Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by gerry kukene on July 14, 2010 at 10:23am

jackie, my heart goes out to you and your family, i lost my son 4 years this labor day the same way and a day does not go by that we dont think about him. have you tried grief counseling and other support groups? being mad is a part of the grieving process do you have support at home with family and friends? not to be hard on you but the pain will never go away you will just get used to living with it it has been 4 years and i still feel the way i did then .good luck

Permalink Reply by Vicki on July 14, 2010 at 3:05pm

I'm writing to get help and support and preys for my teenage daughter. My daughter is 18 and last Monday, her boyfriend of eight months shot himself because she was breaking up with him. He was 20, no job, no car.She told him when he got a job then they could get back together. But that wasn't good enough for him. I know the boy was depressed his parents had just got a divorce after 20 years. All my daughter was tring to do was make him help his self. She told him that he would feel better about his self after he got a job. She was talking on the phone to him when he killed himself. He ask her if they where going to get back together and she said not right now. So he hung up the phone.Then he called her back and said "this is all your fault five,four,three,two,one,bang. She and a friend jump in her car and went to his house.They could see him thru the curtains in the livingroom. They called 911. I ask her why she didn't hang up and call 911 when he started counting. She said mom he had said he was going to kill himself many times. I didn't think he would do it. Now she is a mess. She thinks it's all her fault that she should've have just taken him back. I tell her no that he might have don't it on down the line. She asked him to see a dr about depressions but he said he didn't need it. I don't have any ideal on how to help her thru this. I'm getting her an appointment with a grief councilor. And her and I are going to a couple different groups for support. My real worry is that she will never get over this. She had been 15 months clean from drugs but now I notice that she is hanging with some of her drug friends. I need all the preyers I can get. And also for the parents of this boy that left this world in so much pain. I know he is at peace now. He was a good kid but he didn't want anyone in my daughters life but him. Please prey for him and my daughter.

Permalink Reply by Dastan on July 14, 2010 at 11:29pm

Jackie,

7 months & 10 days before your son took his life, I lost my only brother. He will always be my younger 20 year old brother, no matter my age. He also hung himself. There were a couple suicides before his in the two weeks leading up to his decision. I found out about them from my brother in talks we shared that month, never thinking he was on that path since suicides sometimes happen in clusters or that he was in any danger. The one boy used a gun on himself and we have guns in our house. One thing that makes me feel good in any sense is that my brother didn't do the same thing and make it so we couldn't view him as we knew him in life. But everything else conjures up so many negative emotions. My anger about my brother always just being a 20 year old will always be felt since so many people are experiencing and will continue to experience life past that age. And there is such indescribable pain about the fact that the person who is gone was "the only one". There are no words to express what we are suppose to do now...what do we do now? Everywhere to turn is as empty as our last stop, how do we do anything now, when we've gone from having to not having at all. GONE. Living in this very physical world makes it pointless to think about questions of where has he gone? That question shouldn't exist since 'no-matter-what' the physical-self cannot be sensed. We don't live in the spiritual realm, so to exist in the physical on one side with the spiritual on the other being all that is left to have is painful. We should be together on one side or the other. To have to reach from here to there is unfair because the other-side will always be out of reach. Our sense of living exists by only those things that can affect our bodily selves, and to have half of our senses gone only to make up for the missing tangible-being by what we have stored in our minds cannot ever be enough. How does someone go from being here one minute to just not being there the next? When someone so important they make up our existence isn't here anymore there is no wonder about where that person is now, they are just not here. What do we do with that? There is nothing, what do we do with nothing? What can we do with thin air? There should be a person occupying that air! It feels so much like there isn't much we can do with ourselves. I lose my mind trying to keep everything in order that I'm suppose to carry on with now since everything about my life is less important, my time, my air, my being, it's all 50%. Everyone's loss is its own, that makes me madder than anything, that I have to experience this on my own. My brother was here to experience life with me and I have that now to experience by myself as well. That doesn't get any easier, there is nothing to have that gets "better". Anyone who tells me that, I will grab at the air and offer it to them and ask them to make that better, only if they say "I can't make something from nothing" will believe some fairness still exists.

