Sunday, June 26, 2011
Dread
These days when Sunday rolls around and I start thinking about the coming work week, my mind fills with an overwhelming sense of dread and bitterness. Something tells me that is not a good thing.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Disappointment, and Why I Might Be an Asshole
A little over a month ago I wrote most of a long-ass post and then never finished it. But I'm gonna scrap that one, for various reasons ... I think I was just trying to put too much detail in there. I did want to update this blog though, because the whole of it thus far is two posts about one particular horrifying subject that leave me and the story in a place (about 3 1/2 months ago) that is a very different place than I'm in now. Plus I don't want the subject of this entire blog to be about that, because ... well ... fuck that. One person's bad decision doesn't rule the rest of our damn lives. And I had a couple other topics I wanted to blab about, but felt this one wasn't quite finished off. So I'll post one more on that subject just to give an update and close it out, and then move onto other stuff. Not saying that I'll never post about it again because it's still something I and many others will have to deal with throughout the rest of our lives, but for now I'm moving on.
So, a few days after my last entry, the memorial service was held. Here is the recap of that:
- It was huge; she had tons and tons of friends from her church and from around town. I'm pretty sure it's the biggest memorial service I've ever been to.
- It was a very nice service of course (makes me feel like I'm talking about the old lady down the street or something), but mentally torturous for me. Because I was still in denial and it forced me to start believing that shit was real. And my mind had to be dragged there kicking and screaming.
- There was a pic/music montage video which was very nice but also torturous for me to watch. I'm not sure if I'll ever be ready for the typical "bittersweet" feeling you get from watching those videos, in this case. It's not the same situation as when several of my grandparents died of natural causes a couple years ago. In those situations you're reflecting back on a long happy life. In this case it's a life cut short under bad circumstances, so looking at these pictures only feels like salt in the wound to me right now because the situation still feels so wrong.
- Tons of people got up and spoke with very nice stories of her. Hearing stories that you never knew of a person is always interesting, fun and even helps you understand the person better. In a sense it made me wish that, at least for that day, I could have been one of those people who knew her in the capacity that doesn't involve all the relationship complexities that exist when you're tied by blood to someone for your entire 34 years of life. I dunno if that's a weird statement but it's not something that is easy to explain without writing an entire essay on that subject alone.
- After the service was over, we went back to the house we were staying in (a vacation rental loaned by some very generous members of Amy's church) and attempted to numb ourselves with alcohol and fatty foods.
So that was that and I think that's the last family gathering or Amy-related gathering that happened.
So ... let's jump ahead to a few weeks after the memorial now. Well first I should preface this by saying that up through the memorial weekend, I had had this really heavy pit in my stomach that would never totally leave, and it would flare up every time my mind would turn to Amy. It was a pit of devastation, shock, sadness, anger, and denial. Then a couple/few weeks after the memorial service, one day, I realized it was gone. Or at least mostly gone, or much lighter than it had been. Why is that? I'm not entirely sure, but my theory is that I can attribute it to a few things: new pieces of info and clues that we slowly gather in the aftermath of these things, the passing of time, getting wrapped up in work crap that turns my attention back to daily life again, slowly accepting that the whole thing really happened, etc. etc. But for whatever reason, all these reasons, and maybe others I don't know about, the pit had been mostly lifted away. I certainly never had any kind of mental or emotional epiphany that I can trace it back to, that's for sure.
But, I then had to think ... well if the big pit is mostly gone, what's left now? There's gotta be something. I pretty quickly realized there was mostly just one major thing left. And that was - a very broad and general sense of disappointment. I mean the type you get when you examine a situation from the 50,000 foot level, and over the span of decades and generations. When you compare where something started off a very long time ago with where it is now. What happened to the Meredith family? It's ironic, because it was this family in particular that always made me feel the MOST safe and secure when I was a kid. I always felt like I could count on them as much as I could count on the ground under my feet. Where did that go? The Meredith Family of 1976, 1980, '85, '90 ... long long gone. I don't know if the family changed or if it's all just my perception as I've become an adult and started to see things for what they truly are ... but I believe it's a bit of both. I think even the folks who were adults when I was a kid (and therefore have much broader perspective than I) are quite shocked that we've ended up where we are now.
There is a family pic that we had professionally done in 1992 with my grandparents and aunts/uncles/cousins, and looking at that pic today is a pretty fucked up experience. I counted and figured out that 42% of the people in the pic are gone now ... most of them dead, just two of them still alive but no longer part of the family due to divorce. 42%. That is getting dangerously close to half.
How the hell did we end up here? There is no obvious explanation. By all accounts, Nancy and Bob certainly raised their kids well, as a very normal all-American family. There was no abuse of any kind, no neglect. No drug use, no alcoholism, no divorce, nothing like that. So then what is it? Is it a curse? Is it bad luck? Or is it something worse ... self destruction? If there is any "Meredith Family Legacy" ... is that what it is? Self destruction? I mean, we didn't ALL go down this road, Michael certainly didn't. What happened to him was just pure shit luck. But to be fair, he married into this family rather than being a product of it.
