s hard enough realising you’re on your own again, your child on her own again. Our lives keep moving forward even if we wish they wouldn’t.

It’s a choice really, keep plodding or give up.

I wrote a blog about choice over a year ago, I also wrote one about time healing all wounds.

I so wish he had read the one about time healing all wounds.

The holiday of dreams, the laughter, the intimacy, the future and for once it was real it was perfect and then it was gone.

Everyone keeps telling me it’s time to get out, come here, visit here, dinner out, take a walk….. I know all of these would do my mind good.

However, it’s the fear, it’s the fear of the trauma that keeps you in that safe ‘vault’ that safe space.

How can one be happy, or laugh or even feel like you’re moving forward when to be honest you’re not ready.

The sweat beads form, your heartbeats so much faster but no one understands. You were never anxious before but you are now. You used to look forward to adventure and time away, new experiences, watching the students/children thrive and now organising a weekend makes you feel ill.

It’s normal some say, it’s abnormal others say. Who’s to know, unless you have been in these shoes.

All I know is it’s confusing, it’s hard, it’s emotionally and mentally exhausting. I have to trust that as I wrote before, but in so much a different context, time heals all wounds. I have been given gifts from this loss I could never imagine. People who have become such amazing parts of both my daughter and my own lives. Experiences, work, learning and more.

One has to try…. I mean try…… to take the time it takes to heal a wound when affected by losing the person you loved, finally to suicide.

What was once perfect was obviously not.

To question where you yourself went wrong will get you nowhere. I still do, every waking moment but one day maybe I won’t. Until then…