I wrote this in hopes that it helped in a way, because I am sorry for your loss.

Permalink Reply by SUE on July 22, 2010 at 2:18am

Jackie,
My mother too lost her only son. Im sorry for your loss, 20 is so terribly young. Depression is truly a silent killer. A healthy mind does not committ suicide, a sick one does. Your son ended his life like my only brother did. It helps me some to try to be able to put a finger on it,have a reason for it, if only to try to make some kind of sense for the unimaginable. I could never have guessed or predicted this outcome. Way out of left field. Perhaps thats what bothers me the most..not knowing at the time his pain. Still almost 8 years later I suffer with the guilt all too famaliar with survivors. Im rambling here I apologize.I just want to say how very sorry I am for your loss of your beautiful boy, and know we are here to listen and if you need someone to lean on Im here.
((hugs))
Sue

Permalink Reply by Jody's Mom on July 27, 2010 at 1:31pm

Hi Jackie, I lost my 16 year old daughter June 27, 1993 that was the worst day of my life . They told me that she shot herself , why would they do that to us , it has taken me years to accept thinking why would she do that to me knowing I loved her so much , but I still don't want to accept that she done it . I can't remember the good times we had together ,when we lose our child it is so much shock and hurt that we will have the rest of our lives when every where is a reminder of our children . We will be strong together , Love you Ann.

Permalink Reply by Ed on July 27, 2010 at 11:53pm

Share
I had a sister kill her salf 40 years ago and I still think aboute her every day. It will get better with time but it is always on your mind why why why, We will never know. You are not alone.
Hope this helped.
Ed

Permalink Reply by Ed on July 31, 2010 at 1:08pm

Hi Jackie
I know how much you hurt when I lost my sister's I wanted to die with them. It's will got better not much the lost is always there, do what is good for you and if people don't like it so be it.
One thing I know we will never know why they did it, it is something with them and not us. I hope this helps a little.
Ed

Permalink Reply by lianne on August 1, 2010 at 10:40pm

Jackie i am so so sorry and i know excatly how you feel so to speak i lost my baby and only son on the 21 of feb. excatly the same way, though i found my son. you are allowed to feel angry i still am you are allowed to feel everthing you do. no one knows what it feels like not to hug them- smile and laugh with me and just be in the same room as them. it does take your breath away and it is hard to get rid of the sick feeling in the stomach. my john just had his birthday and i went to the grave on my own i didnt want family and friends there i just wanted me so i coud reflect and speak on my own with out interference. i live like a hermit now i am on my own and have a daughter who is about to get married our world is crushed. i dont believe we will feel any different losing a child is the most unimiagible thing in the world only us that have been threw this know. we all need to just be us go the flow with the feelings as they are real. i have punched things cried yelled and thats not me but it felt good at the time. i know he is not coming back even though my heart burns with fire without him, he was my life my joy and my best friend. i dont live in your country but i wish i could just put my arms around you and say we both will be ok. this has been the longest 5 months of my life but somewhere deep down inside me knows that i will be ok and i think you willl be too

Permalink Reply by Mollye Self on August 6, 2010 at 10:28pm

Hi Jackie, I will pray for you tonight to receive the grace, strength and love you need to see you through your pain. I am so sorry. My youngest son Jake shot himself on June 17 of this year. I had seen him two days earlier. He was 40 years old but my baby. What hurts so in addition to just knowing I will never see him again this side of heaven is that he could not share his pain with me before he chose to end his life. I never dreamed I would bury a child and it is almost overwhelming and surreal still, but God is carrying me through the darkest days of my life and though far, far from being happy I can say I find joy in feeling this much closeness to God that I never experienced before and the more I cry out to God the closer I feel to my son. I know we will all be able to go on by just prayer and believing. I will remember you and be pulling for you. Love, Mollye