If we had a family motto, what would it be? Would it be, "I can't take it anymore, tap out"?? Is it, "Life is too much to handle" ? I don't know, but I'm almost starting to feel like that's what it would be. I may or may not be an asshole for thinking along these lines. Someone who is an expert on Bipolar Disorder ... if they read this, probably thinks I'm an asshole. I just know that this is where my asshole brain has taken me, and I'm writing it down, for probably no one to read (hopefully). I've got my own mental problems anyway, like the ones that make me start thinking I've cursed myself for even making these statements.
I mean I do sit and look at the other side of this and say, "What would be the situations that would bring me to suicide, if any?" I can think of precisely one type of situation: I get some sort of terminal/debilitating illness or I get paralyzed from the neck down or something, i.e. any situation that would cause me to just be a burden on my family and also live a really shitty quality of life. That's when I'd consider it. Too bad Jack Kevorkian died a couple weeks ago. But yeah that's pretty much all I can think of. And then I think, well it's entirely possible that Amy saw her situation exactly like this. Even though to the outside world she seemed relatively fine, without any physical ailments or anything of that sort. But it's likely that she saw her mental ailment to be dire enough to put her in that situation.
So one could argue that the "self destruction" theme is not entirely right, or maybe it's just not properly descriptive enough. But then regardless ... it still doesn't change my feeling of disappointment at the overall family situation, does it? It's still completely screwed no matter which way you slice it. But I mean ... yeah. Fuck it, what can I do? Just keep on moving.
And don't look back. Heh, yeah right. Easier said than done.
Oh btw I happened to watch this video shortly after I posted this blog post and the song seemed strangely appropriate to the Amy situation in more ways than one, so I'm adding it here.
So, a few days after my last entry, the memorial service was held. Here is the recap of that:
- It was huge; she had tons and tons of friends from her church and from around town. I'm pretty sure it's the biggest memorial service I've ever been to.
- It was a very nice service of course (makes me feel like I'm talking about the old lady down the street or something), but mentally torturous for me. Because I was still in denial and it forced me to start believing that shit was real. And my mind had to be dragged there kicking and screaming.
- There was a pic/music montage video which was very nice but also torturous for me to watch. I'm not sure if I'll ever be ready for the typical "bittersweet" feeling you get from watching those videos, in this case. It's not the same situation as when several of my grandparents died of natural causes a couple years ago. In those situations you're reflecting back on a long happy life. In this case it's a life cut short under bad circumstances, so looking at these pictures only feels like salt in the wound to me right now because the situation still feels so wrong.
- Tons of people got up and spoke with very nice stories of her. Hearing stories that you never knew of a person is always interesting, fun and even helps you understand the person better. In a sense it made me wish that, at least for that day, I could have been one of those people who knew her in the capacity that doesn't involve all the relationship complexities that exist when you're tied by blood to someone for your entire 34 years of life. I dunno if that's a weird statement but it's not something that is easy to explain without writing an entire essay on that subject alone.
- After the service was over, we went back to the house we were staying in (a vacation rental loaned by some very generous members of Amy's church) and attempted to numb ourselves with alcohol and fatty foods.
So that was that and I think that's the last family gathering or Amy-related gathering that happened.
So ... let's jump ahead to a few weeks after the memorial now. Well first I should preface this by saying that up through the memorial weekend, I had had this really heavy pit in my stomach that would never totally leave, and it would flare up every time my mind would turn to Amy. It was a pit of devastation, shock, sadness, anger, and denial. Then a couple/few weeks after the memorial service, one day, I realized it was gone. Or at least mostly gone, or much lighter than it had been. Why is that? I'm not entirely sure, but my theory is that I can attribute it to a few things: new pieces of info and clues that we slowly gather in the aftermath of these things, the passing of time, getting wrapped up in work crap that turns my attention back to daily life again, slowly accepting that the whole thing really happened, etc. etc. But for whatever reason, all these reasons, and maybe others I don't know about, the pit had been mostly lifted away. I certainly never had any kind of mental or emotional epiphany that I can trace it back to, that's for sure.
But, I then had to think ... well if the big pit is mostly gone, what's left now? There's gotta be something. I pretty quickly realized there was mostly just one major thing left. And that was - a very broad and general sense of disappointment. I mean the type you get when you examine a situation from the 50,000 foot level, and over the span of decades and generations. When you compare where something started off a very long time ago with where it is now. What happened to the Meredith family? It's ironic, because it was this family in particular that always made me feel the MOST safe and secure when I was a kid. I always felt like I could count on them as much as I could count on the ground under my feet. Where did that go? The Meredith Family of 1976, 1980, '85, '90 ... long long gone. I don't know if the family changed or if it's all just my perception as I've become an adult and started to see things for what they truly are ... but I believe it's a bit of both. I think even the folks who were adults when I was a kid (and therefore have much broader perspective than I) are quite shocked that we've ended up where we are now.
There is a family pic that we had professionally done in 1992 with my grandparents and aunts/uncles/cousins, and looking at that pic today is a pretty fucked up experience. I counted and figured out that 42% of the people in the pic are gone now ... most of them dead, just two of them still alive but no longer part of the family due to divorce. 42%. That is getting dangerously close to half.
