Remember Me???
Hi,
It has been so long since I wrote a journal, but I know I am remembered. I am way too dramatic to be easily forgotten...I know the very special Moms who responded to my earliest posts have not forgotten me, as I have not forgotten them. When I wrote, it was so early, so raw, yet I got so mant comments saying essentially. "I could have written this...this is exactly the way I feel...It is perfectly normal to feel this way". Those were very, very hard days, 6 1/2 years ago. But, you know what??? I miss them. I had not been seperated from my daughter as long as I have been now. I was terrified...of life. But there were tiny slivers of hope that one day I would honor my Cassi by helping other grieving mothers some day. I think I did too!!! In those first 2 or 3 years, I thought I simply had to do something useful for others to justify my existence. How could I have gone on without some kind of purpose???
I want to be that woman again. I want to be like Ann, Teri, Merilee...continuing the fight, but I seem to have lost my steam. No...I HAVE lost my steam. It's so overwhelming, the numbers, the sheer multitude of mothers who are living with a loss, or a new loss. The way I lost Cassi, suicide...the numbers continue to climb. I know this is horrible to admit, please don't feel badly towards me, it's only my opinion...but I have come to believe there is very little that can be done. I was born sad, had suicidal ideations from as early as 12 years old, still do. I thought by loving her enough, giving her enough, she wouldn't. She did. Only so much worse, she actually completed. We try to bring "awareness" to the situation...but isn't everyone aware it exists anyway??? I just have doubts, quite often, that we can really make a difference, no matter what we do. Chances are, someone who completes suicide has had ideations for a long while, and maybe just reach a moment when the darkness has overtaken them in a way that even I haven't experienced...and they go. How are we to prevent it when we can't be there at that particular moment???
Most of you did not lose your child this way, so you may have a knee-jerk reaction to what I am about to say. I know my child had been in a lot of pain for a very long time. I am starting to feel like maybe, just maybe, it was her choice, maybe even her right. Clinical depression is a real disease, an insidious disease. You might not see it, there are not blood tests or CAT scans to diagnose it. But the pain is just as real as if it were a physical disease. Do we have the right to force life saving measures upon a person who doesn't want to live in pain??? If we have a pet, a dog or cat, that is suffering, we are allowed to make the decision to end their misery. Should a person have the right to make that choice for themselves??? But, then there is the other train of thought, could our children who took their own lives gotten past that desperate moment, and be glad they did???
So many questions with suicide. I have lived 6 1/2 years without my reason to live. I was born to be her mother. She was everything to me. I have been in desperate moments when my pain seemed too much to bear, yet I didn't put a pistol in my mouth. How, How, How dark it must have been for her to do it??? For her to be in a place darker than I have been in??? Was it selfish of me to want her to continue to live in that pain, just to save me the pain of losing her??? I am sure the moment would have passed. I am equally certain it would have returned. It wasn't her first attempt.
I miss her so much. Time has softened the intensity, just as you all told me it would. But the more time that passes marks the longer I have been without her. And ohdeargod I miss her. When I had her I was arrogant. Thought I could thumb my nose at the entire world, because all I needed I had in her. I felt like the luckiest mom in the world, I still feel I was, even in the dark times. I had HER, all I could ever want or need. So yes, time has smoothed the sharpest edges, yet the ache is still there. I am still a mother, but a mother without a child...and even now, after all this time, I often wonder what in the world I am supposed to do with that. Honestly, I even feel selfish at times, if I could prevent a suicide, why didn't someone prevent hers. Selfish, I know, but I feel that way at times.
No one ever told me this would be an easy road. So sad.
Replies
Hi Gina, it has been a minute, but I would like you to know I remember you. I see you and I feel this pain. I lost Brett to overdose 7 yrs this year. . I will tell you he did suffer deep depression, and the pain of watching our child in that much pain is just too much.
My mother also completed suicide, and I think you are spot on with your statement. She went through life sad, and attempted at least 3 times I know of. It was many years later when I was in counseling that I understood for the first time the pain she lived in each day. Always trying to put a smile on, but as a child I knew her pain. I just didn’t understand it. Do I wish she would have been here for the grandchildren and now great grandchildren, yes. But not in the pain and suffering she endured.
I’m so glad you posted, and I know days are still hard, I believe this is part of our path now. We do the best we can and look for the gentle kind days. Please be gentle with you.
