Suicide Survival

Suicide Survival

News, searing pain, disbelief, questions, sadness, what if, emptiness, darkness . . .  

It can happen to someone you love, and you are suddenly plunged into darkness, an abyss that isolates you from life, and as you try to climb out of it, you find yourself on a never-ending merry-go-round in your mind, living in the dizziness of all that was, no longer noticing what is.  To lose someone we love in any way is devastating, but when someone slips away from us after having made a choice to leave this earthly existence rather than to stay . . . well, the challenge to accept it can be great, indeed, and seemingly too much to bear.  My purpose in this writing is to try to help you see a way out of your darkness, a way out of the confusion of your thoughts as a result of this life-changing experience that has happened to you. 

I know, for it happened to me and to my family.  After our daughter chose to leave this life a little over four years ago, each one of us left remaining dove into that dark place, and we made the climb out in our own time and in our own ways.  The journey continues for us, as it is never quite ‘finished’, but, one thing is for certain, the recognition that life exists on the other side of this one has helped us get off the merry-go-round and step back into living.

A tragic event such as this naturally becomes a time of great introspection.  We examine our past words, past actions, our past history with our loved one, and in doing so, we can become absorbed in the weight of guilt, our life focused on what was.  We all do and say things in our relationships that have the potential to deeply affect those close to us; but, ultimately, each one of us makes his or her decisions as to our actions based upon our individual needs. We cannot truly know what is going on in someone else’s mind, or in their heart, or what the journey of their spirit must be.  How could we?  And, we needn’t know what it is, for it becomes that soul’s journey to take.  We live our own journey, no one else’s.  We cannot prevent what another does, but we can decide what we can do in response to their actions.

We have so many questions . . . perhaps, the one to ask is not why our loved one chose to do what they did, but what is it that we must learn from this experience that we are having in regard to it, for that is our part in the higher scheme of things.  And, if we honestly ask ourselves that question, and truthfully answer it, our discovery will become a catalyst for deep personal growth that can bring about acceptance and finally peace.     

No matter what the circumstance of our loved one’s passing, the truth is that we can never know just why this tragedy has happened.  All the questions, they can haunt us forever within each day of the rest of our lives if we chose to let them.  The real truth is that we can never know why, can never change the past, what we said, what we did, and even if we could, does that guarantee that things would have been different?  Who knows the answer to that, but what we do know is that we are left with now, our now.   

We can’t stop someone else from ending their life here if that is their soul’s desire, but we can make choices that prevent us from falling into an earthly kind of giving our life away.  Now, think about it . . . if your loved one who has passed on to the next life sees you somehow from where they are, would they sense happiness at your continued pain?  Would they feel joy at how you were living the days since they left?  Perhaps, we can show them how much their life meant to us by how we live ours here, now.

That’s the risk we take remaining on that merry-go-round . . . the risk of losing ourselves in the days of our earthly life, a different kind of loss, but, just as real as the one our loved one chose, still purposeful, for we have a choice in it.  Although it may seem difficult, it is possible to stop the circling of your mind and to step into a place where you can start finding yourself living once again, living your life with the freshness of the personal knowledge that your loved one has caused you to gain, living in the now, remembering the past, but not living in the past, being grateful for what you now know.  It is an opportunity to be what you weren’t when your loved one was here on the earth, your chance to show what you have learned by the sacrifice of them.  Give them peace by experiencing your peace.  Let them be free, release them to their destiny.  It is your choice.

Love & Light,

Corinne