How Have Things Changed??

This started from a post I saw from a fellow suicide widow in a support group on the 'Net. She's going back to school and posted the following: “Alrighty folks, I'm writing an essay on the effects of suicide. In your opinion, how has suicide effected your life? Financially, emotionally, long term effects? I know how it has effected me, but I wanted to hear from other survivors.” At first, I just had a couple of words come to mind. Then more than a quick response would really allow. As I've thought more about it, more kept coming to mind, and it occurred to me that it's a good question to deal with in a post.

First off, how about the effects I see as bad/negative:

• After 11 years of marriage and almost 15 years together, I've been having to figure out life on my own. That not only includes things like goals and plans, but also a fair chunk of my own identity.
• Financially I'm in a harder space than I was before. It's always easier when you can split the bills with someone else. She was also the one who kept on top of getting them paid on time, and I'm still struggling with that.
• In terms of emotions, I know it's harder for me to be happy than it was before. I just don't seem to have the same strength or intensity of positive responses to things that I used to.
• Along with that, it's easier for less pleasant emotions to hit hard. Thankfully anger seems to be fading back down to about what it was before, at least overall. However, it's still substantially easier to get sad or anxious these days.
• Physically I don't have the energy that I used to. I've recovered a fair amount, but not back to where I was. And, added to that, I picked up an arrhythmia in my heart since her death, and it's hard to think that didn't have at least some to do with it.
• I have a harder time being as focused and productive at my job. Thankfully it's not so bad I'm in danger of losing my employment, but I also know that I'm not doing as well as I used to there, either.
• I can't say I'm sleeping much worse now, because I wasn't sleeping real great in the last couple years before she took her life. However, I was able to handle running low on sleep better than I can now.
• I know this is more on me, but I picked up smoking again. I'd been quit for several years before she'd died, and was even able to stand outside with her when she'd smoke and be OK. I know it was my choice to pick it up again, but I also know that I very likely wouldn't have without having to go through dealing with not just her death but all the extra crap that comes with suicide.
• There are still a fair number of things I wish I'd have been able to do, or do differently. Those thoughts don't come up as often, but I suspect that they'll never fully go away.

These are, however, counterbalanced by some things that are positive:

• I would likely never have learned as much about cooking, and how much I enjoy it, as I've done in the last four years. At first it was primarily driven by necessity. Now, though, I'm finding there's a great deal I enjoy about it, especially seeing if I can make/do new things.
• I also likely wouldn't have gotten back into hiking the way I did last summer. And one good thing that came from that was getting to see that I can still manage a really tough hike in a pretty short amount of time, even 20 years after the first time I did it. Not bad for a middle-aged desk jockey.
• I wouldn't have made the friends I have through some of the groups that I've been lucky enough to become part of. There are some truly amazing people I've met, several of whom have humbled me more than once by what they've said and done...though never with malice. It's always been leaving me in awe, and wanting to be like them when (if??) I grow up.
• I'd thought I was a pretty good person before. However, in dealing with all of this, I've gotten to see I have depths of character I hadn't dreamed were there. Lord knows I've still got a lot to work on and some more growing up to do, but there are also aspects of me that I'm quite pleased with and proud of. One example was seeing that I could drag myself to the memorial service for a co-worker's wife who'd passed away...five months after me darlin' wife had shuffled off this mortal coil. I hadn't wanted to go. I hadn't planned on going. And yet I showed up and was able to offer a few words of condolence and support. Plus, I didn't start crying until I'd left and gotten out to my car.
• As hard as it is to admit, I'd feel like I'd be lying to not admit that my life's now better for not having to deal with her anxiety and depression and isolation and rage.
• At this point, I think I've got an overall better sense for who she was, both good aspects and bad. However, that's counterbalanced by knowing that my memories of her have gotten a bit faded and fuzzy with the passing of time, and so I'm not sure.
• I firmly believe that us being together bought her a fair chunk of the last 15 years of her life that she might not have otherwise had. She'd told me several times in the last few years I was the main thing that kept her holding on and kept her going. Well, I can now view things as having in part been what gave her a chance to deal with her stuff, and that's a lot right there.

I'm sure there's more to it than that, but those are the first things that had come to mind. I don't want to write out a novel here, or use it as an intensive, in-depth therapy exercise. I do think it's good, though, that it wasn't too difficult to identify a decent number of aspects that're both good and bad. In slogging through the Hell of grief from suicide, it's sometimes way too easy to get lost in what's broken or tarnished or stained or just....wrong. That's part of it, but it's not all. And that's good to KNOW.