Suicide does not stop the pain....(borrowed)

Thank you to my online support of the Friends of suicide yahoo group
by Kevin Caruso
If you are suicidal, you are in pain. In agonizing pain. And probably have untreated depression.

####This was in my inbox. Very simple but true. Ochman's hammer, if you will.

If you are suicidal, you are probably in agonizing pain. But the important question is, how do you stop the pain?

Let me start with what you should not do. You should not magnify the
pain. That may seem obvious, but let me explain further. You see, if
you die by suicide,
the pain that you were feeling gets transferred to your loved ones and
is strongly intensified. So the pain is not eliminated, it gets worse.
Much worse. Unbearably worse.

So do not magnify the pain with dying by suicide.

And if you die by suicide, you will not feel relief from the pain,
because relief is only felt by the living. So you must make a commitment to stay
alive--no matter what--and work on diminishing the pain that you are
feeling.
If you are suicidal, you probably are suffering from depression, and
depression is highly treatable. So if you have not seen a medical
doctor or a therapist, you need to do so
immediately.

Depression causes a chemical imbalance in the brain, and that imbalance
needs to be rectified. Sometimes medicine needs to be administered,
just like medicine would be administered for any other illness. So
receiving a prescription or taking medication should not be a worry. It is not a big deal. But suicide is a very, very big deal.
Again, dying by suicide does not get rid of pain, it makes it much
worse. And you do not feel relief, because you need to be alive to feel that relief.

So stay alive. And never, under any circumstance, end your life.


http://www.suicide.org/suicide-does-not-stop-the-pain.html

Holly's story

My baby sister was born February 14, 1975 to a middle class Cape Cod family. We didn't grow up with an abundance but we had the beach and life was safe. She loved and looked up to me and I can remmeber trying to get her to leave me and my friends alone during the summer months. I wish now that I had not been so selfish. I think this is why it bothers me terribly now when my kids are not getting along. She was the baby of the family and was considered the baby for years. I remember the day I yelled at mum asking when she would no longer be the baby anymore. I just did not understand motherhood or the feelings associated with the last child. I do now. When I think about it, she was my baby too. I would often get up and change her in the morning, playing until mum woke. Yes, she was the baby.

Like all babies, she grew and grew. The funniest memory I have was when Heather and I tried to tackle her and she has us both pinned. We were both laughing so hard we could not fight back. This was when we reached our teens and although I am 6 years older, we all became great friends. God, I miss that time. I moved out and had two babies. Holly was always there, babysitting, and being a companion to me--she was my best friend. But I went away to school and she went away for drinking--when she came home, she hated me. I am sure there is much more to it but we were never close again. Marriages followed and then her divorce from the love of her life. He was relentless in torturing her, taking her into court at least 11 times to take her kids from her. The day before he was to succeed, she hung herself. Sadly, not even a year had passed since she found her new husband hanging in the garage three weeks after they married. I now know one person every 13 minutes dies from suicide and there are 8-25 attempts per death. Staggering.

I found out she was gone by those very words uttered by my husband. "Heidi, Holly is gone." Since she had four previous attemtps since the death of her husband, my brain clicked to rapid realization. I wish there was some confusion and it was really a mistake. Depression is rampant in my family as is alcohol abuse. Coupled they are lethal. Having barely survived an attempt on my own life I have just realized this is when she started hating me. The pain of the one that wants to die is far reaching and so many are affected. How have I survived the death of my sister when there was so much unfinished between us? I blog. I research. I try to involve myself in support groups but I am not there yet. I have to deal with this pain doing what I am doing now. And I cry. I cry for what is lost and I cry for what could have been. Always maudlin and dealing with her birthday yesterday makes me very vulnerable right now. I don't share the pain enough, I suppose and I thought I was doing well. Today, not so much. I am grieveing and it is a process. Next will be activism.

You are missed, dear sister.



***** This is a post to be submstted for publication. Anything found in error, please let me know




Facts About Suicide and Depression
Figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the year 2010.

General

Over 38,000 people in the United States die by suicide every year.
In 2010 (latest available data), there were 38,364 reported suicide deaths.
Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death for adults between the ages of 18 and 65 years in the United States.
Currently, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States.
A person dies by suicide about every 13.7 minutes in the United States.
Every day, approximately 105 Americans take their own life.
Ninety percent of all people who die by suicide have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder at the time of their death.
There are four male suicides for every female suicide, but three times as many females as males attempt suicide.
There are an estimated 8-25 attempted suicides for every suicide death.

