To help deal with the pain of being left behind

Hi, I'm Julie.I am 17 years old in January. Almost 2 years ago I lost my mother, and I am still going through the grief process. If anyone needs any support, or just someone to talk to, please add me. <3

Yesterday, June 19th, was the first anniversary of the passing of our daughter. Looking back, it was a year lived on a day-by-day basis. 2010 was definitely the worst year I had since I realized „school is not fun and I have to go next year anyway“. Not that today is really much different from yesterday, but the mind is a strange thing and it tells me it is day 366 and that is easier than the days 1 to 365. Last June, the world suddenly turned duller. The sun – I am pretty sure I could still get sun burn - just does not shine as bright ... and who cares anyway. Although life continued, it didn’t matter as much. Maybe, hopefully more things will become important again now. I am looking forward to year 2 because year 1 was mostly about survival. I do not expect that everything will be different but not experiencing everything for the first time, first week or month without, first Christmas without, first birthday without, first vacation without, etc., etc. will be easier to bear, I hope. Will it make a difference between 07.00 a.m. and 05.00 p.m. (5 days a week = work), no. I don’t think I’ll wake up or get up in the morning differently and fully expect to sleep just as bad (or good) as before. It’s the hours that are left that I have to work on to be more than just simply lived, gotten over with and survived to fight another day. The flip side of the coin is that we have to work harder now to care for and preserve the memory of our daughter. I am not looking forward to that. Not that I do not want to remember, I do and I don’t think I have forgotten so much since yesterday, but „having to have to“ has become more difficult. Responsibilities are something that only work at work – where the world does not care about my fate. Privately, that is a whole different story. Don’t want it, don’t need it and if it can wait it should ! We made it, I think. Today does not look brighter but somehow that is a tiny bit easier to live with. I am really looking forward to .... say .... year 5 !

How long and how often can you ask WHY ? As we get closer to June 19th ( 1 year ) my nerves get tighter. At this point in time, trying to accept what happened gets more difficult and not easier. NO, it can't be true, it did not happen and not to us and after a good night's sleep I'll wake up and everything will be back to normal. Who am I kidding .... me, me, me, pleeeeeeease ! It's not going to work, is it ? On June 19, 2010 the lights were turned off, darkness came - no matter how light it gets ! A sharp picture suddenly dulled and I do not know how to re-focus. If I want the Earth to be flat, can I believe that ?? If I do not want "it" to be true, can I believe that too ? Hey Julia, I hope you miss me too !

Is it masochistic to go to a support group? The last tear-time, grief-group meeting ended like many others: I was exhausted, I had cried - well, more shed some tears. I had heard sad stories and was glad our daughter did not have to suffer. I think it is right to go there and that it helps me, no matter how hard that sometimes is !
Then again, I get through the weeks okay. I have work during the day and a routine at home ( I really don't like when that routine is upset ). The weeks go by quickly .... and then, twice a months we have the group meeting and I am actively reminded of everything that is really wrong in my life: the only child is DEAD. It's sort of like poking into an open wound in the hope that the repetition, which may not ease the pain, will enable me live with the pain more easily.
I get it, I can't get the daughter back, but that hurts soooo bad sometimes and who am I to complain after ONLY 10 months, when I'm told it may take years to get over it.
I don't want to love the pain that memories bring ...... but at least twice a month I indulge.

Hi A., just read your journal and because it didn't really fit there, I'm commenting here. What wouldn't I give to hold the one we lost again. Many, many Japanese must be thinking the same thing these days. Tears came to my eyes on the last visit to the grave, reading the DAUGHTER'S name on the stone. Sometimes it so difficult to go there yet not going is even worse. These days with Japan and Libya and other Arabian countries it seems our world is NOT getting to be a better place to live. The icon is from our (living room) candle from the last Worldwide Candle Lighting on Dec.12, 2010. It is unimaginable how many more people grieve for lost ones at the end of this month. Yet all I want is my daughter back !

It has been exactly two years since my family and I found out that my oldest sister committed suicide.  I will never forget the day, because I just so happened to be with my mother when she got the phone call.  This is going to sound so bad, but I knew right away exactly what had happened.  I haven't asked myself over the last couple of years what  could I have done to avoid this situation because to be completely honest I don't think that there would have been anything that we could have done to prevent this from finally happening.  I don't even think I can count on both hands how many times she had tried to do it in the past and I hate to say this but it was almost inevitable that it would eventually happen. 

We didn't really have a rough child hood growing up, don't get me wrong we were on the opposite spectrum of the millionare status, but there was always enough love floating through our house that if you aren't used to it, it would probably make you sick.  Oriana and I were definitely your typical sisters growing up, she used to beat the crap out of me for fun and we basically hated each other as children, I remember at her funeral telling everyone during her Eulogy about the things that stuck out the most in my mind of our child hood were her dragging me across the carpet just to hear me scream and once she decided she wanted to put a crayon up my nose.  But once we got a little older we became ABSOLUTELY inseperable. 

