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Tuesday 6 February 2007

5 Just after

blinking cursor...
I don't know where to start!
After it happened, after we stood in shock in different rooms of the house, after we pulled together for comfort and each withdrew in some way as well, after I had awoken on several mornings feeling normal for a second or two before the awful reality came bearing down on me... after the funeral with its disbelief and yet comforting routine, after thinking I must be in a film, and how if only I could fast forward a year I wouldn't feel so god-awful...
After the endless telephone calls, after the police returned me his watch and ring in a plastic bag, after not being able to cry when I wanted to and not being able to stop when I didn't... after flowers and cards and candles and more fucking telephone calls... After smelling his clothes and blinking in utter disbelief, after wanting to kill my aunt for saying how I reminded her of him and after sleeping in the bed he had spent his last night in
I had to face normal life.
And this was the worst part by far.

I don't know how it happened but I made the decision to return to University as soon as possible. What else was there to do?

Except that I returned in a new skin, one that was as if transparent and made of pure nerve endings. I felt as vulnerable as a child and utterly raw. Anyone could say anything at any time that could cut me to the quick and I couldn't protect myself - not that they meant to, but it didn't matter, it hurt anyway because they didn't understand. I was banished to an island far from the shore and there was no way I could cross back. I was - I felt - utterly alone in my grief.

I wandered around the corridors trying to focus on where I was going, but in my mind was a mantra
dad's dead dad's dead dad's dead
It was relentless. And of course, those terrible, awkward moments when friends - and acquaintances - wanted to say how sorry-they-were-and-if-there-was-anything-they-could-do-just to-say. Poor people, they were damned if they did and damned if they didn't. Because everything hurt. Simply everything.

That awful feeling lasted a long time, but it didn't last forever.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I wrote a comment to your last post about a week ago but I'm not sure if you got it so I figured that I'd try again.

I stumbled across your blog by chance. My name is Jesse, and I live in Ottawa, Ontario Canada. Three years ago this June my father shot himself in the head. I was 21 and in the middle of university. Now almost three years later I'm nearing 24 and the fact that he's gone is still a shock.

Suicide is a horrible loss for any family to endure. The upsetting thing is that it is not talked about as much as it should be, both by survivors and the general public.

It seems dicussing mental health issues is taboo, however if more people did so I believe that horrible events such as these would lessen.

I think you are very courageous for starting this blog, and I hope that your posts not only act as a theraputic release for yourself as you write but as well as an aid for other suicide survivors as they read them.

Best wishes!

You are not alone.

If you have lost a loved one to suicide, this may help you to realise that you are not alone. 
There are others out there who have been bereaved in this way. 
These are bits a pieces of my own experiences. 
I hope they may help in some way.