Hard Questions

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.