Back from another long hiatus! Haven't had much desire to write though I have plenty to write about. I am hoping 2014 will be better. The holidays were blah. Although I enjoyed spending time with our families, the holidays were not without its dark days. Speaking of dark days....
I am still having a difficult time dealing with 2011. To experience two huge losses in one year has proven to be too much for me to handle at times. It's been a struggle to say the least. It's been a struggle. I feel like I'm swimming upstream.
Suicide is such a sudden, unexpected, and in this case, violent loss. I guess that is why the grief is so excruciating. I feel like my emotional well-being has been shattered. I don't feel like I have any answers to anything. It doesn't help that we lost D's mom, which was devastating and heart-wrenching. But to lose someone who had an important place in your life to suicide is painful and the emotions are overwhelming.
Sometimes I am consumed with guilt, wondering if there was something I could have done to prevent her from taking her own life. She had attempted to contact me eleven months prior to her suicide. She had sent me a "Friend Request" on Facebook and I "Ignored" it for a variety of reasons--reasons I thought were totally justified. I felt I was protecting myself as well as my relationship with D. Then, I feel guilty because I'm mourning over my ex's suicide. I can't discuss how I'm feeling with D because I feel as if I am disrespecting our relationship. I wouldn't want D feeling as if I don't love her because I do. I love her very much.
At times, I still don't believe she's gone. I'm still in shock about the whole thing. How could things have gotten so bad that she no longer had the will to live? I can't seem to wipe it out of my mind. I can't seem to come to terms with it all. I think about the life I had had with her and a smile comes to my face--but then come the tears. I can't believe she did it...and the manner she chose to do it.
Sometimes I feel angry--angry with her family for not doing more and angry with myself (why, I don't know). She had treated me so badly when we broke up. Why should I even give a damn? But I do...obviously.
I loved her. Even when my mother separated us, I pined for her for years until we were reunited. I loved her. And she loved me. Until one day, it all came crumbling down. Something went horribly wrong. And I will never have the answer for that just like I will never have the answer to why she decided to check out. Maybe that is why suicide is so traumatic. THERE IS NO CLOSURE! You're always wondering what their last thought was. I wonder what she was thinking when she put the rope around her neck. I wonder what she was thinking when she hung there, struggling. I will never know.
At times, I feel depressed and hopeless. I don't know why really. Could it be because I know what it feels like to feel hopeless to the point of suicide? I attempted it once myself years ago but was lucky enough to have survived it.
In a nutshell, I cry when I hear a song. I experience flashbacks. I have repeated visual images of her. Sometimes, those images are of her hanging...lifeless. At any moment, I can see something on TV or a song comes on the radio, and I am taken back and all I can do is think about her. I feel haunted, and, at times, I hate it.
They say bereavement after a loved one has taken his or her own life is often more complicated, intense and prolonged than it is with a death from natural causes. I can vouch for that.
And, on top of this, I find myself grieving over D's mother's passing as well. I hate life sometimes because it can be so unfair. I still haven't gotten used to the idea that she is no longer with us.
How strange it is that both of these losses are equally devastating to me yet one wanted to live and have more time with her loved ones and the other one didn't.