How the hell did we end up here? There is no obvious explanation. By all accounts, Nancy and Bob certainly raised their kids well, as a very normal all-American family. There was no abuse of any kind, no neglect. No drug use, no alcoholism, no divorce, nothing like that. So then what is it? Is it a curse? Is it bad luck? Or is it something worse ... self destruction? If there is any "Meredith Family Legacy" ... is that what it is? Self destruction? I mean, we didn't ALL go down this road, Michael certainly didn't. What happened to him was just pure shit luck. But to be fair, he married into this family rather than being a product of it.
If we had a family motto, what would it be? Would it be, "I can't take it anymore, tap out"?? Is it, "Life is too much to handle" ? I don't know, but I'm almost starting to feel like that's what it would be. I may or may not be an asshole for thinking along these lines. Someone who is an expert on Bipolar Disorder ... if they read this, probably thinks I'm an asshole. I just know that this is where my asshole brain has taken me, and I'm writing it down, for probably no one to read (hopefully). I've got my own mental problems anyway, like the ones that make me start thinking I've cursed myself for even making these statements.
I mean I do sit and look at the other side of this and say, "What would be the situations that would bring me to suicide, if any?" I can think of precisely one type of situation: I get some sort of terminal/debilitating illness or I get paralyzed from the neck down or something, i.e. any situation that would cause me to just be a burden on my family and also live a really shitty quality of life. That's when I'd consider it. Too bad Jack Kevorkian died a couple weeks ago. But yeah that's pretty much all I can think of. And then I think, well it's entirely possible that Amy saw her situation exactly like this. Even though to the outside world she seemed relatively fine, without any physical ailments or anything of that sort. But it's likely that she saw her mental ailment to be dire enough to put her in that situation.
So one could argue that the "self destruction" theme is not entirely right, or maybe it's just not properly descriptive enough. But then regardless ... it still doesn't change my feeling of disappointment at the overall family situation, does it? It's still completely screwed no matter which way you slice it. But I mean ... yeah. Fuck it, what can I do? Just keep on moving.
And don't look back. Heh, yeah right. Easier said than done.
Oh btw I happened to watch this video shortly after I posted this blog post and the song seemed strangely appropriate to the Amy situation in more ways than one, so I'm adding it here.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
For Us, It Isn't Over.
Just a preface to this post - It was actually written on February 23rd, but I got too busy with all the wedding stuff to finish it. So I went back and edited and posted it just now. But the real date should be:
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
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Divorce vs. Death: What's worse? Ridiculous comparison to even try to make? Probably, but just go with me on this for a minute, I have a point. Each of those scenarios has its uniquely terrible aspects. When your spouse or close family member dies tragically, you never get to see or talk to them again. Depending on the situation, you may not have even had a chance to tell them goodbye or have any prior warning at all that this was going to happen (if it's something such as a car accident instead of something like a terminal illness). They are just suddenly ripped away from you forever and ever. On the other hand, with divorce, you've got the element of maybe some bad feelings involved between you, being forced to see the other person traipsing around town rubbing their "I'm so happy now" shit in your face, you've got the element of choice of the parties involved, one party may end up feeling "dumped" depending on the situation, etc. etc.
I'll get back to this comparison in a minute and eventually tell you my point, but first let me just explain how I even started thinking about this. One night last week after work, I was doing some surfing around on my usual gossip blogs, and on one blog, they had a youtube video of that singer Adele's performance on the Brit Awards. I have heard of this chick several times before but never paid attention or heard any of her music. So because they were raving about her, I clicked on the video out of curiosity, to see what she's all about. The song is a post break-up song which discusses some of the divorce/break-up aspects I mentioned earlier.
Earlier on the same day that I was clicking "play" on the video, someone created the following memorial page for my aunt Amy on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Amy-Meredith-SmithMemorial/179770075398873. My other aunt linked me and the rest of my fam to it right after it was created, but I couldn't look much at it at work cause it was making me too sad. So I decided to wait until I got home to take a closer look. I just so happened to end up clicking on the memorial page while the Adele song was playing on another tab of my browser, and I was only kind of half paying attention to the song. Here's the song, check it out:
So, the song is playing on my browser on the other tab, and meanwhile I'm looking at all the pictures and posts on Amy's memorial page at the same time ...and it's odd, because I suddenly realize, "WHY the hell does this song seem to be so well-suited as some sort of soundtrack for me viewing Amy's memorial page??" That doesn't make sense, because the song is very specific in its lyrics that it's about a woman being upset that her ex boyfriend is now happy with his new girlfriend/wife, and meanwhile, the singer feels that she isn't over the relationship or the breakup. That's clearly not the situation with Amy at all. But if you take the theme of the song at a more general level, along with some of the lyrics: "I hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded that for me, it isn't over," ... "Nevermind I'll find someone like you," ... "I wish nothing but the best for you," ... "only yesterday was the time of our lives," "sometimes it lasts in love and sometimes it hurts instead", etc., then the overall theme kind of starts to apply.
