So when someone dies by suicide, I know it's common for people to go through the "what did I miss.." stage but is it also common for each person who was even in some way peripherally associated to the person to ascribe a higher value to themselves in the life of the dead person than they actually held???
Tonight my sister said to me, "I know, I often wonder about the little things too, like was it because I didn't come around as often anymore? Or was it because I didn't stay longer over Christmas? Did I say something to set him off?"
Okay, so holy! Who was the one who lived with him??? And is it just me or does anyone else think that this line of thinking is very self centered and egotistical? First off, I hate to say it but hubby wasn't actually very fond of her, he cringed when she came to visit at times because she could be so phony tough and, well, she has this fake tough front that she puts up and has this tendency to put everyone else down acting like she knows more than she actually does; he found this annoying. He tolerated her because of me and I loved him for that. It's a stereotype but no man every really loves his in-laws, my husband was no exception.
She didn't stay long over Christmas!? He was working that week leading up to Christmas Day anyway, I don't think he minded. We had a goose dinner. Everything on the surface of what she saw was fine but he and I both knew what stress we were dealing with in the background!! It was not her issue, it was ours, we were entitled to a private life and she just doesn't seem to think that we had a life away from those times she came to visit us! Like, is that totally self centered or what?
I know people close to the suicide will go through self blame and things but in all honesty, I think she's ascribing a far higher value to herself than she actually held in his life. She was the sister-in-law who came to visit on occasion and he liked and tolerated at times but that was about it,
His mother is having dreams of him, well, more accurately, she is hearing the child she knew calling out for his mommy. Where was she when the adult I knew needed her? Why did she continue to push him away? Why did he describe her as "cold" with rarely any hugs or open expressions of love when he was a kid? Why did I have to pick up the pieces when he'd be emailing her over a few days and then suddenly she'd just stop answering him and he wouldn't hear for her again for months? He blamed himself for that and it hurt him, not only the little child that still lived inside him, it hurt the adult who so needed a loving caring mother to talk too.
So many times I excused both of his parents for the way he was treated as a child because I did not want him to start to develop some sort of pathology because he was dwelling on a past that did not interfere with his present, a past that despite it's shortcomings made him into the caring, loving, dedicated person he was. I always tried to point out to him that despite their failings as parents (in his eyes), he was a success as a person and I loved him because of who he became. I loved HIM. Their shortcomings as parents weren't his fault, if you don't know how to tie a shoe, you can't really teach that skill now can you? They didn't know how to be parents, they didn't know how to be caring or affectionate and yet, he was SO affectionate at times - and distant at others.
We didn't have kids because he was afraid to become his father. Then some years later it became that I was the one who decided we weren't going to have kids. It wasn't really, it was that every time I broached the topic with him he brought up his Dad and how horrible his relationship was with them, so each time I had to try to convince him that he was not his father, he was far greater the man than his father had ever been. He could never say yes or no to the question of whether he wanted to seriously start planning a family....by the time he decided I was already post trauma and could not even think about the P word, let alone consider raising a child.
I lived with this man for 20 years. I saw him daily. We were rarely apart. He hated being away from me. We were highly dependent upon one another. We did not have separate social lives, in fact, we were both somewhat socially anxious to begin with anyway. I did have a few friends from my time before him but he resented those connections that he was not a part of, so sadly I kept those connections more loosely after he came into my life. When I met him, his greatest friend was work. His whole social life was at work and his days off were spent watching movies or playing video games and only occasionally getting together with colleagues from work. He was already married to that job when I met him, so in a way, that job predated me as a "connection" in his life.
To take that lifelong "friend" away from him? That was tantamount to ripping his soul out. The thought of the possibility of him losing that job? Considering what we were already fighting against? Worst thing in the universe...so bad, it killed him.
And the possibility was still only a figment in his brain. Nothing had been revealed as accurate or true. Now lets couple that with those lifelong fears of feeling unloved - I was "being mean", PTSD agitated, anxious, frustrated and angry with him...."unloved" in those moments. This is not me blaming me, it's trying to put myself in his shoes because I know how depression can discolor our thinking patterns. He was "so very sad" that day and I didn't know how to FORCE him out of it and just get back the man I loved and could handle.
No one else saw this. No one else knows that we stopped having sex over a year ago because he could no longer function sexually. I saw it as a sign of stress and signaled an upcoming depression - we'd been through this before during his burnout phase. No one saw how the job was wearing on him and his pain was becoming intolerable. No one saw how he was becoming desperate to find another solution to prolong his career - he was considering switching to a less busy station, he was considering a supervisory position, he even suggested a move to teaching at the college (you know my hubby is stressed if he was giving that serious consideration because he hated presenting in front of people.) No one saw him constantly flipping from side to side each and every night or heard him sighing heavily in the middle of the night while he struggled against pain to sleep or was kept awake ruminating over things that had happened at work - an argument with a colleague, things his new partner had done that bothered him, calls. I saw all of that. I felt all of that. I lived all of that with him.
No one saw how deep the wounds were when I was mistreated yet again by workers comp and my employer. Not only was it hard for him to watch me suffer from the worst of the PTSD, it was hard for him to watch me being almost constantly abused by those people. No one saw him holding me for hours as I cried and screamed and there was absolutely nothing he could do or say to make it better for me. No one but me saw him lose sleep over it.
And yet, everyone thinks they have all the answers. They think it was somehow their fault and they try to school me on how I should be looking at his suicide.
It wasn't about them.
It was about us. It was about our recent trial filled life together. It was about his job. It was about a boy who never healed fully from the wounds he suffered as a child.
It wasn't their fault. It wasn't even his fault. It just was.
And it took the man I loved from me and I hurt every single day because of it. I wish it could have gone another way. I wish I could have saved him. I wish he'd never gotten that bad. I wish he was still here but these wishes can't come true. I will be without the man I promised in sickness and in health. I will live without my love for the rest of my days . I can't just be okay with that.