Permalink Reply by Kathy Erdman on August 20, 2010 at 6:08pm

This is devastating. No one , let alone a 18 year old girl, should have to deal with level of problems. It is horrible. I pray for her and dont even know her. This is her beginning of her life to deal with this is not right. People do these things, and dont realize what they leave behind. Its is beyond tragic. I am not super religious, but am considering getting help for the first time in my life. My ex-husband just chose to end his life one week ago. I am devastated. But a young girl to deal with this, im 41 and have children and its bad enough. This is pain for all of us, unimaginable pain and so tragic..why i keep asking, why.

Vicki said:

I'm writing to get help and support and preys for my teenage daughter. My daughter is 18 and last Monday, her boyfriend of eight months shot himself because she was breaking up with him. He was 20, no job, no car.She told him when he got a job then they could get back together. But that wasn't good enough for him. I know the boy was depressed his parents had just got a divorce after 20 years. All my daughter was tring to do was make him help his self. She told him that he would feel better about his self after he got a job. She was talking on the phone to him when he killed himself. He ask her if they where going to get back together and she said not right now. So he hung up the phone.Then he called her back and said "this is all your fault five,four,three,two,one,bang. She and a friend jump in her car and went to his house.They could see him thru the curtains in the livingroom. They called 911. I ask her why she didn't hang up and call 911 when he started counting. She said mom he had said he was going to kill himself many times. I didn't think he would do it. Now she is a mess. She thinks it's all her fault that she should've have just taken him back. I tell her no that he might have don't it on down the line. She asked him to see a dr about depressions but he said he didn't need it. I don't have any ideal on how to help her thru this. I'm getting her an appointment with a grief councilor. And her and I are going to a couple different groups for support. My real worry is that she will never get over this. She had been 15 months clean from drugs but now I notice that she is hanging with some of her drug friends. I need all the preyers I can get. And also for the parents of this boy that left this world in so much pain. I know he is at peace now. He was a good kid but he didn't want anyone in my daughters life but him. Please prey for him and my daughter.

