Preface Warning: This blog entry may be difficult for some to read. It’s okay, I understand. It isn’t the easiest to write. If you have stress and anxiety triggered by talk of suicide, stop here.
Last night I was on a virtual grief group meeting with other survivors from my First H.E.L.P./Blue H.E.L.P. family and we were discussing self-care and how to get through the bad days, and I got another reminder of how much has changed in the past two years in my life, how much I’ve changed.
Two years ago, I was just four weeks out from losing Grubby. I was back at work, and I was trying; I was trying to be functional and be “normal”, but it wasn’t to be. I had gone back to work right away because I thought if I kept busy, I could avoid the tears, the desperation, the guilt, the shame, the anger, the ideations, the reality of what my life had become. I could push all those unpleasant things away, just as I had done for the past 30 years. That was what I thought anyway. Funny how Qi Energy had other plans.
It was not long before I knew that I needed more time to try to heal. My attempts at healing have been numerous – some bordering on what most people would call “nuts” – but if they help, are they really nuts? I stepped back from my job and began trying almost anything that I could to try to get up off the couch and stop sobbing uncontrollably. I say “almost” because this is when a lot of people turn to alcohol or cigarettes to “calm the nerves”, but as both a recovering alcoholic and nicotine addict, neither of these was an option for me.
I had been in therapy for a month or so, and as anyone who has ever been to the VA for any sort of mental health concern could tell you, I was asked each time if I was having thoughts of suicide. Of course I did! Every day I had thoughts of it, BUT it was not an option for me. First, I had promised Abby and Grubby that I would raise her when I agreed to adopt her. Second, I had made a pact with my mother the night of Grubby’s death that I would not follow him into those woods, that I would not do what he did. I had to explain to my therapist that although I thought of it, I would not do it. I think it’s virtually impossible for survivors not to think about it because it has come into our lives: what once happened to other people had now happened to us. We have been touched by that pain, whereas before, we had not. I described it as being much like a girl who grows up in a house where her father abuses her mother, and who then, goes on to marry an abuser. Right or wrong, it’s what she knows. Just as she knows abuse, we know suicide.
Along with therapy, I was prescribed anti-anxiety meds and anti-depressants, and had routine follow-ups to see if they needed to be adjusted, which they did until we found a combination that seemed to help – at least I wasn’t crying every day and every night anymore. I attended every session of our bi-weekly virtual grief group.
These were the “normal” steps I took to try to heal, but then, there were the others, the not-so-normal steps: float therapy, having my chakras read, carrying rocks (crystals) in my pocket to heal my chakras, sleeping with said rocks under my pillow, guided meditation, using a Tibetan Singing Bowl, burning incense in my room at night – Hell, I even bought hippy dippy clothes! I never stopped getting waxed so I didn’t go full-on hippy, but if you saw me from the outside, you might think I was a little nuts. It was during this period that I shaved my head down to a buzz cut. I just couldn’t be bothered with it anymore.
I also traveled… it seemed that those first few months, Abby and I were always on the go: Navarre for Spring Break with Steve and Shana and the kids, Georgia for Hallie’s graduation, Atlanta (by sleeper train, no less) with John and Derrick for what would have been our wedding anniversary, the lake, Johnson City, Dallas… traveling was a way to escape the reality of being at home without Grubby.
I began to smile again, in spite of myself. I began to be able to think of the good times Grubby and I had, and there were so, so many. I still had the pain, but I was beginning to see short glimpses of sunshine through the darkness.
Those glimpses of sunshine gave me hope, so I kept going, and I keep going. I’m nowhere near “healed” – I don’t think one ever really heals from this, particularly when there are other traumas in the past – but I continue to have hope, and this morning, I read these words, “You have a 100% track record of getting through the bad days.”
How true that one sentence is! It’s all about perspective. If I focus on the bad moments, bad days, bad weeks, what I don’t have rather than what I do, I feel hopeless, but now I have another mantra to help me through the darkness and bring me just a little bit closer to the sunshine.
If you are reading this and you find yourself struggling, know that I see you. I know what you are going through, and yes, you have a 100% track record of getting through the bad days. The fact that you are still here, reading my words, is all the proof you need. May you see the sunshine, even if it’s just for a moment today and everyday going forward…
I see a lot of change in the way you are handing the things that are going on in your and Abbys life. I know that sometimes it is very hard. But I also see that you are a very strong Lady and that you are not a quitter. I also that you have alot of people that are here to help you and Abby at anytime that you need help.
Thank you, JD! I refuse to let this sink me, but some days, it does feel like I am drowning.
This made me tear up, but I applaud you on your dealing with your tragedy and moving forward not just for Abby but for yourself.
I hate that it made you tear up, but I know that you get it. I only know that I have to keep taking steps, even backwards is movement, and eventually, if not healed, I will at least be healthier.