Sufferer Dealing With Mother's Suicide

[Lynnkaz]

Hey everybody,

I'm new to the forum and I joined because it'd be nice to talk to people who can somehow relate to me.

I'm just about to graduate high school, and things have been increasingly bad for me.
When I was five years old, my mother hung herself. Over the years my father had told me and others that she had died from a cancer relapse (she was a cancer survivor) but I knew the truth because i had entered the room where she had killed herself before my dad. I guess he thought that I'd just forget.

I have a brother and a sister, but I'm the only one that saw the suicide. I still remember the exact image and it won't leave my head. This year, my father finally told me the truth, but we both knew that I knew all along.

I've been diagnosed with depression, ptsd, and anxiety. I've also suffered from insomnia for a few months. For the last three years I've slept with the lights on. I fall asleep around 5 or 6 am, when I can see the light through the windows. I think this is because she killed herself overnight. I don't know what to do. I go to a psychologist but everybody seems to think that it should be so easy for me to let go, but I can't.

Hey everyone. Sorry I know this thread may seem a bit long but I just really don't know who to talk to anymore. I wanted to get advice from other people with ptsd.

When I was five years old, my mother hung herself. Over the years my father had told me and others that she had died from a cancer relapse (she was a cancer survivor) but I knew the truth because I had entered the room where she had killed herself before my dad. I guess he thought that I'd just forget.

I have a brother and a sister, but I'm the only one that saw the suicide. I still remember the exact image and it won't leave my head.

This year, right before my highschool graduation, my father finally told me the truth, but we both knew that I knew all along.

I've been diagnosed with depression, ptsd, and anxiety. I've also suffered from insomnia for a few months. For the last three years I've slept with the lights on. I fall asleep around 5 or 6 am, when I can see the light through the windows.

I think this is because she killed herself overnight. I don't know what to do. I go to a psychologist but everybody seems to think that it should be so easy for me to let go, but I can't.

I've been isolating myself from my friends and family, and I have no motivation anymore.

 

[ericaboo]

Welcome to PTSD forum Lynnkaz. I think you'll find many people here who can understand and be supportive of what you are going through.

Hang in there,

-Erica

 

[daretodream]

Wow five years old, is so very young to have to bare such a secret, for in many ways it was a secret you could not talk about. Do you mind me asking, how did you respond to her death inside? Remorse? Anger? Guilt? ect. I ask this because from my experience what we feel at the time we experience the trauma is, what not only gets unresolved but defines us as we grow forward. Your post is matter of fact and that I relate to and that is why I ask what the emotion is behind what you saw then and following.

Does your psychologist feel you should just get over it or is it other people?

Our minds are wondrous gifts and our abilities to process things so traumatic so very young is proof of the wondrous gifts in our minds. The mind protects at the point it needs to but I find over time or mind matures and develops and says, hey lets deal now your ready. The key I find is to get the adult intelligence to work with the child like mind within, for they have taken a separate path and not working to well together. Time to introduce the adult mind to the child mind and make friends and work in unison together. Sounds simple right? Not simple at all I learnt, for it takes tools and skills to help the child to feel safe and takes a lot of detective work for the adult part to learn how to coach the child out and hug them.

The good news is healing can and will happen, one step at a time.

I love the four S's that was taught to me and has helped me the most

• self care - teeth, hair, shower , clean clothes.
• self esteem/self worth - reprograming the negative thoughts we carry about ourselves and learning to treat ourselves with gentleness an kindness, and encouragement.
• socialization - step away from the isolation, make friends, volunteer, enter the work world when have not been able to.
• spirituality (this was my hardest but my best when I came at last into ) finding a higher power to believe in.

One does not work without the other well. Together you can move mountains!

Hon, I wish I could take your pain and say it will be alright and what you went through will not effect you any more but I can not. I can only tell you, your not alone and you will be okay. Be kind to yourself, love yourself and find support within others to help you through this time.

I learnt long a go, to judge not, what I have not endured myself and then to judge only myself, for what another endures will never be the same as I myself. May you find answers and peace in your quest.

hugs

 

[Froggie]

Welcome to the forum Lynnkaz. You have dealt with a very harsh reality and you made the right move to come on this forum to vent out and find some peace of mind. The silence about the truth during all those years must of been an awful burden for you and must of caused even greater confusion. There are many here who will give support and you may find some to exchange your feelings with. There is no judgement here.

