My main purpose in life is gone. My daughter, my only child, took her own life about two years ago. She was 29. Once in awhile when she was growing up, probably like most parents, I would wonder if I could go on without her. My grief is for her, that she had to endure such torture and that her life had to end in such a horrible way.

I'm so sorry. That is not something you get over. Please be kind to yourself in every way you can. I hope you can find a little joy in your life. I'm sure she would want the best for you now.

I know our posts are not adequate to help with your grief. I wish there was less suffering in the world. Virtual Hug.

I am sorry about your daughter, and I am sorry for what you are going through now.

I have no words of wisdom or help. (I have never experienced this.)

I do want you to know that you are being heard, and that we care.

I also can offer the phone number of a suicide help line [1-800-273-TALK] (8255)....where (very likely) you can connect with the wisdom and the experience which can help you, where you are, inside of yourself, right now.

I am so sorry that you are going through this, and I wish I could help more.

I'm terribly sorry. I don't know how you get over the loss of a child. Some days just putting one foot in front of the other is a victory.

The show must go on: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fBOvOatPqnY

Yes, call the suicide hotline! They will be able to really help you.

Please get therapy! What you are going through is very extreme!

I am so sorry this happened in your life!

When I was being beaten, almost daily, by my temple husband, the pain, injuries, fear, and hopelessness caused me to contemplate suicide. In that dark place, I saw no way out. He would not stop. He often quoted D & C 132, while he was beating me, and he felt I was his possession, and that he had the right to do anything he wanted to do to me, whenever he felt like it, for no reason. I had no control, as his rage had nothing to do with anything I did or said. Divorce would mean the end of my life, as it was mapped out by my TBM parents and the cult. I had failed at my ONE--and only--purpose in life.

I just didn't know that there were other ways out. My pain wasn't allowing me to think clearly. I was wandering alone at night, in a bad neighborhood in Provo, sick with a 104-degree fever, in a rain storm, wanting to die, and a mugger jumped out at me, and I ran. This was the shock I needed! As I was running and screaming for help, I realized: "I want to live!"

Sometimes, it's just a fine line, an instant, that separates us from life and death. I'm so sorry that your daughter didn't survive--I can't imagine the anguish and loneliness you are feeling.

For you, too, there are "ways out", or, at least ways to help you out of the deepest depths of sorrow.

Time is your friend.

I hope you have a spouse or partner, or family and friends, to help with loneliness. I've been in situations in which I had no one to tell my troubles to--but I discovered that it helped to just talk. I mean, you don't even have to talk about your problems at all. Just talking to someone about any subject helps you feel better. Talk about the weather. Say something nice to a worker or to a child. You don't have to talk to anyone you know. Talk to a clerk at a grocery store, to someone in line, or to someone walking on the street. I used to talk to my pets a lot. Praying is like talking to (no one), and praying helps!

I know, too often, no one answers. No one has any real advice for you. That's OK. You will find your own answers.

Write here on RFM. This is open 24/7!

Please, please don't beat yourself up for feeling bad! Try to love yourself more, take care of yourself, be your own best friend. Only you can really understand what you are feeling.

I ran away, got protection, and got a divorce. Yes, the divorce "ruined my life" in Mormonism, but not outside the church. the legal divorce saved my life. Resigning from Mormonism was the only way I could break that temple sealing, though. You might end up leaving the Mormon church, because of the blame, demands, threats, and lack of love, as well as the lies. It's up to you. Maybe you need to focus on something outside yourself, such as a favorite hobby from childhood, or physical exercise, or a pet--whatever brings you joy.

(((hugs)))

Have you looked for a bereavement support group in your community for parents of deceased children?

That's the only requirement for joining. It's a support group made up of people just like yourself to go and find comfort and solace among other grieving hearts. Maybe in time you might find some measure of healing.

I don't know if it's possible to ever get over the loss of losing a loved one, especially a child. But you need to find the strength, if possible, to move forward with your life so you can find renewal and hope and most of all a sense of peace and reassurance that all is not lost and there is meaning and purpose to both your life and your daughter's.

Maybe you could mentor other young people who need a mentor.

Make a place where you can go to be alone with your thoughts and meditation, and just be. Like a sanctuary where you can fill it with your happy thoughts and memories of your time with her and life that you both shared.

Reaching back into the happier times might lighten your heart just a little bit, even though you'll never really stop missing her. Why should you? She's a part of you and always will be.

Also, please find a good therapist! You need a sounding board and someone who is a caring professional that can really make a difference in your life.

Look up "Compassionate Friends" online. There are chapters all over the country. We are those who have lost children - at any age and by whatever means.

Call your local chapter and meet with them. Share your grief.

We understand and know what you're going through.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2019 08:35AM by ragnar.

I would feel the same way if I lost a child. Watching our children suffer is the second worst thing we can go through and losing them in any fashion is the worst and would kill me.

My son attempted suicide twice. I found him the first time. I live in fear of leaving him when I die. Again, I am so so very sorry.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2019 01:04PM by cl2.