Sending tight hugs
Cindy
YES you are remembered! YES your Cassi is remembered! And YES, you and she are forever loved by us.
My personal life has not be touched by....shattered by....suicide, so I cannot speak with any authority. Anything I offer is merely assumptions on my part. But I do hear you, I HEAR your tender, loving heart. And I am touched by your words, deeply.
For all moms who've lost a child, the road "toward" healing (as I call this journey I'm on) is HARD, SAD, often LONELY, and always heartbreaking. I "think"...I "assume"....I "imagine" made harder still by the reasons and or ways in which our child(ren) left this side of life. I often think, and I'm being 100% honest, that I was "lucky" in our scenario. Kala left the house with a huge smile on her face and a bounce in her step. Off to hang out with friends. Our last words were "Have fun, be careful, I love you"...."I will, I love you too". She wasn't battling a life threatening disease which finally won that battle. Now mind you, I didn't feel one bit "lucky" at the time....nor do I feel lucky now. But our scenario, as devastating as it was, was not the final act of a horrendous battle.
But Kala HAD battled depression. It was serious and her journey toward that healing included being hospitalized in a treatment center after an attempted suicide. I "comforted" myself by telling everyone "she didn't really want to kill herself, she just wanted the pain to end and she cried out for help in the only way she knew how....trying to overdose". Which she didn't even do, she called me into her room that horrible day and held out her hand with an empty pill bottle and said, "I took all of those". I do truly, honestly believe it was a cry for help otherwise she would have taken the pills and NOT called me in to her room. But again, I "assume".
I think, for the most part, we as a society look at suicide in such an unhealthy and incorrect way. There is an unjust stigma attached to suicide, just as there is to addiction. I think those who suffer with depression, and addiction, are just as much a victim of their diseases as anyone battling cancer to any other illness. Sadly, too many people think depression and addiction are "choices and can be controlled if they just want to badly enough". I used to be one of those people. God forgive me.
And I understand your statement that you were born to be a mother. I FEEL that so deeply. I "think"....again "assuming"....that because of your own genetic make up and your childhood and early life experiences, it was created in you the desire to be a mom. The BEST mom. Perhaps to fill empty places within YOUR being, your life. I say this because this is true for me. I remember a teacher asking us students what we wanted to be when we grew up. Everyone offered their answers....doctor, pilot, yada, yada, yada. When it was my turn, I answered, "a mommy". I had a deep, deep NEED to be a mom. Correction, "I" had a deep, deep need to be loved and in my little (and later grown up mind) I believed the only way for ME to be loved, was to create a life, a child, which would love me. I'm NOT saying this is what you did with Cassi, I'm saying this is 100% what I did. I so desperately wanted to be loved, and felt so unloved as a child, I thought I could "make" someone and that someone would love me forever and unconditionally and fulfill my every emotional need. Didn't exactly work out like I'd planned, LOL! (referencing my son here)
And I think...."think"....that perhaps because the need to be a mom was so great and so deeply rooted inside your very being, and your love for your child was so powerful and pure and ALL, when your precious child "chose" suicide as the means in which to end her unimaginable pain, you were devastated on levels I can only begin to imagine. As much as I found fault with myself over Kala's car accident...over her couple of years battling depression...over all the things I told myself I'd done wrong through the years; I can only imagine that when a mother loses a child to suicide, that mom must feel guilt and failures on levels my brain can't absorb.
What I also "assume" regarding suicide, is this; the person must be in such extreme pain, such extreme anguish, such extreme depression, that suicide is the only "rational" thing they can think of to end their suffering. And I do not believe anyone....no mother, no friend, no teacher, and no counselor, can prevent it from happening. I do KNOW that those who are struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts CAN be helped and can heal and can lead magnificent lives. I believe we are talking about two different types/levels of this disease. I simply cannot, and do not, believe you or anyone else on this planet could have prevented Cassi's transition. I believe this as fully as I believe Kala didn't complete suicide ONLY because she wasn't truly suicidal. Therapy helped her because she was still searching for ways earth side to cope with her depression.
As you know, I'm 13+ years down this LONG road toward my healing, and yes, the edges of my pain have been rounded out and softened and I know I will continue to move forward and LIVE my life. But the missing remains, will forever remain a HUGE part of me. Our children are forever embedded into every fiber of our being. I am still Kala's mom! You are still Cassi's mom! Physical presence on this side does not dictate this truth.