Permalink Reply by Kathy Erdman on August 21, 2010 at 8:50pm

Thankyou for your response. It is good to know that there are people, even stragers who care, who share in this sad expierence. I went to a website about suicide, to find out that one occurs about every 18 minutes, i believe that is what i read. I just thought oh my god, every 18 mnutes another family crushed, having to deal with the aftermath of this horrible feeling. I am a nurse, i have seen countless people die and many more really who are sick but who will die, there life cut short. Loss is loss no matter how it happens whether it be disease or by accident, i always thought it was all the same after all not seeing the person again no matter how the event took place is the end result. But no, now i firmly believe that this is worse, worse in that you blame yourself, for something you did, said, didnt say, didnt know about, did know about. Why didnt he call, should i have called more. They dont realize what they leave in this aftermath for the survivors and how can they, i dont blame him or anyone, they are not thinking correctly, they are ill, just like other illnesses. After i seperated from him for a time i worked in a setting that involved behavioral health, i stayed a year, i couldnt do it, it was seeing the same pain i lived with when i lived with him, trying to help and feeling like uncapable of helping. I cared, i tried, but now to no avail. He had his bouts of i suppose was depression, but yet would work and then be full of energy, full of life. I believe now he was maybe bipolar, the moods would swing. There has to be better help in health care for these mental health issues. To cut your life short at 44, why. He even moved on to meet someone else and i have a terrible range of emotions about that now too. I want to forgive but cant, Im angry at her and i dont really even know her. She butted into our relationship and she should of kept herself out, her interference didnt even allow me time to get my belongings out of the house, and its not about the belongings, the matieral items, there was no time to even talk, think, resolve, or deal with any of the issues. My children lived there, i lived there, and even if the end result was the same, if i still had to move out and leave him to seperate, i and we could of had time to talk about it decently, allowing time to decompress the feelings over the years that i was involved. I worked with him, dated him, got engaged, got married to him, lived there for years. We spent holidays, vacations, every day times and this person had the gall to sit in the driveway when i had stopped to get things or leave him a note. I can honestly say, if i met tom cruise himself tommorrow i would never ever, ever do this to someone else, be in the middle and interfere in when you dont belong. And now..now i feel what does all this matter, he is gone now, gone a week ago..He lost his life, we lost him, his parents lost a son who they knew 44 years. She new him what maybe 2 years of his 44 years. So there is all these raw feelings, once only barely buried, now back again, now to be rehashed again, unsorted. I miss him, i love his family. They are awesome people. My kids miss him, are still crying from a week ago. My daughter has been writing him letters. I feel like i need to move away from the area, his house is maybe a mile or so from where i rent now. I have looked at his picture countless times a day, I know its not good. I know i need to move on. I have 3 children, the youngest is 11. I am in school for more nursing and the program is intense. I cant be having a break down, or even a distraction truthfully in this education. It is alot of work, and i work a job and have the kids to think of first....and yet how do you just do tasks, its like acting like a big pink elephant is not in the room. You cant avoid it, pretend its not real. It is real, real pain, real tragedy. real loss. There was supposed to be also a baby, a child, and that didnt happen and its been a issue i feel im hardly over, now its back again, haunting me. Would it of changed things, would he be here..alive and here. not gone. Would his parents have this child to be with now, a child of his, something from him, that they could hold onto. he never had children. His parents love kids. Im left to wonder, how decisions in the recent past, now affect the future. He called me 6 weeks ago, if that. It was a half hour conversation maybe. He mentioned the baby, or lack of, every time he called me. I took it as to hurt me, but now after this , i wonder. Was he hurting , was it so unresolved for him too. Otherwise why would he mention it. I am sure i am being too candid , but the feelings are so raw, so overwhelming and i have no one to tell. Not parents really, and certainly not my children. I need to be the strong one, not the one this confused. I dont want to forget him ever, but the pain. We are now part of some painful group left to deal with this, like a sad game with no instructions on how to cope.
Leo said:

I am so sorry for your loss Kathy. Personally, no one in my family has committed suicide, but 2 months ago a friend of mine lost her husband this way. He was having so many economical, physical, and emotional problems that he jumped off a building, leaving behind his wife, 2 daughters, family, and friends. She was devastated. Yet, we are comforted to know that this life is not all there is and that there will be a resurrection (John 5: 28, 29). In the meantime, it is not easy to face the struggles in life, my friend, for example, has asked herself many times, "I wonder if he is now suffering in hell?" "Will I ever get to see him again?" As we have discovered, however, the Bible gives answers to all these questions - it gives us a solid hope for the near future.

