Tomorrow it will be ten years since you ended your life Mark. In the meantime, your kids have had to live with and deal with a whole heap of shit that MIGHT have been better dealt with had you been around.
It’s not so bad for your daughter, even though she has the greatest memories of you, being the eldest kid and all. She has learned to cope and adjust and despite the times that she cries that you’re not here, she has managed to muddle through periods of depression and hopelessness and has become a really great person that you would have been proud of. If you were here to see it of course.
And for your youngest son, now 18, well, he has fewer memories and has grown into a fine young lad. He’s working fulltime, and has a bunch of lovely young girlfriends (he’s not into monogamy at this stage )…I’m sure you’d be chuffed by him too, if you were here.
However, there’s two boys in between who could really do with a bit of fatherly advice at the moment. Your absence makes a really big difference you know. A mother can plead and threaten and love and cajole to her hearts’ content, but it is only a father who can make a real impact on the minds of sons. They’re in big trouble, pharmacologically, financially and legally, and it would be really wonderful if you happened to be alive to help your boys now.
But you’re not. So fuck you arsehole for pissing off on all the joys and tribulations of watching your kids grow. You opted to take your life, but in the process, you took many others along the way.
Sorry for your loss. It’s very sad that he was so unhappy that he’d choose death over life. Please try to forgive him…for some, it’s the only relief they can find.
Most of the time I find comfort in that attitude too Kalhoun, but just lately, with all the trials and tribulations that family life is delivering, I am more and more bitter about his choice to end his life. It’s a fucking cop-out, and if he were here, he’d see just how badly he is needed to fulfill his role as daddy to his kids.
But he’s not, so it’s somewhat pointless maligning him…instead I rant on a messageboard to vent my spleen. I will never forgive him though.
I understand totally WHY he took his life, but I will never forgive his decision to do so.
Would you rather see him live his life in sheer agony? I don’t buy the copout thing. The pain has to be monumental for a person to make the decision to end his life.
I’m so sorry, kambuckta. I really don’t get it, either. I’d rather spend every second of the rest of my life in hellish searing pain than to not be there for my wife and children.
Nothing some guy on a message board says can really help or change things, but know this: you are strong, and you are here. Your children will always remember that and be thankful for it, even if it doesn’t seem like it sometimes.
Sure, pain is a subjective thing, and what causes monumental suffering for one might not be seen as such for another. But his life was** not **agonising by any stretch of the imagination. He ended his life to solve some immediate problems that could have been EQUALLY fixed by some astute psychological and/or legal advice.
He copped out. I don’t know why he did it then (he’d been threatening for years to top himself) but he did it and he copped out of all the good stuff about watching his kids grow up.
And it’s ten years now, and I hate him still for what he did.
What’s tolerable for one person isn’t necessarily tolerable for another. For instance, would you stay with your wife if she was cheating on you? Some stay, some don’t. It’s a personal decision that I won’t pass judgement on.
I lost the love of my life to cancer. It’ll be 21 years in a few weeks. I know all the thoughts I’ve had over the years, the “What if’s” and “Why’s”, and how difficult that has been. I cannot imagine what those thoughts would be like after a suicide, it must be very painful. I too, am sorry you’ve had to bear that pain and try to be all things for your children.
Well, he felt that it was insurmountable, for whatever reason. What you feel was a solution and how he viewed it are obviously two different things. We cannot fathom what goes on in another person’s head and heart. The despair was such that he could only see one way out. Whether or not that was an accurate assessment is neither here nor there; it was how he saw things.
Um, I wasn’t having an affair if that is what you are insinuating Kalhoun. :rolleyes:
In fact, my ex-husband and I had been divorced for two years when he committed suicide, and he was in a relationship with another woman at the time. Doesn’t in any way negate the relationship he had with his children and how I still hate him for deserting them when they needed him most.
I’m really sorry that you have had to go through that. Once, when my older sister had attempted suicide, my counselor at the time explained that it was the act of ultimate selfishness.
Since this wasn’t a Pit, I’m guessing that the rage isn’t extreme. As long as it doesn’t suck life from you, then I see no problem thinking the worse for him.
You have to not beat yourself up too much about your two sons in trouble. There could be a chance that running into problems in a genetic thing. It runs in our family, which can be seen all too clearly with many generations of craziness.
If you’ve seen my recent Pitting of my younger brother, you can tell that I know it’s tough to see family member go through problems, and you have my complete sympathy for that situation. I really hope things work out well.