Her biggest mistake I think to this day is the fact that she joined the ARMY.  She would never talk to me about the things that happened to her while she was in the military, but I found out after her passing that some pretty horrible things happened to her while she was in the service.  I still have every single letter she ever wrote me when she was in the military, not lying I kept EVERY single one of them that was how close we were then.  Well, unfortunately, her biggest problem was alcohol, and I just recently found out that she started drinking somewhere around her 8th grade school year.  And you know in the military drinking is a huge huge thing especially when they go on leave or get some R&R, so the massive amounts of alcohol that she had to have consumed over these years is probably off the charts.  To her in her mind alcohol was the answer to everything and she had to have no matter what and no matter when.  

In her fourth and final year in the military, my sister slit her wrists in the ARMY barracks.  To this day we still have absolutely no freaking idea how she survived that because she cut so deep she hit tendons in her wrist.  If I can remember correctly she was so so drunk that the doctor said that might have been what had saved her, there is no answer.  Well, of course she was harming government property and they immediately put her in a mental ward for a little while, during which the whole time she had no use of her hands and trusted no one to help her, so of course I dove two hourse everyday after school to take care of my sister, I didn't care, as far as I was concerned she was going to get fucking better.  She ended up having to go to Walter Reed Army Facility to have surgery on her wrists so that she might get the use of her fingers again and we drove from SC to Washington in one day, called last minute to go pick her up.  Which by the way she told us this while she was all doped up on pain meds and she was being paranoid that the ARMY wasn't going to get her back home, which we found out later was the plan the whole time, but when it comes to family we will drop whatever we are doing and go where ever we are told.  Needless to say she got discharged from the ARMY thank goodness with a medical discharge.

She comes back home goes to college, but definitely didn't quit drinking that wasn't on the agenda, and while she in the psych ward she got diagnosed with borderline personality disorder which is a freaking scary thing.  Kind of like Bi Polar, but with a millions times worth of rage on top of it.  And apparently she was having pyschotic episodes during this time but I had no idea because I hadn't experienced that side of her quite yet because I was still well under age.  

She was lucky to find a man that loved her with everything that he had and they were together for almost 9 years.  However, he would go over seas a lot because of the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, so she would be alone and no telling what was going on then because she was living two hours away again.  Well then while he was gone she came to visit and I saw first hand what happens to a person who has that disease and mixes it with alcohol, it became the thing that I was always on the look out for because you could see it in her eyes, just pure rage and hatred.  She hit me so many times that night over the head with her cell phone, which she broke on my head, and then she tried a few times to slam me on the concrete ground.  Got pissed because I wouldn't go down and then left me almost and hour away from my house.  That was the beginning of the biggest mistake that I am going to have to deal with for the rest of my life.

She never did this in front of the parents and they never really believed me that it was as bad as I was making it out to be, but I was so happy that they never had to witness her in that state, because for some unknown reason she had so much resentment for our parents and I don't know what the fuck caused that.  Well, she and I had quite a few more battles and they never got any better, she was just always so freaking angry at the world and everything that was wrong was because of me. 

Well, unfortunately then it finally happened to my parents, they got to witness it first hand and I just don't even know how to finish this statement.  Basically, they were crushed!!!!  We had done everything in our power to let her know how much we loved, how much we wanted her around, she was our family our blood, but to her, honestly, none of that matter.  So after she did this to our parents, I just flat out told her to go fuck herself and I told her that if she didn't go talk to someone or do something to make things a little better for herself I never wanted to speak to her again.  Of course our parents forgave her for what she did, which absolutely was the right thing, but I could never forgive her for all the horrible horrible things that she had done to me and then she did it to our parents too, nope not having it.  

She went to visit her best friend down in florida the October before she passed away, and had an episode so bad that she was chasing her best friends husband around the house and the yard with a butcher knife, if that can tell you how horribly she was progressing.  My little sister and I actually got into a verbal fight because my older sisters best friend called me freaking out, cops were called, and so on but we got into a fight because I called Oriana's  husband to find out what was going on and Oriana got pissed and started cussing me out and I am sure you can get the picture.  But my little sister made a statement to me that I will never ever ever forget, "Are you always going to be so angry with her, what if she finally succeeds in killing herself like she has been trying to do all these years?" 

Well that was the last we heard from them, Thanksgiving and Christmas pass and we don't hear anything from her.  So January roles around and one night she finally calls to wish our Parents a Happy Anniversary, which seemed weird to call so early.  Mom said she sounded really depressed and was quiet but wanted to wish her a Happy Anniversary and that was pretty much the extent of that conversation. 