Permalink Reply by lianne on August 23, 2010 at 12:16am

dear kathy
i so know how you feel. my son 22 died the same way 6 months ago. the same horrible unthinkable way, so not fair. i too am a nurse in a high care nursing home every day i look at the eldery and try to make some sense of way they must suffer, but thier suffering is so different to ours they did not ask to have thier lives end in a nursing home let alone in pain and saddness. you know to this day i still look for answers ask my self questions and i find nothing the hollow emptiness never seems to leave me. its there all the time. i do know now after 6 months my son is not hurting or sad or in pain anymore and that he is happy..even though i am not. i so far have done birthdays with out him easter ,my birthday and his only sisters . my daughter is about to get married and he was to give her away. now i get the honour to do that doesnt make me feel good i wanted him to do that. please always remember you were a good mum a friend and some one who your son loved. there no matter what country we live in suffer terrible loss with out an explanation that i think is why we find it so hard to accept. i think about my beautiful boy every day i still cry every day and still say it is not fair. you know i often think that is some sort of weird way my child did not die of cancer some crippling disease or a car accident or something like that, that this was the way it was meant to be. no matter how many long conversations and talking and helping he still chose to end his life like this. i dont think it will every get easy i sometimes still to now do not want to be here and then i think how selfish i am. i am so angry and empty that i cant decide if i will ever be happy again. i now wonder if my decisions i make are right. this is not the first time this has happen to me my first husband shot himself im my lounge . my best friend gased himself and my father in law died from an overdose of medicatiion becasue he had cancer and did not want to suffer. i wonder why why why me why did all these people chose to take their lives and leave me so alone and empty. you will with any doubt have terrible thoughts and feel like you are not coping. you will think that you are getting worse but it is so normal to feel that way. the lose of a child is unexplainable to any one else who has not gone threw it. i so try hard to look for positive things the smile on my only daughters face, the smile on a patient who is dying of cancer. i found my son and my 1st husband and i dont think those imiagies will ever be gone from my mind. but i also and so glad that i was given that , that i got to find them no stranger touched my boy i did i got to hold him and tell him i was sorry and that i loved him. i got to tell him that i was angry and that i wanted him back. i held him when he was born first and i was the last to touch him. Please be strong please dont let this engulf your life it is not what your son would have wanted. i wont tell you it will get easier i dont think it does i wont tell you it will be ok it wont but i will say that some how and from some where we learn to feel that the emptiness is exceptable. not for others but for us the mother. i wish every day that my son would walk in the door and say hi mum like he did for 22 years but it wont i tried thinking maybe he was on holidays or away working or camping or something but that doesnt work either i am learning now that i have to accept it no matter how heart wrenching it is he my baby will not be walking back in my door. i am alone i have no husband , my daughter does not live with me so now it is just me no one to say hi no one to say are you ok or you need to get up (as i work night shift) no one to ask me to get his tea his starving i am never going to hear him laugh or tease me or just sit with me and watch a movie. darling lady i so wish i could bring our sons home but i cant. i hope that you will start to feel a little better see a smile hear a laugh from a little person i try hard to find the positive in something but it not always there but i am here when you find the need to sit and write what ever thought goes threw your mind i am here to answer any question though it may not be the right one. i am here just to listen also. i do though hope that you feel just a little better each day and dont feel bad when you are having a bad day your allow to its your hurt pain emptiness no one else's only you know how you feel. my thoughts are with you as one mum to another. i am not religious and i dont think that you getting help from a dr would hurt. i have taken sleeping pills for the pst 6 months just so my mind gets a rest i have talked to professional but they dont understand they dont know how we feel i did not just try one i tried many and to no avail. the loss of a child is not expalinable to anyone who has not been threw it i am not saying it will not work for you i am saying it is an option that should be explored as it may help even if it is a little bit. today i send you a smile :)

Leo said:

WOW! This must really be hard for you. Nursing school...3 children to take care of...a scar difficult to heal...ALL at one time. I don't know how you handle it. You have to be strong for your children and give them a fine example of faith and endurance, yet, we are not superheroes. I am no one to tell you what to do, but I think it would be a good idea to talk to someone, to gain hope for the future. If you do so, the pain and anger you may now feel, will turn into hope and happiness. I know this strategy has worked for me and my friends! Take care Kathy - and remember, there is nothing you cannot do if you try.

Kathy Erdman said:

