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Posts tagged with “suicide survivor”

My Dad Died From Depression: This Is How I Coped with His Suicide

“Grief is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.” ~Jamie Anderson

When I was seventeen, my dad died from depression. This is now almost twenty-two years ago.

The first fifteen years after his death, however, I’d say he died from a disease—which is true, I just didn’t want to say it was a psychological disease. Cancer, people probably assumed.

I …

The Enduring Pain of Losing Someone You Love to Suicide

“The reality is that you will grieve forever.” ~Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler

March is always hard for me. Has been since March 21, 2017. That’s the day my eldest son, then twenty-seven, found his father hanging in our basement. I apologize for being so brutal.  But it was.

What no one tells you about grief, what catches you by surprise, is the fact that you can be five years out and still, when March comes around, you can find yourself in a fetal position on the ceramic floor of your kitchen—howling like a wounded dog because a memory …

Scared of Losing People You Love? How to Work through the Fear

“People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges.” ~Joseph F. Newton

“Oh my God, Mom…” she said with a verbal eye roll.

“What?” I responded, sure that I had said too much or overshared like I normally do.

I can’t recall what my daughter and I were discussing openly about while standing in line at the grocery store checkout, but I do remember the girl ringing us up laughing and saying we sounded just like her and her mom.

I paused, unsure what that meant.

“Is this what a healthy mother/daughter relationship sounds like?” I questioned to myself. …

Why I Blamed Myself for My Ex’s Suicide (and Why It’s Not My Fault)

“No amount of guilt can change the past and no amount of worrying can change the future.” ~Umar Ibn Al Khattab

I don’t remember the exact day the message came through. It was from my son, Julian, and he needed to talk to me. It sounded pretty serious. He never really needs to talk to me.

His father was found dead earlier that week. He’d hung himself.

While this news hardly affected Julian at all, it hit me like a ton of bricks, and I cried.

Our Marriage

We met in a taxi thirty-three years ago. He was the driver, …