Suicide

Each time I see the posts about Robin Williams' suicide, it's like a slap in the face.  I find it difficult to look at the images, read the articles, and tolerate the comments people put on the sites- defending him for what he did, saying it was ok because he was depressed, that it is an option for people who struggle.

I've been struggling with my father's suicide for two years, unable to come out of the closet and talk about it, because of the stigma of mental illness and what suicide does to a family.  Suicide rips a family apart with secrets, inability to speak about the person who died unless you speak in code, and general isolation for everyone involved, because suicide is just something you don't talk about.

What I don't understand is what makes it ok for a celebrity to commit suicide and not a family member.  A few weeks ago I had a confrontation with a family member because I talked to my children about what my father did and she hadn't told her children.  I have family members who won't talk about it at all.  She was afraid I was going to poison her children with the news.

The way I look at it, suicide became a part of my life when I was three, when my father lost his grip on reality.  He was a paranoid schizophrenic most of his life and attempted suicide three times when I was a child.  What that does to a child is tell her that not only is her father going to leave, he is going to kill himself to do it.

I can't imagine what the emotional toll did to my mother when I was growing up, but I am starting to have an idea.  I had a huge amount of my childhood I blocked out, and now I know why.  The constant emotional draining and chaos that my father inflicted on all of us traumatized me at a very early age.



A lot of his behavior came out in my marriage, I was following his patterns and didn't know it.  In remembering the 7 years that I had blocked out and putting the pieces back together, I realized that he often told my mother that he wasn't loved enough, that she somehow deserved his abuse (explosive anger is a hallmark of schizophrenia), and that he was going to die because she didn't love him.

I had heard these things but blocked them because they were some of the worst things a human can say to another human.  A lot of these things I have thought to myself and tried to work out through energetic means so that they don't affect my husband or my marriage.  I hadn't known where they came from until I uncovered the words my father had said to my mother.

Living with an emotional vampire took a toll on all of us.  His mental illness was just not talked about, at all.  The family treated it like it was a curse, or a sin, and he suffered for it.  He spent most of his life thinking he was crazy, that there was no way to heal or help the issues he had.  There are ways, but they have to be explored by healing trauma, and he either didn't have the tools or was unable to do that.

So when the RW suicide hit the headlines it opened up the wounds all over again, it was as if I was reliving the horrific details of my father's death (which I have seen energetically), and the worst part was that people were actually talking about it openly.  There was no celebration for my father for people who knew what had happened.

My sister and I tried the best we could to celebrate his life at the funeral.  Many of his friends were told he had a heart attack, not a stretch for a man who was 300 or so pounds with heart disease and frequent hospitalizations for heart issues.  Those that didn't know were sympathetic and understanding, but those that did acted differently.

I know that everyone processes grief in a different way and they were all doing the best they could with the information.  I just felt very isolated.  My best friend couldn't understand and my sister and I processed it very differently.  I can talk openly about it now, but I couldn't say the word suicide two years ago.

The progress I have made I have made mostly alone.  My husband found it hard to understand, as he loved my dad very much and was in total shock when he found out, and numbed out and didn't deal with it for a very long time.  I was left to talk to my kids about it, find counseling for them, and try to explain over and over again why someone would take their life.

My explanation to them was that he had problems with his brain, and he took medications for it.  When he stopped taking his medications, the problems with his brain started again and he was seeing and hearing things that scared him.  Sometimes I tell them he was in a lot of pain when he died, but usually that explanation is enough for them.

The other struggle is that suicide is a part of my life.  One of the things my mother said to me was that she never wanted it to be part of her life, but once it was, there was no going back.  It's very true, once a family member commits suicide, it becomes an option for the rest of the family, because they're supposed to be your role model.

I have been depressed several times in my lifetime, almost every 10 years since I was ten, I have an episode where I am so depressed I stop functioning.  I have been suicidal once, when I was a teenager and my boyfriend broke up with me.  He was a symptom, not a cause, because we had only dated for a little while, and I told my cousin and she snapped me back to reality.

When I started doing energy work, many of the memories of his attempts came back up to be processed, let go of, and seen.  It was the seeing that was most difficult.  As a Reiki Master there is no way to turn off the senses that you gain energetically, so memories will be seen- but I had spiritual help and a constant flow of energy to heal with.

The memories came up slowly, sometimes one at a time, sometimes all at once.  Healing childhood trauma is a delicate process and takes time, and I took as much time with each one as I was allowed.  I convinced myself that in order to heal, the issues and episodes had to be seen.  And that truly was the key to my healing, seeing what had happened and letting it go, because I'm an adult and I don't have to hang on to old trauma.

Talking about his suicide is also part of my healing, and "coming out of the closet" is the best way I know how to move forward.  My father has sent me many messages since he died, none of which were "I'm sorry" or "I love you".  I told him the night he died that I loved him and was thinking about him.  I cut off mediumship with him because I know that he's still learning on the other side and he isn't ready, or might never be ready to say those things to me.

I am letting go of the old way of being so that a new way can make it through.  I believe this is the way, and I hope this is received with acceptance and non-judgment.