So that's when the thought suddenly formed in my head: Suicide of a loved one is somewhat like experiencing a tragic death AND a divorce or break-up at the same time. Sure, you don't have the aspect of seeing the person traipsing around town being happy with someone else, so there's that. But you still have the aspect of choice. Now, I know NOTHING about suicide, as this is the first suicide of this closeness and magnitude that I've ever experienced. But it seems like the family must always feel like not only have they tragically lost their spouse/parent/sibling/daughter/son/aunt/uncle/best friend/what have you, but don't they kinda feel "dumped" as well? Like, how could you choose death over US, the people who loved you?? Were we not "good enough"? What did we do or say to lead you to this choice?? I'm definitely sure that a psychologist would say, that's NOT how the thought process goes of the person committing suicide; you can't think of it that way at all. They probably just get so lost and caught up in their own head and their own pain that they just can't even take anyone else into account at all. I know I've seen that advice on t.v. before ... Oprah, Dr. Phil, what have you. And I know it's true, and it also most definitely helps greatly to have this understanding, but I don't think it totally makes that gut reaction of the close family and friends completely go away; you can't stop or change a gut reaction, that's just the nature of it.
Also with Amy as it probably is with most suicides, mental illness was involved. That means rational thought was not happening when her choice was made. It's NOT as if it's a situation where she was doing totally fine with complete mental health, and then something bad happened like the loss of a job or major marital troubles or something, and she just suddenly decided that she couldn't deal. So the family and friends can't logically say, "she dumped us," because we can be pretty sure that that is not what her thought process was like. BUT, it's still a decision that's hard for most people to comprehend using logic and rational thought, so I think the gut reaction still goes there. And point being, it just makes me feel even that much more for Jim/Scott/Sam to think of this as a tragic death and a divorce double-whammy at the same time. Hopefully hopefully hopefully their first-hand knowledge of the bipolar illness and its symptoms helps their understanding of it though, so they may be able to avoid that gut reaction somewhat.
But regardless of all the cold hard logic that you find out from the leading experts on these matters, sometimes you just have these experiences where you have a moment caused by a conversation or a song or a movie or whatever, and it takes your brain to a certain place. This is where that song took my brain in that moment:
Amy made a decision, that, while we can't exactly call it "quick" or rash because we know she planned it at least a couple days in advance and had definitely contemplated it in the past, we can certainly say that the end result was a quick end to her pain. Albeit, pain that, as she has described, had lasted her whole life up until that point. But the end was quick and it's all over now. She decided she wanted something and now she has it.
But for the rest of us, it isn't over. It'll never be over for the rest of our lives. She moved on and wiped her hands clean of it all. We can't do that, the figurative blood spatter is all over us now, and it is a stain that can't simply be wiped clean. We never will be able to fully scrub it away. Yes of course, everyone's lives will continue, it's not as if we are stopping in place and eventually turning into petrified wood or something. Sam and Scott will graduate college and high school and date people and eventually get married and probably have kids. I know Jim feels like he's in a complete tailspin right now, but I still have confidence that he will persevere and eventually find happiness again, in whatever way makes sense for him. Everyone else's lives will continue to progress as well. We all keep moving. But mentally, the Amy situation will never just be "over" for us. How could it be?? Her life ended mid-sentence. Even her damn suicide note draft basically ended mid-sentence ... painfully incomplete. It's a cliffhanger that will never be continued or properly concluded. Scott and Sam aren't going to just get a new mom to share their future life journeys with. That's not the way it works. This vast space of absence will be felt for the rest of our lives, along with the wondering - How much of this aftermath did she contemplate beforehand? How much did she visualize what the repercussions would be like for Scott/Sam/Jim, to live the rest of their lives with this void and all the complications and awful pain that it brings? I mean, she couldn't have fully played that out in her head then then still made this decision ... right? Clearly the bipolar disorder must have simply been blocking these thoughts out? It had to have ... yeah? We'll just wonder and wonder.
Could she ever somehow "see our faces and be reminded that for us, it isn't over," as the song says? Well, that doesn't work for suicide the same way it does for a break-up. I guess suicide is like a break-up of the most extreme, cruel and permanent kind.
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
-----------------------------------------
Divorce vs. Death: What's worse? Ridiculous comparison to even try to make? Probably, but just go with me on this for a minute, I have a point. Each of those scenarios has its uniquely terrible aspects. When your spouse or close family member dies tragically, you never get to see or talk to them again. Depending on the situation, you may not have even had a chance to tell them goodbye or have any prior warning at all that this was going to happen (if it's something such as a car accident instead of something like a terminal illness). They are just suddenly ripped away from you forever and ever. On the other hand, with divorce, you've got the element of maybe some bad feelings involved between you, being forced to see the other person traipsing around town rubbing their "I'm so happy now" shit in your face, you've got the element of choice of the parties involved, one party may end up feeling "dumped" depending on the situation, etc. etc.
I'll get back to this comparison in a minute and eventually tell you my point, but first let me just explain how I even started thinking about this. One night last week after work, I was doing some surfing around on my usual gossip blogs, and on one blog, they had a youtube video of that singer Adele's performance on the Brit Awards. I have heard of this chick several times before but never paid attention or heard any of her music. So because they were raving about her, I clicked on the video out of curiosity, to see what she's all about. The song is a post break-up song which discusses some of the divorce/break-up aspects I mentioned earlier.
