© Meesa Caudill
vic·tim
/ˈviktəm/ Noun
- A person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action.
Victims. Survivors. Those left behind.
"Get over it already."
"It's been _ years. You're still upset?"
"She just wants pity and attention."
"Anyone who wants to kill themselves, just let them."
How many of you have thought these things? Said them? I admit it. I have. Until six years ago.
I didn't understand the anguish, questions, and destruction a suicide leaves behind. I had dealt with losing friends and family members to natural causes, a car accident, and even to homicide. I assumed, like most people, that losing a loved one to suicide was the same as any other death. That you grieve, you go through the stages of dealing with a death, you smile at the good memories and then you get over it.
Sadly, that's not the case. Losing a loved one to suicide is a wound that never heals. For some "survivors" it causes deep depression, some suffer PTSD (primarily those that witnessed the act or the outcome- but even some just from the loss), some just get lost in their own worlds. And then you have the ones like me- the ones who still, after six years, fight with the anger. Those of us that build walls up between other people, that get furious at ourselves when we realize we care too much or feel too deeply- because every emotion we now feel somehow relates to the day we found out we had been abandoned by those we held closest to our hearts.
"Pain comes in all forms. The small twinge, a bit of soreness, the random pain. The normal pains we live with everyday. Then there's the kind of pain you can't ignore. A level of pain so great that it blocks out everything else... Makes the rest of your world fade away, until all we can think about is how much we hurt. How we manage our pain is up to us. Pain. We anesthetize , ride it out, embrace it, ignore it, and for some of us the best way to manage pain is to just push through it." ~ Meredith Grey, Grey's Anatomy
It's been six years tomorrow. 2-27-07. That date will forever be burned into my brain. That date forever haunts me, my mother, my sister, my niece, aunts, uncles, grandmother, cousins, family friends. I have sat here tonight kind of in my own world, trying to get lost inside the tv or internet, and my mind keeps taking me back to this time six years ago.
I can't remember what I was doing the night before my dad took his own life. I remember the last time I saw him- it was at my sister's baby shower on February 11, 2007. I didn't talk to him much that day because his best friend was there and they were trying to stay away from us "cacklin' hens".
I remember the last time I spoke to him - February 23, 2007. It was my then-boyfriend's birthday and we were about to go to Olive Garden for dinner when my dad called me from my grandmother's house to tell me he was proud of me. I didn't understand why he was so proud of me and I rushed off the phone so as to not ruin my evening because I assumed he was drunk and I figured I would just end up emotional. I remember about an hour after that was the first time I felt my son "kick"- that flutter you feel when you're in early pregnancy. I was 14 weeks at the time.
And I remember the day I got the call at work. I remember the weather that day. I remember where I was parked on campus. I remember the stop sign I was pulling up to when my aunt Marie called my phone and told me he was dead. I even remember what I was wearing that day. I remember the look on my sister's face as I walked in the door and she was crying, and I remember collapsing on the floor screaming "Someone's fucking with us! They're lying!!!!"
At that point the memories go kind of fuzzy until the memory of being at the funeral home and begging the funeral director to please let me see my daddy. I think in my mind I felt like I could wake him up. The funeral director wouldn't let me see him, he told me that my dad didn't look very good and they hadn't had time to "fix him up" yet and that I didn't want to see him that way.
Fuzzy again. I know I helped pick out his casket but I don't really remember it.
Then I remember the day of the funeral... getting so mad at my mom because she was on the phone the first time I saw my daddy in his casket. I remember how handsome he looked lying there- the funeral home had done such a good job on making him look like the young, healthy man in my childhood memories- not the tortured alcoholic he had become. I remember vividly the appearance of a smirk on his face- as if he was finally happy, at peace, and even a bit sarcastic about what he had just done. And then everything fades to black again until six weeks later when I found out I had also lost my son.
For so many years after 2007, I've heard many times how "strong" everyone thought I was. Even now, friends will tell me they don't know how I survived that year. And honestly, looking back, even I don't know how.
Now, six years later, I work at the coroner's office and I occasionally see those same tortured expressions that I'm certain my mom and I had when we walked into that funeral home for the first time. I occasionally see and hear that same anger I feel to this day in the voices and faces of the people that have to visit my office. Every time I see that pain, I want so badly to stand up and hug those left behind and tell them that it gets better. I want to tell them that they'll get over the horrible hurt they're experiencing. I want to tell them that it all goes away. But I can't.
Because the truth is- none of it ever does. Those of us left behind just figure out our own ways of dealing. Every. Single. Day.
Constant reminders of what we're missing, constant reminders of the day we got that horrible news. Reminders of the pain our loved ones were experiencing.
We know that that day changed us forever, and not for the better. We know that we are now damaged, and we're hurt, and we're angry, and we're ripped to shreds on the inside.
And the truth is that a "survivor" rarely feels comfortable talking about these things with people, even our closest friends. Because we don't want to burden anyone with such emotions, we know no one understands and that we seem like we "play the victim" or that we are "seeking pity". We are "depressing people" who "hang on" to too much. Honestly, I don't think any of us want pity. All of us look for a release.
My release, most of the time, is my writing. Unfortunately not everyone has the ability to write their emotions so they find other ways. When I can't write and I feel like my head is a mess from the non-stop war in my brain, I anxiously await the weekends so that I can get silly with friends, drink, and go completely numb. Healthy? Of course not. But being a "survivor" of losing a parent to suicide isn't healthy and we all just deal with it the best way we know how.
Am I as "strong" as people have told me I am? Not even close. I think I've just become a new person. And that new person is "just fine".