Suicide recovery. . . grief goes on

Some people dwell on the past, some plan for the future and others will struggle to get through today…

http://www.stampoutsuicide.org.uk/



Two weeks of bed and tears necessitated research on suicide--probably becausce the thought has passed through my own mind more times than I care to admit while I poured out angst I did not know I still had inside. I placed Holly's name on the Suicide Memorial Wall this morning and joined a British suicide board to connect with others. (Since I loath crowds of people, life is safer behind the computer.)

http://www.suicidememorialwall.com/index.php

I am not sure when it will show up as it has to be reviewed but I will be watching my email. Actually, it is now up:

Our, Holly Ann Davis (37)
14 February 1975 -
12 July 2012
Yarmouth, Massachusetts

I also sent in information to Collateral Damage. This is a project to photojournal the faces of those left behind.

http://leftbehindbysuicide.org/

ABOUT COLLATERAL DAMAGE
“Collateral Damage: Images of Those Left Behind by Suicide,” will be a book of portraits, a website and gallery exhibition, telling the stories of people who have lost loved ones through suicide. When I was 16, my father took his own life. Although I have always been honest and open about how he died, I often felt I was left to deal with my pain and recovery in solitude - my grief paralyzed by the social stigma associated with such an act. Even now, 27 years later, I still have so many questions.
Through this book of images, I hope to find some answers and at the very least, start a long, overdue conversation.

Where am I today? I am bereaved. Suicide is so evil because while one is in the moment, no other alternatives seem viable.

There is also this: the person you are most angry with for taking your loved one away is your loved one. They are, in a strange way, the only one to blame. This incongruent despair mixes with destructive self-blame and blame directed at anyone we feel responsible—for not seeing the signs, not being home at the time, not making sure our loved one took their medication, not keeping medication locked up.

The expression “time heals everything” does not often apply to suicide survivors. The bereavement process is complicated not only by the natural feelings of grief and loss, but by the guilt and the stigma associated with suicide.


"I am a suicide survivor. Mistakenly, many think the term refers to people who have unsuccessfully attempted suicide. The term actually refers to a family member or friend who has lost a loved one to suicide.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 38,364 people committed suicide in the United States in 2010 (the most recent statistic available)—a figure greater than the number of people in the U.S. who died in car crashes that year.

It is generally estimated that every suicide leaves behind six suicide survivors. The New York State Office of Mental Health says this may be a low estimate, and quotes numbers closer to 28 suicide survivors per suicide victim.

When those numbers are compounded, “since, on average, 1,200 New Yorkers die by suicide each year, the latter estimate means approximately 60,000 people qualify as suicide survivors each and every year. This is equivalent to the population of the city of Utica.”

So what do we all do? We search one another out. We share the thoughts that people untouched by suicide just do not understand. Hell, we don't even understand it! If I did, I would not ocntinue to get a grip. I found this 12 step for grieving suicide:

Step One: Try to gain insight into why people I knew and loved took their own lives.

Step Two: Share my feelings of guilt over not being able to stop them.

Step Three: Listen to others' heart-wrenching stories.

Step Four: Cry.

Steps Five through Twelve: Repeat steps one through four.

And that is how I am coping.

Holly, your baby turned 16 last month. I bet she wished you were there. I know I wish you were.

In support of grief --one year down

I read this and found it eloquently spoke of the true nature of grief.

To everyone else, the death of that being you loved for his own sake, or her own sake, is an event that occurs on a certain day. For you the death only begins that day. It is not an event: it is only the first moment in a process that lives in you, springing up into the present, engulfing you years, decades, later as though it were the first moment again



I am going to continue to work through my loss but it will always be there. I can only help that it has made me more compassionate and to value people: especially the little ones whose lives I am the role model for.

I guess it is trying for normality that allows one to move forward. A tiny clip of time here or there when great pain receded for a bit. It is found in a child's laughter, a purring kitten, the fresh smell of line hung sheets, a wood stove that needs to be stoked it is in h these simple motions, I can find acceptance. I don't cry nearly as much, I blame noting on her that is going on my relationships-- I cannot be all things to all people but I can give it my best attempt. I have rethought everything though and that is painful. I cry. I cry, I CRY. . I research everything and understand the process at work. I repeatedly experience the first moment: "Heidi. Holly's GONE" but not nearly as often. Her headstone:



Daddy goes to the cemetary each Sunday after church, with his coffee, I wonder what they talk about. Could things have been different? I wonder..... He will never tell and I will never ask. This grief is an invisible cloak we wear at times. Some times I take it off but most of often it is resting on my shoulders rather than covering my whole being. The hood is off.

This is the start of healing, always remembering it will always be the first moment.


To Holly:
This is probably the last picture of you while you had breath. I wish I could see more into your eyes. The smile did not reach there:
,

Here is where I am supposed to relate when I want to figure out truly why. Was it really mental illness, undiagnosed, biological exacerbated by alcohol? More than 80 percent of suicides are due to misdiagnosed mental illness. Then I look at my genetic progeny and wonder if it will be any of them that I lose to this disease.