Earlier on the same day that I was clicking "play" on the video, someone created the following memorial page for my aunt Amy on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Amy-Meredith-SmithMemorial/179770075398873. My other aunt linked me and the rest of my fam to it right after it was created, but I couldn't look much at it at work cause it was making me too sad. So I decided to wait until I got home to take a closer look. I just so happened to end up clicking on the memorial page while the Adele song was playing on another tab of my browser, and I was only kind of half paying attention to the song. Here's the song, check it out:
So, the song is playing on my browser on the other tab, and meanwhile I'm looking at all the pictures and posts on Amy's memorial page at the same time ...and it's odd, because I suddenly realize, "WHY the hell does this song seem to be so well-suited as some sort of soundtrack for me viewing Amy's memorial page??" That doesn't make sense, because the song is very specific in its lyrics that it's about a woman being upset that her ex boyfriend is now happy with his new girlfriend/wife, and meanwhile, the singer feels that she isn't over the relationship or the breakup. That's clearly not the situation with Amy at all. But if you take the theme of the song at a more general level, along with some of the lyrics: "I hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded that for me, it isn't over," ... "Nevermind I'll find someone like you," ... "I wish nothing but the best for you," ... "only yesterday was the time of our lives," "sometimes it lasts in love and sometimes it hurts instead", etc., then the overall theme kind of starts to apply.
So that's when the thought suddenly formed in my head: Suicide of a loved one is somewhat like experiencing a tragic death AND a divorce or break-up at the same time. Sure, you don't have the aspect of seeing the person traipsing around town being happy with someone else, so there's that. But you still have the aspect of choice. Now, I know NOTHING about suicide, as this is the first suicide of this closeness and magnitude that I've ever experienced. But it seems like the family must always feel like not only have they tragically lost their spouse/parent/sibling/daughter/son/aunt/uncle/best friend/what have you, but don't they kinda feel "dumped" as well? Like, how could you choose death over US, the people who loved you?? Were we not "good enough"? What did we do or say to lead you to this choice?? I'm definitely sure that a psychologist would say, that's NOT how the thought process goes of the person committing suicide; you can't think of it that way at all. They probably just get so lost and caught up in their own head and their own pain that they just can't even take anyone else into account at all. I know I've seen that advice on t.v. before ... Oprah, Dr. Phil, what have you. And I know it's true, and it also most definitely helps greatly to have this understanding, but I don't think it totally makes that gut reaction of the close family and friends completely go away; you can't stop or change a gut reaction, that's just the nature of it.
Also with Amy as it probably is with most suicides, mental illness was involved. That means rational thought was not happening when her choice was made. It's NOT as if it's a situation where she was doing totally fine with complete mental health, and then something bad happened like the loss of a job or major marital troubles or something, and she just suddenly decided that she couldn't deal. So the family and friends can't logically say, "she dumped us," because we can be pretty sure that that is not what her thought process was like. BUT, it's still a decision that's hard for most people to comprehend using logic and rational thought, so I think the gut reaction still goes there. And point being, it just makes me feel even that much more for Jim/Scott/Sam to think of this as a tragic death and a divorce double-whammy at the same time. Hopefully hopefully hopefully their first-hand knowledge of the bipolar illness and its symptoms helps their understanding of it though, so they may be able to avoid that gut reaction somewhat.
But regardless of all the cold hard logic that you find out from the leading experts on these matters, sometimes you just have these experiences where you have a moment caused by a conversation or a song or a movie or whatever, and it takes your brain to a certain place. This is where that song took my brain in that moment:
Amy made a decision, that, while we can't exactly call it "quick" or rash because we know she planned it at least a couple days in advance and had definitely contemplated it in the past, we can certainly say that the end result was a quick end to her pain. Albeit, pain that, as she has described, had lasted her whole life up until that point. But the end was quick and it's all over now. She decided she wanted something and now she has it.
But for the rest of us, it isn't over. It'll never be over for the rest of our lives. She moved on and wiped her hands clean of it all. We can't do that, the figurative blood spatter is all over us now, and it is a stain that can't simply be wiped clean. We never will be able to fully scrub it away. Yes of course, everyone's lives will continue, it's not as if we are stopping in place and eventually turning into petrified wood or something. Sam and Scott will graduate college and high school and date people and eventually get married and probably have kids. I know Jim feels like he's in a complete tailspin right now, but I still have confidence that he will persevere and eventually find happiness again, in whatever way makes sense for him. Everyone else's lives will continue to progress as well. We all keep moving. But mentally, the Amy situation will never just be "over" for us. How could it be?? Her life ended mid-sentence. Even her damn suicide note draft basically ended mid-sentence ... painfully incomplete. It's a cliffhanger that will never be continued or properly concluded. Scott and Sam aren't going to just get a new mom to share their future life journeys with. That's not the way it works. This vast space of absence will be felt for the rest of our lives, along with the wondering - How much of this aftermath did she contemplate beforehand? How much did she visualize what the repercussions would be like for Scott/Sam/Jim, to live the rest of their lives with this void and all the complications and awful pain that it brings? I mean, she couldn't have fully played that out in her head then then still made this decision ... right? Clearly the bipolar disorder must have simply been blocking these thoughts out? It had to have ... yeah? We'll just wonder and wonder.