 

[intothelight]

Hi Lynnkaz,

Welcome to the PTSD Forum! :)

I hope you find the information and support here helpful as you work on healing.

Wishing you the best.

Debbie

 

[KP the nut]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

 

[Valhalla]

Lynnkaz, firstly I am very sorry that you have to go through this. My mother committed suicide by hanging when I was 11 years old. I am 21 now.

It never ceases to amaze me that so many people I know seem to think it’s OK to voice their opinion on it, ask me inappropriate questions at inappropriate times (out drinking, over the dinner table, etc.) or use it to make a point in something they’re talking about. Many people seem to think it’s their business.

I once had a person randomly tell me "Yeah your mum killed herself... but that happens to a lot of people," as though the fact that just because something happens to multiple people, one shouldn't get upset by it. By that logic, nobody could ever be upset by anything.

When someone you know dies, their relationship to you and the manner of their death is very important. It is a very different thing to lose your mother than it is your father; to lose a grandparent versus a nephew; to lose a child versus a sibling; to lose a best friend versus an acquaintance. Just as it is a very different experience if they die in a freak accident or are murdered; in a natural disaster along with thousands or others or by suicide, totally alone. I am not saying that A is any easier than B; it's just different. I think that's what a lot of people don't understand and that's why they don’t get why you’re not “over it” by now, the way someone might be “over” their elderly grandfather dying of old age a decade ago.

My stepmother cannot fathom why I still have so many issues from something that happened ten years ago. But it’s not something that occurred on a single day ten years ago that I have now had ten years to heal from; it’s the disturbing memories that you forget only to have them flash through your mind at random; it’s coming home from school as a child every single day to an empty, quiet house; it’s all the birthdays and the milestones and the graduations that she was supposed to be there for; it’s the shopping trips and life advice; it’s the tucking you into bed at night and telling you a story; it’s the coming home from your friend’s house after sitting around their lively, happy dinner table to your own broken family and even though you’re standing right next to each other, there is a vastness between you that could fill a thousand football fields; it’s the everyone looking at you differently because “that’s the girl who’s mum offed herself”; it’s the estimated 3 times increased risk of you following in her footsteps; it’s the thing that, despite yourself, you sometimes define yourself by; it’s the innocence of your childhood tainted by a sad and terrible thing that can never be undone.

I am sorry that this post has been so long! But I want you to know that I have experienced something similar to you and that you’re not alone in this. It is hard to cope with the immense sadness of one’s journey, but please don’t totally isolate yourself. If you have one close friend that “gets” you a bit more, maybe just hang out with them from time to time for now. That’s what I sometimes do. And there are lots of people who can help you here too.

I am here if you want to talk further or ever need to talk in the future. You’ve felt happy and good before, so it’s only a matter of time before you feel like that again. In the meantime, you just have to keep going, keep talking and keep processing what’s going through your head.

Lots of love. xoxo

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

Welcome. :)

 

[NIKI]

I go to a psychologist but everybody seems to think that it should be so easy for me to let go, but I can't.

How could anyone think that it would be easy for you to let go? Sad for what you have had to endure. I hope you find help here. This forum has been so helpful to me.

 

[Lynnkaz]

First of all I'd like to thank each of you for replying to my post, I really appreciate it.

Valhalla, it's amazing how much I can relate to you. I once was sitting in class, and my teacher, in front of all of my friends and everybody, says "your mom killed herself right?" out of the blue. I remember running to the bathroom crying because I felt so bad.

I don't usually like talking to my friends about my problems. I put on a happy face, I smile and I laugh, hiding everything because I'm scared that if I don't I'll end up like my mother.
Sometimes I'm scared that when I have a family of my own, and I'm finally happy, I'll give it all up like she did.

Your post really helped me because I've never spoken to anybody who went through almost the same thing I did.

Again, thanks to all of you.
much love,

 

[Lynnkaz]

Thank you all for your kind support, I really do have high hopes for this forum.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Nicolette]

Hi Lynnkaz and welcome to the forum.

I have merged your two almost identical threads.... Please don't post the same content in multiple areas.