Posted by:
enveloping
(
)
Date: June 21, 2017 09:06AM
DNA, I join hands with you, and others offering kindest and heartfelt wishes in your grief.
I can only add that having lost someone to suicide, it is an almost unbearable load of doubt and questions added to the sorrow, and that's a normal, human thing to do. The "what if I had..." doubts were the worst for me, and I thought of at least a thousand things I might have done to "prevent" the outcome.
I obsessively searched every corner, nook and cranny of our flat for weeks, looking for a note, a message, any clue that he knew I loved him, would tend him, would forgive him anything. I begged a god I had lost all faith in for mercy on him, on me. Both of us had lost our families, much like you and your brother, and we too, had only each other.
The difference in our stories is that I lived with him, came home and found him nearly dead, called emergency, and they kept him going for nine days. In the end, his brain no longer functioned, and he was removed from life support.
There is a similar, horrific family story as well, and yes, it was their behavior during that time that finalized any hope of reconciliation.
A dozen years later, and sometimes I still question myself about his death, but not very often. After some of the shock wore off, I began to realize that there could be no question that he knew I would drop anything, everything, to try to prevent his self-harm, prevent his death. I know he knew that. I know it.
That's why he didn't try harder to warn me, alert me, tell me not to go to work that day. It's not what he wanted. He wanted an end to his pain.
During that questioning-searching phase, I was so lost, so alone, that I often thought about ending my own pain. I made biggish decisions and choices instead, that would have been better done at a later time. Everything was just a distraction from my own pain, done with a "life will go on" blind rationalization.
Life did go on. It was too much to deal with all at once, and the lack of any so-called closure didn't help. Sometimes I thought that "closure" is a mostly false concept, something other people might get, but never "us." I've now come to realize that for me, the definition is an easing of that sharp, hideous pain, so intense that we are forever changed. It is a distance from the event that comes from putting one foot in front of the other, allowing the pain to move through me, sometimes passing out from the wracking sobs.
The death of my loved one did not just kill him, it killed parts of me too, finalized the loss of family, and I had to grieve those losses as well.
I have come out the other side to be who I think is a kinder, stronger, smarter person. I'm glad I didn't kill myself, and I'm glad one foot kept going in front of the other, heavy as they were.
You can survive this, and can shed the toxicity of both your family and TSCC-LDS. The only one whom bound you to either has left you, but has also left you a profound knowledge that your life is your own.
There will be hard, hard days ahead of you, but now, also the freedom to forge an authentic life, an authentic family full of unconditional love. It will be up to you to find a path for which he has cleared your way.
Keep putting one foot in front of the other, and let the sobs (crying) have their way with you.
Much love and my best hopes for your future.
ps- your girlfriend is welcome here - many nevermos who need to understand come here for support, because it can be too touchy to ask (and tell) a a significant other. If you want privacy here, there are other exmo sites to help her, too.