Could she ever somehow "see our faces and be reminded that for us, it isn't over," as the song says? Well, that doesn't work for suicide the same way it does for a break-up. I guess suicide is like a break-up of the most extreme, cruel and permanent kind.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
The Pros and Cons of the Suicide Note
There's something to be said for a good suicide note. This wasn't a subject I had contemplated much until about three weeks ago, when I was sort of forced into it by circumstances beyond my control. More on that in a minute, but first, this: We had a friend who committed suicide about two years ago. His name was Pat, and because of a falling out about a year prior, we were actually not on speaking terms with him at the time he made the decision to write his suicide note and put the gun to his head. I was still angry at him at the time it happened because of the circumstances of the prior falling out, but when I read his suicide note, I had to admit that it was oddly kind of nice and eloquent. Pat's note reads as follows:
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Friends and Family,
I have no regrets. I have lived a life filled with fantastic highs and lows. I have experienced incredible things few people have in a single lifetime. I have had the opportunity to share love, and to love passionately. For this I am grateful, for both the good and the bad.
But as the saying goes, "The candle that burns twice as bright burns twice as fast." I have cheated death many times. So please have no grief or sadness. I never expected to live this long even as a child. I leave this life with a clear and calm mind free of attachment. This is a quality of life decision, my decision.
"Share a little joke with the world."
Au Revoir,
Patrick
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Everything in the note is entirely true. Pat was a pretty wild and crazy motherfucker. He lived a fun, wild and exciting life in his youth from what I understand ... and I know that he cheated death many times with severe addictions to illicit drugs in his youth and severe addictions to prescription drugs in his later years (I think he was about 58 when he committed suicide), and from lord only knows what other crazy stuff he engaged in when he was young. And the key is that he did leave his life with very few attachments. He had no kids, and his wife had died of an accidental prescription drug overdose a couple years prior (which was a major part of the impetus for his decision to put the gun to his head to begin with).
I hadn't thought much about that note in the two years since it happened, but something happened just three weeks ago that forced it back into my mind. Something that violently tore the guts out of my entire family and many other people: My Aunt Amy, my mom's youngest sister, who was only 10 years older than me (9.5 to be exact), committed suicide at the age of 44. She was bipolar, and she was very vocal about her disorder and the problems that it regularly caused in her life. We all knew in the back of our minds that this was not completely outside the realm of possibility, but I don't think many of us ever allowed ourselves to go there mentally. I think we all thought that as long as her life (marriage, kids, job) remained fairly stable, that she would always be able to carry on and endure. I am now realizing that her husband and kids, though, had attempted to mentally prepare themselves for this much more than the rest of us had, because they saw her day in and day out and they saw every issue that she had as a result of the disorder on a daily basis.
My reactions to this from the time I first heard the news up until this moment have of course ranged from one end of the spectrum to the other - extreme anger, frustration, devastation, disbelief, denial, gutwrenching sadness, and on and on. One thing I'm realizing is that I'm probably subconsciously turning back to frustration/anger pretty regularly because I just can't fucking stand the bottomless abyss of sadness and emptiness at the whole situation ... those are too much to bear all the time ... and frustration and anger are way easier (at least for me they are because I am very talented at being pissed). :-P Oh and not to mention denial, which I still have a LOT of right now. My brain can't comprehend that this isn't just a long nightmare that I'll eventually wake up from.
And I'm not sure if this is weird, but one particular thing that I've found extremely frustrating is that she did not leave a note. Well, she started to write like two sentences of a note in her email and then abandoned it, and instead posted a Facebook status that said something to the effect of, "Sometimes words are just not enough." And all I kept thinking was ... she made the decision to completely and royally screw over her teenage children and husband, and she didn't even have the decency to leave a damn note for them!? She even deleted her damn facebook account after posting that status, so that every comment she ever posted on anyone's pics or statuses or walls has been completely wiped out. Sounds weird to even be talking about Facebook in this situation, but it's SUCH an ingrained form of communication these days that there were a lot of nice and fun memories and conversations on there that I would have liked to have still been able to see and remember. And hell, the closest thing she did leave to a suicide note was that cryptic Facebook status ... as well as her final "statement" to the world, which was to wipe out her FB account. Ahh, the age of modern technology. I guess the pre-internet-age version of this action would be to take every photograph and other documentation of yourself that you can find and burn them or something. It's either an "I'm not worthy of even existing" or a final "fuck you" to everyone that loved you, or a little of both.
In the midst of all this, I ended up looking back on the Pat situation from a couple years prior and almost appreciating it in an odd way. Even though I was SOO angry at him both before he did it and after, I found myself looking back and almost wanting to thank him for leaving such an eloquent note. So I went back and re-read his note again for the first time in two years (it was printed on a pamphlet thing from his memorial). I wasn't sure what the hell re-reading it was going to do for me, but I think somehow I thought it would help me mentally ... I'm not sure how.
It didn't help one bit though, it simply illustrated the enormous differences in the two situations. They couldn't be further apart. He had no wife or kids and therefore not many attachments; she had a husband and two teenage kids, and several sisters and brothers in law and nieces and nephews and very close church friends and so on, who she was very close to. Lots and lots of attachments that are now suddenly ripped apart like limbs torn off. He felt like he didn't have much left to live for (and given the fact that he spent most of his time in a complete drugged out stupor, those feelings were not entirely unfounded), and she had a TON to live for. Like SO SO SO fucking much to live for. She had a GREAT family and an AMAZING husband and two AWESOME kids with limitless potential, and all of us in the rest of her family who loved her, along with many great friends. He felt like he had already accomplished all he needed to in life, and I really can't see where Amy would have felt that way (goes back to the having so much to live for thing). But the problem with Amy is that she had a lot of anguish bottled up and swirling around in her own head that most other people never saw ... so I suppose she was having many of the same feelings that Pat did, but no one else could really understand why (even she couldn't understand why).