I insinuated no such thing. That’s why I used the term “for instance.” All I’m saying is that love for other people sometimes isn’t enough to convince a person to weather the storm. If he could have, I’m sure he would have. He didn’t have the clarity of mind, for whatever reason, to see things the way those around him did.
I don’t think it’s possible to completely see another person’s life through their eyes. It’s sad that the only solution he saw was irreversible, but that’s how he saw it. Of course it is painful for the survivors, and that is very sad indeed. I feel for all of you. My husband’s brother took his life 25 years ago and it still hurts them.
It was originally going to be a Pit TP because at the moment the ire and sorrow is extreme to the point where I can’t go ten minutes without bursting into tears of rage and self-pity. But I figured it would take more to be a decent Pit Thread.
I alternate between beating myself up and beating upon the loss of my husband as the reason for my sons’ fall from grace. When my own psyche is bruised and battered beyond redemption, I turn to his fuck-up to cop the rest of the punishment. It’s damned hard when they are not here to take it though.
I agree that I am only seeing it though my own eyes, and that’s limiting. I didn’t mean to sound judgemental, just that I have a hard time fathoming it. And no, I wouldn’t stay with my wife if she was cheating on me; I’d get a divorce, but I wouldn’t kill myself.
I was just using the cheating example to illustrate an instance where a person knowingly does harm to their family to ease the pain on themself.
My husband’s brother killed himself after his girl left him. He was only in his early 20s, but couldn’t see that things would be better in time. Of course, it was highly likely that he’d find another girl and live to see a happy, fulfilling life. But he just couldn’t see it that way.
Then your counselor was an idiot. People fail to comprehend how depression works. It paints the world black. It poisons your outlook. It skews your thinking as badly as schizophrenia skews thinking. To the people who are saying ‘well, I would never kill myself because it’s not logical’, that is the point. Depression removes people’s ability to logically assess their lives and their chances.
You said he’d been trying to off himself for years so he must have been suffering chronic depression, and at a time when it was even less understood. It’s not the guy’s fault that his brain went screwy on him, and it was too screwy for him to assess his situation realistically.
If you must be angry, be angry at depression and that people took way too long to figure out that it is an illness, not a problem with willpower. If you must be angry, be angry at social attitudes that make people with depression ashamed of their ‘weakness’ such that they hide from help because they think they ‘should’ be able to fix it when it’s as impossible as fixing your own burst appendix.
He made the only choice his sick brain would allow him to make. Be angry at the disease, not at him.
In fact, you see yourself that problems people have aren’t that easily fixable. If they were, your family would have gotten counselling and moved on easily. Well, your husband had problems that were as intractable. I’m sorry that you’re having a difficult time of it, and it’s natural for people to seek to blame someone for their problems, but that’s not going to help. If this is just a vent, great, but if this is how your feelings are usually, then you should see a psychologist for help to lose the anger.
February 25th was the 7th aniversary of Dad’s death. Natural causes or slow suicide, take your pick… Mom and myself still sometimes get angry that he couldn’t be bothered stop smoking until he’d been diagnosed with cancer, in spite of his family’s medical history. She takes a mental look at his family tree and figures he cheated her out of three years of marriage (plus the three he was sick).
One of my classmates killed himself when we were in college. I almost did it myself, when I was 11. I know what it’s like to see the world as a black hole, no escape. But while I’d like to kick J’s dad’s butt from here to Saturn, I’m sure he’s done it more than once… and neither the suicide nor the butt-kicking do anything for the younger brother, R, who was also in our class. How many times has R looked at anything from the family business his elder brother did not want to take over and felt he should have been able to do something?
I understand commiting suicide. But I also understand the rage kambuckta feels, and I agree with her that it’s better to divest it to an anonymous message board than to yell at home.
Having watched the shit I’ve seen my three brothers go through, because of a lack of a father figure, I sympathise. However he was just absent, I really can’t imagine us dealing with the extra grief of suicide too. Best wishes from me and my congratulations too. Every mother worries about their kids and you can’t be doing too bad of a job from what you’ve described.
I don’t begrudge the OP her anger and judgment because she is dealing with the situation as a personal affront. But TokyoPlayer you should have severed all ties with that so called counselor as soon as he said those words.
It is not a counselor’s job to judge anyone’s actions, but to listen and offer constructive advice. I am sorry that your sister felt it necessary to try to take her life. Has anyone asked her why she did so, and what they could do to help?
)…I’m sure you’d be chuffed by him too, if you were here.