Thankyou for your response. It is good to know that there are people, even stragers who care, who share in this sad expierence. I went to a website about suicide, to find out that one occurs about every 18 minutes, i believe that is what i read. I just thought oh my god, every 18 mnutes another family crushed, having to deal with the aftermath of this horrible feeling. I am a nurse, i have seen countless people die and many more really who are sick but who will die, there life cut short. Loss is loss no matter how it happens whether it be disease or by accident, i always thought it was all the same after all not seeing the person again no matter how the event took place is the end result. But no, now i firmly believe that this is worse, worse in that you blame yourself, for something you did, said, didnt say, didnt know about, did know about. Why didnt he call, should i have called more. They dont realize what they leave in this aftermath for the survivors and how can they, i dont blame him or anyone, they are not thinking correctly, they are ill, just like other illnesses. After i seperated from him for a time i worked in a setting that involved behavioral health, i stayed a year, i couldnt do it, it was seeing the same pain i lived with when i lived with him, trying to help and feeling like uncapable of helping. I cared, i tried, but now to no avail. He had his bouts of i suppose was depression, but yet would work and then be full of energy, full of life. I believe now he was maybe bipolar, the moods would swing. There has to be better help in health care for these mental health issues. To cut your life short at 44, why. He even moved on to meet someone else and i have a terrible range of emotions about that now too. I want to forgive but cant, Im angry at her and i dont really even know her. She butted into our relationship and she should of kept herself out, her interference didnt even allow me time to get my belongings out of the house, and its not about the belongings, the matieral items, there was no time to even talk, think, resolve, or deal with any of the issues. My children lived there, i lived there, and even if the end result was the same, if i still had to move out and leave him to seperate, i and we could of had time to talk about it decently, allowing time to decompress the feelings over the years that i was involved. I worked with him, dated him, got engaged, got married to him, lived there for years. We spent holidays, vacations, every day times and this person had the gall to sit in the driveway when i had stopped to get things or leave him a note. I can honestly say, if i met tom cruise himself tommorrow i would never ever, ever do this to someone else, be in the middle and interfere in when you dont belong. And now..now i feel what does all this matter, he is gone now, gone a week ago..He lost his life, we lost him, his parents lost a son who they knew 44 years. She new him what maybe 2 years of his 44 years. So there is all these raw feelings, once only barely buried, now back again, now to be rehashed again, unsorted. I miss him, i love his family. They are awesome people. My kids miss him, are still crying from a week ago. My daughter has been writing him letters. I feel like i need to move away from the area, his house is maybe a mile or so from where i rent now. I have looked at his picture countless times a day, I know its not good. I know i need to move on. I have 3 children, the youngest is 11. I am in school for more nursing and the program is intense. I cant be having a break down, or even a distraction truthfully in this education. It is alot of work, and i work a job and have the kids to think of first....and yet how do you just do tasks, its like acting like a big pink elephant is not in the room. You cant avoid it, pretend its not real. It is real, real pain, real tragedy. real loss. There was supposed to be also a baby, a child, and that didnt happen and its been a issue i feel im hardly over, now its back again, haunting me. Would it of changed things, would he be here..alive and here. not gone. Would his parents have this child to be with now, a child of his, something from him, that they could hold onto. he never had children. His parents love kids. Im left to wonder, how decisions in the recent past, now affect the future. He called me 6 weeks ago, if that. It was a half hour conversation maybe. He mentioned the baby, or lack of, every time he called me. I took it as to hurt me, but now after this , i wonder. Was he hurting , was it so unresolved for him too. Otherwise why would he mention it. I am sure i am being too candid , but the feelings are so raw, so overwhelming and i have no one to tell. Not parents really, and certainly not my children. I need to be the strong one, not the one this confused. I dont want to forget him ever, but the pain. We are now part of some painful group left to deal with this, like a sad game with no instructions on how to cope.
Leo said:

I am so sorry for your loss Kathy. Personally, no one in my family has committed suicide, but 2 months ago a friend of mine lost her husband this way. He was having so many economical, physical, and emotional problems that he jumped off a building, leaving behind his wife, 2 daughters, family, and friends. She was devastated. Yet, we are comforted to know that this life is not all there is and that there will be a resurrection (John 5: 28, 29). In the meantime, it is not easy to face the struggles in life, my friend, for example, has asked herself many times, "I wonder if he is now suffering in hell?" "Will I ever get to see him again?" As we have discovered, however, the Bible gives answers to all these questions - it gives us a solid hope for the near future.

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