87 Days. I Just Can’t.

It’s been a few days since I have felt able to write anything and I wasn’t going to bother because things just seem so fucked up in my head and in all honesty, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here anymore. But I figured it’s better out than in, no one has to read it, and the idea was always that someone else might (unfortunately) be able to relate. So, if you’re prepared for some serious negativity and energy draining then read on. This is just me, a mum who has lost her first born to suicide, trying to explain how I am holding up (or not).

I really want to be one of those parents who sees a robin or a feather and it brings them comfort. I really fucking need some comfort, I really do. But that isn’t me, and it wasn’t Liam. Liam would, and often did, absolutely bamboozle you with science and facts and figures. There wasn’t much he didn’t know and what he didn’t know, he would find out. He did not believe in life after death, ghosts or departed loved ones leaving feathers. He also never liked being wrong so I doubt he’d admit there was anything after death anyway. I’m not even sure it would bring me any comfort. I mean, how can anything bring comfort to this god awful situation?

This really is not about fluffy feathers and rainbows for me right now. It is dark and desperate and depressing. Day in day out. All day and all night. It’s like my life and everything around me has fallen into a hole and the ground is caving in on top of me. It’s like I’m in a bubble and I can’t breathe and it’s so heavy but no one else can see it. And everyone else just goes about their day and I have to pretend it doesn’t take every bit of energy I have just to speak and move this body I am in that feels so heavy. I can’t believe there were days, before this, that I thought things were pretty tough.

Sometimes I wonder if this is some kind of sick joke. I’m not kidding. Like a twisted experiment to test the endurance of the human mind. Or some weird movie that I had forgotten I was acting in, like the Truman Show. Anything else but this. I just can’t comprehend this now as my reality. This real life nightmare where I am unable to save my child.

Never in a million years did I imagine I would be facing an internal battle of suicidal thoughts every day. But never in a million years did I expect to be experiencing this living hell. Since the day I found my son’s lifeless body, the part of me that is left, is clinging on to this life by a tattered thread that I feel I will lose my grip of any minute. Do I even care? I care for my children. I care that they are going through hell already and I do not want to cause them more heartache, but this feeling is much bigger than that. And what use am I to them anyway? So much of me has died inside already that I don’t know this is even really me anymore. I am not the mum they knew. I am tired of being a mum. I just can’t do it anymore.

I do not claim to have insight into the suicidal mind. I am grieving, I am not mentally unwell, or at least I wasn’t before this. But I do feel I have some insight into the dark engulfing clouds of plaguing suicidal thoughts that can consume a persons mind, or at least my mind and they are not kind. It doesn’t seem to uncommon for grieving parents who have lost a child to feel suicidal.

Before this, I would have described myself as a generally happy, cup half full kind of person who always looked for, and usually could find, a silver lining. There is no silver lining after the loss of a child by suicide. But there are plenty of clouds. Dark, gloomy, smothering clouds that seep into your mind and torment you by stirring up the past and reminding you of memories you had stored away under ‘irrelevant’, in the depths of your mind. No event from the past remains hidden. Every single move you made, every comment, every action or inaction will be unearthed from every corner of your once fairly organised mind and they will all scream loudly to be heard. And there are thousands upon thousands of them. Some you never even knew you had and others you didn’t think had any bearing on anything at all. Well they all matter now. Everything you ever did or didn’t do or say, becomes part of the reason your child is no longer here.

You will sift through the memories over and over, analysing what was said, why you said it, what you ought to have said instead, how things could have had a different outcome and how you could have saved them. There will be a million things you did or didn’t do, and you will play them on repeat. You will pin point the moments in which you caused this or could’ve acted differently and achieved a different outcome. An outcome in which your child is happy and alive. And you didn’t fail in your role as a parent. How could I let this happen as a parent? How did I not see?

My thoughts are only this. This situation, what caused it, the blame, the guilt, the regret and the sheer horror when I realise this is real and this is what has happened in my life. I worry about the future for my children and the impact this will have on them, and the impact that I continue to have on them as I am now, an empty shell. I think this is where grief meets depression.

I spoke to a psychiatrist over the telephone yesterday and according to her scoring system, because I have ‘experienced low mood’ for longer than 2 weeks, my sleep is disrupted and I have a lack of appetite, I have depression and she will prescribe some antidepressants if I am ‘happy’ to try them’. Yes, she used that word. She asked me if I could tell her when I started to feel this low mood, as if it wasn’t glaringly obvious. She asked me what I did with my time and what I did for ‘enjoyment’. Another word that no longer has any meaning to me. She asked me why I thought I could no longer do the things I used to enjoy.

I JUST CAN’T.

She said she would record it as ‘lack of motivation’. Like I give a shit. She will prescribe some medication and if ‘do not get better’ with this one, I can try another. These must be some pretty special tablets if they can make all of this okay. I am not sick and I will not get better. It’s not helpful having someone speak to you like they can ‘cure’ this with magic pills of hope.

My son died. I found him. And now he is gone. Forever. I am not unwell and I will not get better or get over this. I am desperate for this pain to stop but I know it won’t, and dealing with that is not easy. I know I have other responsibilities but this normal life is just too overwhelming. What is happening is incomprehensible and I just can’t do this regular normal life stuff. I can’t concentrate on anything, the thoughts in my head are too angry and loud. I can’t bear to do anything. I don’t want to even be. At all.

Advising me to get up and go out, to eat and practice good sleep hygiene is unhelpful. I am well aware of what I ought to be doing. Telling me what I should be doing, does not make doing it come any easier to me. Telling me I should eat, does not give me the energy to buy food, make a meal, or give me an appetite. Telling me I will feel so much better if I shower and put on clean clothes, does not give me the energy to take one or to do any laundry. I don’t feel I am in the right place to hear about the benefits of good self care.

I am just trying really hard to stay alive. And I can’t do anything else today. I just can’t.