One of the many difficult things that
come along with dealing with any suicide is that hard questions just
come up. Sometimes they're ones that other people ask, either
intentionally or not. Sometimes they arise from things that other
people say. Sometimes they come from things we see in movies or TV
shows or read in books. Sometimes they just seem to spring from some
sadistic/masochistic dark corner of our minds. Regardless of the
source, there are a lot of them that come up. Some are specific to
the relationship with the person who died. There are some different
questions if the person who committed suicide was a parent or a
sibling or a spouse or a child. And, then again, there are some that
are universal, regardless of who it was.
Like a lot of other things having to do
with grief, there's no way to predict when they're going to pop up.
Some things are predictable enough that they'll bring some of those
questions to mind. Other things allow those questions to blindside
us. Sometimes they've come from the most unexpected, apparently
miniscule events or items. That's true with a lot of things that end
up blindsiding us. I never would have thought that walking through a
grocery store she and I went to twice, three times at most, would
have me feeling unreal, watching the aisles stretch and bend, and not
sure if it was more appealing to just curl up into a ball and keen or
to haul ass out of there as directly as possible, regardless of what
or who might be in the way. The same is true with those questions.
From what I've figured out and heard
from talking with other folks in similar circumstances, there are
basically two ways to deal with those kinds of questions. The first
one, and the one I see most often taken, is to shove them away when
they come up. The questions are discounted immediately as pointless
or not helpful or not worthwhile. The consistency here is important.
They get no time and attention. As soon as the person realizes
they've come up and they're starting to wonder again, the big steel
door is slammed shut on them. You know that door. It's the one that
seems like it'd hold off the Hulk indefinitely. It's always the hope
that it'll keep the questions locked up forever, but they have this
sneaky way of sleazing out again. Still, when the door's slammed on
them, they're gone for awhile. The hope, I think, is that if that
happens enough, eventually those questions will just run out of
energy and stop coming back around. This seems especially worthwhile
and important with those questions where there just aren't solid
answers to be had, or even enough information to be able to come up
with a decent guess. Some of the folks I know seem to be very good
at making that work for them.
Sadly, I'm not one of those people. So
I've taken to going with option number two: answer them. Instead of
trying to avoid the questions or lock them away, give them as much
consideration and focus and energy as is needed in order to come to
an answer that will finally satisfy. In some cases, that means
coming to an answer that I can live with, even if I don't know for
sure what the RIGHT answer might be. One of those I looked at really
hard was whether or not there was something I could have done to
prevent her death. I had to accept that I hadn't known what she was
planning, even though I'd known she was anxious and angry and
depressed and desperately unhappy. Without knowing what she was
planning, there was nothing I could do. But what if I had known?
Was there anything I could have done to stop it? Sure there was. I
could have gotten her hospitalized, at least for a little while. Of
course, they couldn't have necessarily stopped her, not if she really
had her mind made up to die. And, even if she didn't do it in the
hospital, what would say that she wouldn't do it again in another
day? Or a week? Or a month? I couldn't make her want or accept
help, despite how often I tried to offer it and make it clear that
I'd do everything in my power to make and keep it available. If she
didn't want the help, if she didn't want to look at or work on what
she'd need to, then there really wasn't anything I could have done to
keep her from killing herself.
It wasn't a short process to really
look at and consider all of those things. It wasn't easy. The end
result, though, was an answer that has held solid since. Even after
finding journal entries that she'd kept in computer files indicating
she'd made at least one other previous attempt shortly after we got
married that I never knew about. Or learning that she'd been
suicidal for at least a couple of years before we even met. Those
things hurt to learn, but they didn't shake the answer that I'd been
able to come to.
One of the hard things about taking
that route is how it apparently looks to others. See, if you're not
looking at those questions, then they're not hurting you. They're
not tearing at your self-confidence or your self-esteem. They're not
ripping at your heart, threatening to wreck the good memories that
are still there. Other people don't have to watch you go through the
uncertainty and discomfort of looking at all those different options.
Hell, they don't have to see you wondering just what you're going to
come to as an answer, maybe it being an answer that doesn't make you
look so good. Maybe it's going to be an answer that shakes what
little solid ground, metaphorically speaking, that's been found upon
which to stand. That's hard for other folks to see. It's difficult
enough for them to see us hurting from what's happened. For a lot of
people, it's close to impossible to see that maybe there's a point to
more discomfort and distress as we're dealing with this. That can
make it even more challenging to go about seeking an answer when the
people around us are saying we shouldn't bother, shouldn't waste the
time, shouldn't torture ourselves any more.
It's not about torture, though. It's
about coming to a place where we can find some stability and peace,
regardless of whether it's finally locking the questions away....or
answering them. At least well enough to move on and live with.
