I felt the need to post this…
I lost my seventeen year old daughter to suicide on May 31. She hung herself in our garage. This has devastated our family and all of her friends. We miss her so much. I know many of you feel so helpless and so sad. But please consider the pain that you will cause others by taking your own life. You are more important to your loved ones that you could ever know. Please know that they love you and will miss you dearly. Now that I no longer have my beautiful daughter in my life, I have lost my purpose for living. I am sad every day and cry for hours day and night. I blame myself, just as your loved ones will blame themselves if you complete the act (even if you tell them not to in your suicide note). You may feel that you cannot talk to anyone about how you feel, but you can. You are NOT a burden, but trust me that your death WILL be a burden, a traumatic burden for all of your loved ones to bear for the rest of their lives. My daughter never talked about suicide…never tried it before (that we know of) and we had no idea she felt so helpless and hopeless. We would have been so grateful if she had trusted us with her pain. We could have helped her. Please trust your loved ones….go to them……tell them how you are feeling and let them help. Once you are gone, you are gone and you can’t come back. The ones you leave behind will be forever changed and not for the better.
Love and peace,
Kathy
(please feel free to email me if you need to talk…..you can trust me with you pain).
8 comments
I am sorry to hear of your loss, the suicide of someone close to us often spreads the thought of suicide into the mind of loved ones. I hope you, and your family are talking to someone about the grief. But her actions were not your fault, no one can take the blame for what someone else chose to do. She believed suicide was the answer and suicidal ideation has a habit of screwing with your mind to such a degree nothing anyone else does or says can help. Some of us are just born with a bad mind. Chemically imbalanced with an outlook that’s has us doomed. You cant take the blaim for something like this, she didn’t want you to blaim yourself, she just thought this was all she had. Again, im sorry you have been put through this. No one should have to burry their own child.
With all due respect it’s not about our loved one’s pain, your pain, or anybody else’s pain. It is about our pain and not finding enough inner relief to go on. Your daughter was suffering gravely. She did not want to be here. That was her choice. It is not your fault. But it wasn’t your pain either.
My mother suicided when I was thirteen. It ripped my world apart. I have not been the same since nor will I ever be. But I respect her decison. It was hers to make not mine. It wasn’t about me. Her life was not worth living to her (she was in such inner turmoil and had been for years, she had no quality of life left).
Life is a horrendously cruel *****. Those who opt out are courageous, those who choose to leave on their own accord are courageous. Take care. I feel your pain.
^I meant that people who say no to life (suicide) possess a certain kind of strength and people who choose to stick it out (don’t suicide) possess a certain kind of strength^
Btw, this will haunt you for the rest of your life. The pain of losing someone like this never goes away. But the hope is in that if you feel all the pain related to this, you will become a far better person each time grief gives you an opportunity to grow. You have a long haul ahead of you but don’t be afraid to let this break you. You just get up and build yourself up again anew.
Good comment Frightened Eyes. Sorry to hear of your daughter Kolenczuk. May you find peace.
Everyone’s circumstances are different. My parents were aware of my suicidal thoughts but chose to ignore it, my father has actually recently come out as saying he thinks that it is “hormonal”. Most people who attempt suicide are aware of the pain it’ll cause their families and friends and hate the trauma they will leave behind. However as mentioned earlier, it’s about the internal, not the external. You just lose the ability to deal with the constant assault of stress, sadness, anger, frustration on your psyche and the beautiful parts of life just start to lose their allure.
I don’t think I can love in a capacity that brings me meaning anymore – thus, while I worry about leaving my sister and friends behind, I know my internal suffering needs to end.
I’m sorry about your loss, and i’m really sorry about everything you’ve had to endure afterwards (i imagine it must be hell), but you are preaching to the wrong set of people. Trust me, some of us (and i’m pretty sure your daughter as well) hang on for as long as we can for the ones we love, despite our pain, our daily struggles, and we do know that we will cause a hell of pain for our loved ones if we take our own life. But If we make the choice (yes, it is our choice to make, since every individual is free to make choices) to go ahead and end our lives it doesn’t mean we love our loved ones any less, it just means we’ve reached a point were we just can’t hold on anymore.
I do agree that the first thing people should do is look for help, a possible solution, treatment, whatever helps them, but it doesn’t work in all cases. There is some things that you just can’t “fix” if you are broken enough, and asking someone to live daily while carrying a hell of pain inside isn’t fair either, because while we are living in it (and trying to hold on) we now we are hurting our loved ones too. Exhausting all your choices first is always a must, but if nothing else remains… what is there left to do? sometimes you just can’t overcome your inner demons, no matter what.
As i said before i’m really sorry about your loss, and i really hope your daughter found peace in her choice. I’m not attacking you and i’m just being sincere, hopefully if you read this you’ll understand.
I am so sorry for your loss, Kathy. I couldn’t find your email to write you privately so I am replying here (I am new to this website). Honestly, there are a lot of families in this world who aren’t as supportive as you seem to be. My father once told me that there was no reason for me to be depressed. I have been battling bipolar and borderline personality disorder for the past three years. I was in the hospital 6-7 times, including two consecutive months. I did ECT (shock therapy). I take my meds religiously. I did PHP (partial hospitalization program) three times (at different hospitals). I completed a full year in DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy) – weekly classes plus weekly meetings with DBT therapist. I meet with my psychiatrist weekly. Despite all of this help and intervention I have been – and still am – suicidal. I have written the farewell letters. I have gotten my finances in order. I planned my entire funeral. But I am still here. I am very angry with myself. I feel like a coward for not having the courage to end my suffering. After three years of treatment, I am exhausted. I have no will to live. I don’t know how I keep going. Just pure survival mode, I guess. I wish I had the courage to drive into a wall or park my car in front of a train. I don’t know what caused your daughter’s suffering but I suspect she didn’t make the decision to end her life lightly. If I had a friend or family member suffering as I am suffering, I couldn’t wish them back here to suffer it again. I think it is difficult for family and friends to understand the suffering – and even more difficult to understand what it takes to help us. No one can “fix” us or end our suffering safely. It has to come from within those who are suffering. It has to come from within. It certainly helps when there are patient people there to provide love and support but those people can’t magically end our suffering – it doesn’t matter how much love they give. It has to come from within.
A poem I like:
…but when tomorrow starts without me, please try to understand that an angel came and called my name and took me by the hand.
And said my place was ready in heaven far above, and that I’d have to leave behind all those I dearly love.
But as I turned to walk away, a tear fell from my eye, for all my life I’d always thought I didn’t want to die.
…But when I walked through heaven’s gates, I felt so much at home. When God looked down and smiled at me from His great golden throne.
He said, “This is eternity, and all I’ve promised you. Today, your life on earth is past but here life starts a new.
I promise no tomorrow, but today will always last, and since each day is the same way, there’s no longing for the past.
You have been so faithful, so trusting and so true. Though there were times you did some things you knew you shouldn’t do.
But you have been forgiven, and now at last you are free so won’t you come and take My hand, and share My life with me.”
One day, you will see your daughter again.
Colleen
I’m sorry for your loss. FWIW, you don’t sound like the sort of people in my family, though. The people in my family are so desensitized to dehumanizing traumas that it probably wouldn’t even cause a ripple if any of us killed themselves. It’d just be another day. And on that note, thank god I cut off ties with those crazy people.