So then if she HAD left a note, what would it have said?? I can't imagine how the hell she could give any decent explanation for peacing out on her husband in the prime of life and ditching her kids at such a young age. And her son, who is clearly wiser than the rest of us, pointed out that any note she would have left would not have been at all helpful, because it would have simply been the bipolar disorder talking and not "healthy Amy". I still keep thinking that I would have wanted to read it anyway just to see what WAS going through her head during that planning process, even if it was only part of a brain malfunction caused by this disorder. But I know it would only confuse or frustrate me more, given that situation. Since it would have been the bipolar talking, there's a chance that it would have actually hurt more than it helped. So she may have actually been doing us all a favor.
So what the hell is my point?? I'm not entirely sure, but I suppose it's something like this: There is something to be said for a good suicide note, but not every suicide situation is the same or even very comparable at all. In Amy's situation the note would not have helped, and may have even caused more harm than good. It certainly would not have solved anything or brought her back. Yet, that does not take away the fact that I (and probably many of those who loved her) will now spend the rest of my (our) life with an insatiable longing to just figure out exactly why ... to find out what was the thought process behind the final decision ... to just one time ask her what it was on that particular week that made her turn to this, vs. all the other weeks in the past where she had gone through those similar types of feelings due to the bipolar disorder. But that is a need and a hunger that will never be satiated. Not now, not a few years from now, not 30 years from now, not ever. The only time that conversation will ever happen is in my dreams, and the only answers I'll ever get will be generated from my own imagination.
R.I.P. Amy ... I hope you have found peace from this decision, as I do (or at least am really trying to) understand the fact that your disorder caused you unbearable pain and irrational thoughts, otherwise you would never have done it. But you are gone now, which means that there's something much more important at this point. And that is the hope that Jim and the kids will eventually find peace with this. Is it at all possible for them to ever find it? I don't know, maybe it will be easier for them in a way because they witnessed more of your pain than anyone else did, as you normally put on the braver face for the rest of us? The only thing I do know is that I'm pretty damn sure that I will never find peace with it. But I'm not the one who matters, I'm just the whiny bitch writing this blog.
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Friends and Family,
I have no regrets. I have lived a life filled with fantastic highs and lows. I have experienced incredible things few people have in a single lifetime. I have had the opportunity to share love, and to love passionately. For this I am grateful, for both the good and the bad.
But as the saying goes, "The candle that burns twice as bright burns twice as fast." I have cheated death many times. So please have no grief or sadness. I never expected to live this long even as a child. I leave this life with a clear and calm mind free of attachment. This is a quality of life decision, my decision.
"Share a little joke with the world."
Au Revoir,
Patrick
------------
Everything in the note is entirely true. Pat was a pretty wild and crazy motherfucker. He lived a fun, wild and exciting life in his youth from what I understand ... and I know that he cheated death many times with severe addictions to illicit drugs in his youth and severe addictions to prescription drugs in his later years (I think he was about 58 when he committed suicide), and from lord only knows what other crazy stuff he engaged in when he was young. And the key is that he did leave his life with very few attachments. He had no kids, and his wife had died of an accidental prescription drug overdose a couple years prior (which was a major part of the impetus for his decision to put the gun to his head to begin with).
I hadn't thought much about that note in the two years since it happened, but something happened just three weeks ago that forced it back into my mind. Something that violently tore the guts out of my entire family and many other people: My Aunt Amy, my mom's youngest sister, who was only 10 years older than me (9.5 to be exact), committed suicide at the age of 44. She was bipolar, and she was very vocal about her disorder and the problems that it regularly caused in her life. We all knew in the back of our minds that this was not completely outside the realm of possibility, but I don't think many of us ever allowed ourselves to go there mentally. I think we all thought that as long as her life (marriage, kids, job) remained fairly stable, that she would always be able to carry on and endure. I am now realizing that her husband and kids, though, had attempted to mentally prepare themselves for this much more than the rest of us had, because they saw her day in and day out and they saw every issue that she had as a result of the disorder on a daily basis.
My reactions to this from the time I first heard the news up until this moment have of course ranged from one end of the spectrum to the other - extreme anger, frustration, devastation, disbelief, denial, gutwrenching sadness, and on and on. One thing I'm realizing is that I'm probably subconsciously turning back to frustration/anger pretty regularly because I just can't fucking stand the bottomless abyss of sadness and emptiness at the whole situation ... those are too much to bear all the time ... and frustration and anger are way easier (at least for me they are because I am very talented at being pissed). :-P Oh and not to mention denial, which I still have a LOT of right now. My brain can't comprehend that this isn't just a long nightmare that I'll eventually wake up from.