But here we are at the last step.
Finding acceptance may be just having more good days than bad ones. As we begin to live again and enjoy our life, we often feel that in doing so, we are betraying our loved one. We can never replace what has been lost, but we can make new connections, new meaningful relationships, new inter-dependencies. Instead of denying our feelings, we listen to our needs; we move, we change, we grow, we evolve. We may start to reach out to others and become involved in their lives. We invest in our friendships and in our relationship with ourselves. We begin to live again, but we cannot do so until we have given grief its time.


http://grief.com/the-five-stages-of-grief/

I LOVE YOU HOLLY. I WILL NEVER HAVE YOU FAR FROM ME.

Grasping grief and forging through it

It has been a period of time where I actually analyzed where I am in processing H's suicide. I have contacted a Grief group that meets on Wednesday so I can get help for dealing with this minus my family members who have not been able to even start the process. H-2 said she would wait until she graduated with her BA--it has been a bit of time and she does not realize She, me and FB no longer interact. She will deal on her clock. Mum does not want to talk about it and Dad now goes to church every Sunday and takes his coffee to sit at her headstone--location I still do not know of.

First:

http://www.compassionatefriends.org/brochures/adults_grieving_the_death_of_a_sibling.aspx

I however, I look forward to not being shut out and off. My grief is real and my methods are sound. Or a group setting is needed for me right now.

Links to the site:


http://www.griefshare.org/



This is Wednesday nights... In Celebration FL. A trip to group sharing instead of the family/friend support fills that void.
l

Here is an article on adults suffering the death of sibling:

http:ww.compassionatefriends.org/brochures/adults_grieving_the_death_of_a_sibling.aspx

The Loss of Future

When a sibling dies, all future special occasions will be forever changed. There will be no more shared birthday celebrations, anniversaries, or holidays. There will be no telephone calls telling of the birth of a new nephew or niece. The sharing of life’s unique and special events will never again take place.

What Adult Siblings May Expect

Survivor guilt is normal. Siblings usually have a relationship where they seek to protect each other. Despite the physical distance that may separate them as adults, this need to have provided protection weighs heavily in the aftermath of the loss.
Guilt about how the relationship was maintained is common. So often as adults, the sibling relationship has changed from younger years.. Each travels a separate path, and sometimes communication is lacking and ambivalent feelings about maintaining the relationship surface. No matter how good a relationship may have been, the survivor often believes it should have been better, causing guilt.
Anger over a new role within the family often occurs. A surviving sibling may now be the one expected to care for aging parents, and he or she may have to step into the role of guardian for nieces and nephews. Remaining family members may look to surviving siblings for guidance. All these situations are possible reasons to feel anger over a sibling’s death.
Fear of mortality. When a brother or sister dies, it is natural for the surviving sibling or siblings to look at their own lives and question how many years they have left, and what their deaths would do to the family.
Surviving siblings may find positive changes within their lives. These may include greater emotional strength, increased independence, and a soul-searching reexamination of religious beliefs. Some survivors feel the need to make a change in their life’s work, such as becoming a therapist, or working to effect a change in the area that took the life of the sibling.
Even when a sibling has died, a connection still remains. Surviving brothers and sisters think about them; talk about them; remember them at special times such as birthdays, holidays, and death dates; and may create a memorial of some type. This connection with the sibling who died does not have to be given up to move forward in life.

When will the pain end?

After all the lose I have experienced, I wonder when the tears will stop. I had a breakdown last night and I don;'t even remember it. I want to buy the house on the cape back so I can see H walk through it. I am dwelling in this pain and it hurts so badly I want to start screaming and never stop. There is no end until I see her in heaven. OH I MISS YOU SOOOOOO!!!!!! Why did you have to go? Was it really that bad? I want to call you. I want to hug you. I want to know you are somewhere out there hating me. I want to know you are breathing. Instead, you are a pile of ashes, not even given the chance to decay. Your youth is guaranteed I look at your photo every day hoping the pain will lessen, hoping I will come to terms with your loss. Instead, I am in a maelstrom and I cannot get out. The pressure of the wind seeks to take my breath. The pounding of the waves pull me under but not for the relief death will bring but only to torture me. I wake from my dreams before I can touch you. I see you when you were my friend and you and I talk. Then I wake. It is almost a year and I cannot wrap anything around the reality. I seek to obliviate myself for my reality seems to suck the life out of me. Alas, I still wake. I still move through the days with you fore front in my thoughts. "if only" resounds through my barely functioning brain. Every decision I make remains suspect because I am not thinking clearly. It has become an impossibility. There is so much mess behind me that I have not even begun to heal from this. Will I ever? Please don't go. Please come back. I love you so.

H, I gave my heart to someone. I thought I was finally happy. I was for a brief moment in time. I understand a broken heart. Talk to me. I will hold your hand. We can mourn together. I want you to know I am always here for you. My dearest baby sister. Please let me help you through this. You'd be surprised at the wisdom I now have. And you can help me through my divorce. I don't know what I am doing. I am scared and I need someone. You are so needed. So very loved. Holding you in my heart is going to make it implode. It hurts. Please come back and take away some of this pain. The rest I will process, but your loss is a mountain I keep slipping down. I cannot reach the precipice. Will I ever.