I am so sorry, Jacko mo mo. There is all good advice from these posts here. I do understand your profound grief and lost a child years ago. There are good stretches in recovery, but times when the grief is just overwhelming. Hugs and love to you. Do be kind to yourself, and I hope you get to contact the resources given here.

This might not be very popular here, but sometimes I ask God to take the pain away and it actually works. I’m not sure I could go on in similar circumstances, but life is still life. Still a gift, not a Mormon sh*t sandwich.

Please accept my sympathy. I have no words.

I lost my closest loved one a few years ago and I feel the same way that life has "lost its meaning." Or purpose.

I have been to therapy but it usually comes down to strategies to "find new meaning" or purpose but they all feel forced and artificial.

Don't agree with friends who tell you to get over it. I find I can cope best by carrying the person's memory with me. Sometimes when I do certain activities that I think the person might also have enjoyed I imagine he/she is with me and we're enjoying it together.

I feel we have a service to do for the dead as much as (if not more) than for the living, by carrying them along with us so that they continue to exist in some way. Granted you will only ever have the person in your mind as they seemed *to you*, but that is all you had when they were alive also.

Other people who also loved and miss that person will carry their own versions of that person with them, if they care to. We can never know the entirety of a person, only the facet they present to us while alive. That facet is what we can keep with us, if we are able to and if it seems like the right thing to do.

Some people are counselled to forget and move on but I don't think that is always the best way and you can't force yourself to forget, so at least carry the memory in a positive way. Try to remember that this person (your daughter in this case) wouldn't want you to be devastated by their loss.

Sometimes my lost loved one appears to me in dream states or when I'm near sleep, and it's always a sad memory but I wake up somewhat grateful because I feel like I've recovered some small part of their memory again.

There was a time, many years before this, that I lost a different loved one -- someone who I was slightly less close to -- who basically said goodbye to me in a dream I had had, sometime after their death, and told me that it was time to let them go. I haven't had a dream about this person since then, so I feel this was my brain's way of telling me that I can let this person go, for the most part.

This experience however has NOT yet happened with my closer loved one who I only recently lost a few years ago, so I guess my brain is not yet finished digesting the loss of this person and is still working on it.

So terribly sorry this has happened. I wish I could offer comforting advice.

Please stay close to all of us here.

Peace, love, and good thoughts to you.

try jesus OPie ~


https://youtu.be/GdFuGaP9ZMM?list=PLMdRLqaXxozoRDu47nzyO_wJeqOh7ihSj&t=6

I’m so sorry for your most grievous loss. I lost my nephew to suicide yesterday and there are no words. Please take some of the advice from others here who care and have experienced loss of their own. I’m making a promise to you right now to get some grief counseling. Please promise back that you will do the same.
Your lovely daughter would want you to find peace and healing just as my nephew would want that for me. Thank you for posting because you have helped me tonight. Thank you all.
Thankful hugs from this Mex Mom and grieving auntie.

Oh, MexMom, I am so sorry for your loss.

I know this is heartbreaking for you.

Thank YOU for coming here tonight, and sharing your support for another's loss.

I am so sorry for what you are going through now.

Oh, MexMom, so, so sorry that this has happened in your family, too!

I'm sad for you and everyone who knew and cared for your nephew.

I had a post here about a dear friend of mine who committed suicide when he was 29 and I was 22. I suffered from "survivor's guilt" for years after that. Many people do when they lose a loved one to suicide.

His mother and I communicated during the latter years of her life a little. She sent me photos of him from when he was a child and his youth, and then college and beyond.

Her grieving heart never really did recover from that. I can't imagine any parents who would. What I wanted to share from before that may have been lost in translation was that it is my belief that there is an afterlife, and that the people we love on this side of the vale we will meet again on the other side. They are there and that includes those who died from suicide.

Also want to share one more thing with you before I dash off to work. And that is of a dear cousin of mine who related to me an experience she lived through about her late mother. This cousin was 16 years old had recently gotten her driver's license, when her mother let her drive with her somewhere near their home. They were in an auto accident that caused her mother's untimely death. My cousin told me she carried such an awful weight with her (and that survivor's guilt,) and blamed herself for her mother's death.

Her mother came to her in a dream carrying two buckets filled with water, one on each arm. She set them down and told her daughter that was the weight her daughter was carrying for her. She told her daughter to let it go now. She wanted her to live her life and be free of all that burden, and to be happy.

Our children will always be a part of us, no matter what happens in life. We can never stop loving them.

We do need to let go, and accept that the decisions they make are theirs to own at some point. And also try to understand the difficult disease of mental illness that can be overwhelming until it gets the attention and treatment it deserves. It's been stigmatized far too long as it is.

I'll be rooting for you and sending you hugs and well wishes on the wire.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2019 10:24AM by Amyjo.

Jacko MoMo wishing you healing and peace.
Thanks to all for your compassionate cyber embrace.

I've been thinking of Jacko Mo Mo also since his OP thread started here.

Hoping he's alright and will check back in periodically to let us know how he's doing.

Peace out.