How do I get rid of the undeserved blame for my daughter's suicide

ellzeena

Policy Enforcement
My daughter shot herself on March 2 2011. She had been hospitalized four times since early winter 2008 and was so ill no psychiatrist would take her as a private patient, they were probably afraid of lawsuits and they should have been because I would have sued them into obvlivion. So she was in the county mental health system, there wasn't anywhere else to go, we were plumb out of options. I don't know how good the therapist was, I was told by the psychiatrist not to allow my "anxiety" to "interfere with" her treatment, whatever the hell that means. I kept her alive, literally. My house was a lock down ward. She couldn't even get an aspirin from me and even the butter knives were locked in a safe in my bedroom. But I made a huge mistake, I went into a store looking for a certain object that I needed for house defense and I took her with me. So she already had the idea but that resurrected it. I might as well have handed her a firearm. This is how it feels although mental health professionals, both therapists and psychiatrists, have told me it would have been "another day another way".

She got away from me that day. She seemed better. No one told me that was a warning sign. She told me she wanted to go to Target. I was exhausted, I was at the end of my ability to cope, and I was having a breakdown of my own, so I gave her the keys to her Jeep. She took my credit card. She bought a shotgun in that same store I had taken her into. She called me with my cell phone I had given her just in case, she called twice. I don't know if she was subconsciously hoping I'd know what was happening because I stopped her first frank attempt by suddenly and unexpectedly coming home and walking into the bathroom where she was takinga bottle of clonipin. That was some sort of psychic intervention, a voice in my imagination said GO BACK and I did. If I hadn't done that, she would have been dead by the afternoon and I would have thought she was sleeping. Did she think I'd know what she was really doing? or was she just calling to talk to me that last time? The first call I asked her where are you, did you go to Target, and she said "I'm driving around by myself having fun" but she was actually going to the DMV. The second time, I think she was already parked and ready. I told her I want you to come home, now! and she said, I"ll be home soon. WHAT WAS ALL THAT?

13 YEARS, 8 months, 11 days. The grief is so big it's stopped me from living. Therapy doesn't touch it. Medications don't help at all. My life is destroyed. Intellectually, I know she was very ill. Her intelligence and creativity disappeared totally. She became a different person. My smart, artistic, funny and devoted daughter at only age 23 turned into someone else. I wanted her to go out into the world and find her life and she couldn't. She would have been this way forever, there was no changing her illness, there was no curing it, the medication didn't help, her hallucinations were constant and worsening. I know this because I read her online journal posts after her death. There was no way to know this torment was happening really but I never asked her why she wanted to sleep in my room instead of her own, I should have asked her. Would she have told me the truth? And what could I have done about it?

I should have treated her like a young child, it might have helped. I should have offered more physical comfort but she pulled away from me and seemed to not even like me any more. I didn't KNOW WHAT TO DO and I had no one to ask, I couldn't find a therapist, I tried and gave up. I was alone with this and I did the best I could but it wasn't ENOUGH. This PTSD is killing me. There are constant memories, flashbacks of moments spent with her throughout her lifetime, and everything I've done since her death which was alot actually, huge amounts of travel through Europe, learning to ride a horse, volunteer work, all of that means nothing. I remember it all very well but it's as if it was a dream and I just woke up from the day she died. I don't know what to do. I'm old but I'm in very good health, I could live another 15 years and I don't want to, how can I, I'm totally alone, I have no one. Everyone in this community I moved to with her in 2003 knows about what happened to her and they don't treat me normally, they're probably judging me. Someone a few weeks ago, a total stranger, attacked me personally verbally and said something like "You're why that happened to your daughter". THIRTEEN YEARS LATER. So I avoid everyone. I can't be friends with anyone, I don't fit in, a terrible tragedy occurred in my life, I lost the love of my life in a terrible way WAS IT MY FAULT????
 
I’m so sorry for your loss. Words simply don’t suffice.

My own experience with attempting suicide (and I’ve got some pretty solid experience in that department) is that when a person decides to suicide, they will find a way. We can deter, but we can’t actually stop it happening. The idea that we can stop a person suiciding is pure myth.

We have a lot of knowledge now about suicide prevention and appropriate treatment for the mental illnesses that cause suicidality. But, just like you have experienced, that doesn’t always mean that adequate treatment is accessible.

Suicide, particularly youth suicide, is a topic that cuts straight to powerful emotions in the community. If a stranger approaches you to say something outrageous, like it was your fault, it’s possible that comes from a place of ignorance.

But, just as likely, it comes from their own personal (and likely distressing) experience with suicide and that they are battling their own demons. In either case, their judgment isn’t actually about you, it’s personal.

Complicated grief is something that some Ts now specialise in, and if you aren’t already, please reach out for help to support you through the fallout of this tragedy. You are not alone in your experience, and peer support also has the potential to offer comfort and healing.
 
I’m so sorry for your loss. Words simply don’t suffice.

My own experience with attempting suicide (and I’ve got some pretty solid experience in that department) is that when a person decides to suicide, they will find a way. We can deter, but we can’t actually stop it happening. The idea that we can stop a person suiciding is pure myth.

We have a lot of knowledge now about suicide prevention and appropriate treatment for the mental illnesses that cause suicidality. But, just like you have experienced, that doesn’t always mean that adequate treatment is accessible.

Suicide, particularly youth suicide, is a topic that cuts straight to powerful emotions in the community. If a stranger approaches you to say something outrageous, like it was your fault, it’s possible that comes from a place of ignorance.

But, just as likely, it comes from their own personal (and likely distressing) experience with suicide and that they are battling their own demons. In either case, their judgment isn’t actually about you, it’s personal.

Complicated grief is something that some Ts now specialise in, and if you aren’t already, please reach out for help to support you through the fallout of this tragedy. You are not alone in your experience, and peer support also has the potential to offer comfort and healing.
What's TS?
 
rocking you gently and crying with you, elzeena. words are not enough. . .

it hardly seems fair to compare the loss of two brothers and a sister to suicide to losing a daughter to the horror of suicide, but i started with forgiving myself for not having been able to save them from themselves. i have a formally diagnosed savior complex and forgiving myself for not being able to save the world is not as easy as it ought to be. as i learned to forgive myself for not being a super hero, i was able to drop the need to blame anybody, whatsoever for their illness.

but that is me and every case is unique.

steadying support while you find your own path through this tragic loss.
 
54 years ago my mother committed suicide. As a kid I walked in on attempts. She was my abuser, she would beat me with a pipe. Yet I still irrationally feel guilt. I don’t think it will ever go away. I deal with it by just going over the facts, there was nothing I could have done, I was just a kid.
 

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