Now keep in mind my sister graduated from college became a fantastic nurse, and was always overly punctual, never called out of work, hell probably went to work early every single day.  I don't know to this day how she did it, the drinking, while being a nurse but she was damned good at what she did.  Well, a couple days after she called mom apparently she missed one day of work and the nurses at the hospital didn't do anything but when she missed a second day of work and didn't call or answer the phone they knew something was wrong.  And I didn't tell you this part but my sister and her husband had been separated for a few weeks so he wasn't staying at the house.  So the nurses call the police but they had to get the husband too.  

Well, they found my sister on her bed with a bullet in her head, and had been there like that all alone for god knows how many days.  

That was the first thing that got me was that my sister was all alone and she def didn't deserve to be alone for all those days.  Then, the realization started sinking in that my sister died thinking I hated her, which I didn't I was just so angry because she wouldn't help herself get better.  I also hadn't had a decent conversation with my sister in over two years and I have no fucking clue when the last time I told her I loved her.  I felt like the most selfish bitch alive when things finally came down to it and I just went into complete shock for at least 6 months.  I still to this day have no idea how to handle this.  There is not a minute that goes by that she is not on my mind, and I can pretty much say that for the last two years I have cried almost everyday for her.  I knew there was nothing that I could to have made the situation different because she didn't want to get better.  She refused medication, never talked to anyone.  I will also have this statement in my head "what if she finally succeeds in killing herself like she has been trying to do all these years?"  And then she fucking does it. 

It has been two years and everyone keeps telling me it will get better, I promise it will.  I don't think it will ever get better, my heart hurts so bad everyday that I am awake for her, but I am hoping that with more time it will get easier.  I will never be able to forgive myself for not being there for her in the end.  And that is going to completely eat me up until the day I die.
  
 


 

Two hours of tear time and I am glad I went. I am exhausted and tired now but really glad that I attended. A couple who called it quits after 3 meetings because they thought they were handling things well, came back now. Seems Christmas and New Years was tougher on them than expected. There are 12 of us now, if all attend, and with that the group is officially closed, i.e. we will not have any new members anymore and a new, new group will be formed. This is good because we now know our tragedies already and the additional burden of hearing a new fate is gone. We can concentrate on learning to handle the pain.
We all miss our children dearly and have barely begun to try to accept that they will never be back.

We had the first meeting of our support group (see my posting of Dec. 17th) in the new year tonight. As usual, emotionally strenuous but nevertheless quite good. Since the group is not quite "closed" (after it is "closed", the group does not change anymore and will meet regularly for 3 years. New bereaved parents will have to wait until a new group forms), we had a new member tonight. That worked out fine though. We all had too much to say (grief seminar for some early Dec., X-mas, New Year etc.). I am glad I have the group, because it is the only place I can cry openly without the fear of stupid (put nicely) remarks. Men grieve too, just different from women and I am glad I have the group, even if I was the only man tonight. I can only urge everyone who has lost a loved one to look for group where you can learn to live with the tragedy that has happened.

It will have been +/- 6 months tomorrow. Julia, 20 years old, our only child (not our choice !), fell over and died. Just like that. There is no "but she had....." or "but she was ...." or another person or situation to "blame". She just died. Suddenly, unexpectedly, painless for her (so we have been told by all doctors) and unimaginably painful for us. Life as we knew it ended and now we're starting to pick up the pieces because LIFE GOES ON. (official cause of death: natural causes, pulmonary embolism caused by a massive thrombosis of unknown and unexplainable origin, no known risk factors of any kind, just the non-perfect human machine)

Men and women grief differently. We all know this. We have had much help from friends, family and the "Verein für verwaiste Eltern Hamburg e.V. - which is the local German equivalent of "The Compassionate Friends" (check locally if they have exist in your country or at www.compassionatefriends.org in the US. They list other countries as well). We used to hear "Times heals all wounds", today I know that is not true but I am really trying to learn to live with the pain. I do not want to forget, I do not want the "wound" to heal, I don't want to "get over it and move on" - I want my daughter back or at the very least to learn to bear the pain and go on living. I know she can't come back but I also know I can be happy again, I can go on living and in time I be able to live with the pain.

I have come to understand, that many people do not know how to react and that only parents who have lost a child - never should a child die before his/her parents - can truly understand the situation we're. But there is help out there, we just have to do the work and a) find it and b) let ourselves be helped. Nobody said it would be easy - it is NOT. Nobody warned us.

One of my ways of dealing : I'm using the MacBook we gave her, I started my own facebook page and now I started my own LJ. Trying to understand her private world better helps sooth the pain.

I lost my best friend and soulmate to suicide coming up on five years ago. And I still cannot get out of the cycle of self destruction it has brought. How do I heal from this? How do I learn to be ok? when all I want is for this to be over so I can be with him. How do I stop hurting everyone I love because I hate myself so much?