Ten Years

[herownself]

My boss is an angel. She checked in on me several times during the day, and when I was at the edge, told me to leave.

I cried all the way home, went to bed, and woke up with the migraine from hell.

Ten years feels like a long time, in everything except for this. I’m the only one in my family who is this devastated today (and for my family, today is the official day).

Ten years feels like there should be some understanding, some sort of resolution. Some sort of peace. The only thing I really understand today is that the fantasy I’ve had of it being the wrong body, and she’ll walk back into my life someday, really isn’t going to happen.

So that’s it: in ten years, I’ve managed to give up the never very strong hope that this was all some crazy ‘I need to disappear’ stunt and that I would actually see my sister again. I’ll never see my sister again.

I’ll never see my sister again. She’ll never be happy. I’ll never be able to help her. I’ll never be able to tell her that I really, really love her. I’ll never hold her when she cries, and I’ll never dodge when she hits.

She wasn’t selfish to decide to die, she was too hurt and too far down to see any other way out. She had already tried those paths anyway, and they didn’t work for her. It’s only selfish if you know ahead of time what it will do to the people you leave behind, and when you can barely make it out of your own head you just can’t see the other people.

Selfish would be if I did it, and I can’t. I can’t do it knowing what I know, so I take my meds and I do my therapy, and I totally break down at this time of year, and then I climb back out. Sometimes I want to, a lot, but I never will. Because I know too much about it.

P.S. Really, don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything, ever.

[CanvasShoes]

@herownself

My boss is an angel. She checked in on me several times during the day, and when I was at the edge, told me to leave.

That’s one of the greatest gifts you can have, to have an understanding boss and coworkers.

Ten years feels like a long time, in everything except for this. I’m the only one in my family who is this devastated today (and for my family, today is the official day).

Ten years feels like there should be some understanding, some sort of resolution. Some sort of peace. The only thing I really understand today is that the fantasy I’ve had of it being the wrong body, and she’ll walk back into my life someday, really isn’t going to happen.

I’m sure the others in this thread who have been through this will have had similar experiences. It seems as if I had that feeling for the longest time. That it had all been a mistake, and that some day I’d see him somewhere.

So that’s it: in ten years, I’ve managed to give up the never very strong hopethat this was all some crazy ‘I need to disappear’ stunt and that I would actually see my sister again. I’ll never see my sister again.

Strange as this sounds, now, this may be the healthiest thing for you. I know it’s hard, but that hope, when there can be no hope is the most cruel thing.

I’ll never see my sister again. She’ll never be happy. I’ll never be able to help her. I’ll never be able to tell her that I really, really love her. I’ll never hold her when she cries, and I’ll never dodge when she hits.

Well, none of us really know what’s “after”, so you don’t know whether she accomplished her goal of at least freedom from pain.

When someone takes such a drastic step, they’re so far gone in pain, that nothing that makes sense to you and I can even get through to them. I have no doubt that she knew how much you loved her. Probably the reason she didn’t let everyone know was that she loved you all so much in return and she perhaps sought to protect you as much as she could.

She wasn’t selfish to decide to die, she was too hurt and too far down to see any other way out. She had already tried those paths anyway, and they didn’t work for her. It’s only selfish if you know ahead of time what it will do to the people you leave behind, and when you can barely make it out of your own head you just can’t see the other people.

Yes, exactly. Even if the person did know ahead, by the time they’re in that much pain, it just clouds everything so much, that they can’t see anything else but to try and escape from the pain.

Do you know what horses do when they’re in great physical pain? They run, if they can. The poor things don’t realize that the pain is from inside of them, they think they’re being attacked by something, so they’ll run. Even if they’re in a stall, they will pace, or even kick at themselves to try and “kill” the pain inside.

When humans are in that much mental and emotional pain, sometimes, they try to do the same thing, from an emotional standpoint. It doesn’t make sense, not to us.

Also, from what I’ve read, and know of my own experience, the “anniversary” thing is totally normal, if horrendously painful. I hope this passes soon, and that each one gets less painful to bear.

[lisacurl]

herownself, my brother committed suicide on March 30, 1990. He was 17 years old. The loss never goes away, and like you mentioned, I still think of my life in terms of “before” and “after”, but it concerns me that the pain is still so fresh and intense for you after ten years. I know that I would never have made it through the first year after my brother’s death without the support of a suicide survivors group. It was a group of friends and family who’d lost someone to suicide that met weekly at the local crisis center. Please consider checking with local resources to see if something like that is available. Don’t worry that it’s been some time since your sister’s death… we had several people in the group for whom their loss was many years ago. I really got more out of sharing with people who’d been through the same thing than I would have gotten from being in private therapy.