And I'm not sure if this is weird, but one particular thing that I've found extremely frustrating is that she did not leave a note. Well, she started to write like two sentences of a note in her email and then abandoned it, and instead posted a Facebook status that said something to the effect of, "Sometimes words are just not enough." And all I kept thinking was ... she made the decision to completely and royally screw over her teenage children and husband, and she didn't even have the decency to leave a damn note for them!? She even deleted her damn facebook account after posting that status, so that every comment she ever posted on anyone's pics or statuses or walls has been completely wiped out. Sounds weird to even be talking about Facebook in this situation, but it's SUCH an ingrained form of communication these days that there were a lot of nice and fun memories and conversations on there that I would have liked to have still been able to see and remember. And hell, the closest thing she did leave to a suicide note was that cryptic Facebook status ... as well as her final "statement" to the world, which was to wipe out her FB account. Ahh, the age of modern technology. I guess the pre-internet-age version of this action would be to take every photograph and other documentation of yourself that you can find and burn them or something. It's either an "I'm not worthy of even existing" or a final "fuck you" to everyone that loved you, or a little of both.
In the midst of all this, I ended up looking back on the Pat situation from a couple years prior and almost appreciating it in an odd way. Even though I was SOO angry at him both before he did it and after, I found myself looking back and almost wanting to thank him for leaving such an eloquent note. So I went back and re-read his note again for the first time in two years (it was printed on a pamphlet thing from his memorial). I wasn't sure what the hell re-reading it was going to do for me, but I think somehow I thought it would help me mentally ... I'm not sure how.
It didn't help one bit though, it simply illustrated the enormous differences in the two situations. They couldn't be further apart. He had no wife or kids and therefore not many attachments; she had a husband and two teenage kids, and several sisters and brothers in law and nieces and nephews and very close church friends and so on, who she was very close to. Lots and lots of attachments that are now suddenly ripped apart like limbs torn off. He felt like he didn't have much left to live for (and given the fact that he spent most of his time in a complete drugged out stupor, those feelings were not entirely unfounded), and she had a TON to live for. Like SO SO SO fucking much to live for. She had a GREAT family and an AMAZING husband and two AWESOME kids with limitless potential, and all of us in the rest of her family who loved her, along with many great friends. He felt like he had already accomplished all he needed to in life, and I really can't see where Amy would have felt that way (goes back to the having so much to live for thing). But the problem with Amy is that she had a lot of anguish bottled up and swirling around in her own head that most other people never saw ... so I suppose she was having many of the same feelings that Pat did, but no one else could really understand why (even she couldn't understand why).
So then if she HAD left a note, what would it have said?? I can't imagine how the hell she could give any decent explanation for peacing out on her husband in the prime of life and ditching her kids at such a young age. And her son, who is clearly wiser than the rest of us, pointed out that any note she would have left would not have been at all helpful, because it would have simply been the bipolar disorder talking and not "healthy Amy". I still keep thinking that I would have wanted to read it anyway just to see what WAS going through her head during that planning process, even if it was only part of a brain malfunction caused by this disorder. But I know it would only confuse or frustrate me more, given that situation. Since it would have been the bipolar talking, there's a chance that it would have actually hurt more than it helped. So she may have actually been doing us all a favor.
So what the hell is my point?? I'm not entirely sure, but I suppose it's something like this: There is something to be said for a good suicide note, but not every suicide situation is the same or even very comparable at all. In Amy's situation the note would not have helped, and may have even caused more harm than good. It certainly would not have solved anything or brought her back. Yet, that does not take away the fact that I (and probably many of those who loved her) will now spend the rest of my (our) life with an insatiable longing to just figure out exactly why ... to find out what was the thought process behind the final decision ... to just one time ask her what it was on that particular week that made her turn to this, vs. all the other weeks in the past where she had gone through those similar types of feelings due to the bipolar disorder. But that is a need and a hunger that will never be satiated. Not now, not a few years from now, not 30 years from now, not ever. The only time that conversation will ever happen is in my dreams, and the only answers I'll ever get will be generated from my own imagination.
R.I.P. Amy ... I hope you have found peace from this decision, as I do (or at least am really trying to) understand the fact that your disorder caused you unbearable pain and irrational thoughts, otherwise you would never have done it. But you are gone now, which means that there's something much more important at this point. And that is the hope that Jim and the kids will eventually find peace with this. Is it at all possible for them to ever find it? I don't know, maybe it will be easier for them in a way because they witnessed more of your pain than anyone else did, as you normally put on the braver face for the rest of us? The only thing I do know is that I'm pretty damn sure that I will never find peace with it. But I'm not the one who matters, I'm just the whiny bitch writing this blog.
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| Tahoe July 2010 |
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| Tahoe July 2010 |
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| Tahoe, July 2010 |
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| With my brother, 1979-ish |
Thursday, February 17, 2011
This Blog
Anyway, I created this blog because I'm feeling the need to vent frustrations about certain things and I can't do that on Facebook because every damn person I know and their mother is on there and will see everything I write. I need some place that no one knows about. So here it is. Hello, no one.
Someone Stole My Name
Some asshole already has maryploppins.blogspot.com. Am I the asshole? It says that the page was created in 2006 and there's no posts on it. Was it me a long time ago and I forgot? But this website seems to require a gmail account and I've only ever had one account ... I'm assuming it wouldn't let me create two blogs on the same account. Goddamn.
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