THANK YOU for popping in and sharing your heart with us!!! For me, this is HOME for my heart and I am forever grateful to have this space to share with each other whatever we need to share. Being heard, truly heard, is so helpful and healing. I pray you feel heard and loved, I assure you, you are!
Tightest of heart hugs,
Teri
I understand this all too well. If I have to know this torment so my son, Patrick could know relief from his pain, so be it.
Would I want him back? Not unless he was healthy and happy. I miss him with every breath.. I always will, but He is where he needed to be..❤️
Love and tight heart hugs to you Lauri.
Of course I remember you Gina..and I remember your Cassie
Depression is real..I suffer from it and have been on medication since 2007 and will be on meds the rest of my life probably. Depression is just an imbalance of chemicals in the brain. Period. No different than a diabetic who needs insulin..no shame in that right ? So why are we so unable to give the same compassion to depression.
And I agree the sheer numbers of new moms joking FMO is/can be overwhelming.
Hugs to you Gina and Cassie...You ARE remembered
Marylou... Jenny’s mom forever
Gina, I distinctly remember a conversation with you that stayed with me all these years. We were talking about our kids - and you said watching your child die of cancer would have to be the hardest thing (my son died of brain cancer at 22), and I remember saying that I thought having your child die by suicide would be the hardest. I never forgot that - this interesting way we both wanted to comfort each other, and finding our own path something less traumatic - some kind of way to validate that our burden,, in the scheme of burdens, was doable. Anyway - I have told that story many times because I was so intrigued by our way to connect, to console, to soothe each other and therefore, ourselves. I loved you for that then, and I've thought of you and Cassie over the years. Patti .
Hi Gina, thank you so much for reaching out, for putting your feelings in to words so that others along this path may see that they are NOT ALONE!
Although most of us share some very deep and intimate experiences, each of us is walking this walk alone. Yes, we feel the hands and hearts of our SOTH surrounding our soul, understanding our deepest pain yet, we have to travel our own path... remember when you offered to divorce your husband, move to Canada if I would marry you?! Yes, I still remember and I still giggle!
One of the hardest things I am doing my best to come to terms with is the fact that I had no CONTROL over the choices Jason made leading up to his death. In order for me to have a chance to stay somewhat sane I have had to acknowledge that I was not in control, nothing I said made him listen to me (or his girlfriend for that matter). Jason made his own decisions - he promised both his girlfriend and I that if he wasn't feeling better by the weekend, he would go to the clinic. He died that Friday. Didn't live to see the weekend....
I had to respect his choices - he was a grown adult. I couldn't threaten to ground him or take away the keys to the car if he didn't do as I said... and at the end of the day, I know damn well that if the rolls had been reversed and he had been urging me to go to the Doctor and I chose to put it off, it sure would not have been on him, would it?
I have to imagine that completing suicide has to be one of the most earth shattering, devastating losses a parent could experience. And yet, there is no way that you had any control over Cassi's choices. And I'm sure there were a lot of decisions she made as a young adult that, while you may not have agreed with, you respected her right to make them.
Losing a child, no matter their age literally, for me, is like a sledge hammer screaming "YOU HAVE NO CONTROL". And it's true. And humbling and life altering. Yet, just as my parents watched in horror (I'm sure!) at some of my choices, I made my own. And Jason did as well.
Had Cassi made different choices leading up to and including the day she died, would she have slayed her demons? Would she have learned to manage the darkness? The survivors can be tormented by the "what if's" for the rest of their lives. There are no answers that will take the pain and helplessness away. Letting it go is the only answer I have. At least it has been my answer.
It was explained to me that had Jason survived the ravages of the poison coursing through his body, while his kidneys would've healed and his lungs would've been ok and his heart would've been weaker but ok, his brain never would've recovered. So I am grateful that he didn't survive only to be a vegetable or dependent on someone else for everything. He would've hated every second of that.
One thing I am learning is that this journey is in no way a straight line. Nor will it ever be. Having each other here is my greatest salvation in my darkest hours, and there are many...
I am really glad to hear that you have ambitions. That tells me that something will, when the time is right, present itself to you that will be perfect for you. Forcing the issue may not help however human it is.
You are not alone, you know that, you are loved and appreciated and often thought of...
Jasons's Mom, Merrilee