"GriefShare is a church based support group. They do have meetings online, but the usual format is a group of people experiencing a loss getting together weekly to watch videos (13 weeks total) about grief and loss. After the video, we talk about the…"
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Delayed Grief
This is kind of a tangled mess, but it's been weighing heavily on my mind for a few months now. I apologize for the length, but it feels like I need to explain part of my story to explain my grief. I've lived with severe clinical depression for 17 years now, and attempted suicide twice during that time, the second one being 3 years ago. When I survived, I felt so profoundly lost and broken that I was numb to much of the world, but I realized I needed help, and so I checked into an inpatient care facility. That's where I met my friend, A. I was the newest person on the unit, and only a few weeks out of my suicide attempt, and I was terrified - I didn't know what kind of people I'd be meeting there.
A. came right up to me, greeted me, and asked if I wanted to play Monopoly, unlike the rest of the other people on the unit; they were giving me space to settle in, but that space felt intimidating. A. was my lifeline, the first person who showed an interest in me, and didn't particularly care why I was there. We got to know each other, and it was an unusual friendship, but comforting; she challenged me in a lot of the ways I did things and thought about things, and I'm still not quite sure I really understood her. We were co-patients for five weeks, before she checked herself out against doctor orders, and when she left, I was the only one she trusted enough to tell she was leaving.
We kept in touch, and she was still unhappy; the outside world wasn't as freeing as she had expected. We ended up meeting again two months later, when she ended up joining the same step-down/community reintegration program I was in, and it was good to see her again, though it was hard watching her struggle through treatment; traditional therapies and groups didn't seem to help her, and she was constantly thrown off-balance by her medications. After a few months, we lost touch, keeping contact sporadically through social media - until about 6 months later, when I learned she had died by suicide.
For a lot of people with severe mental illness, getting to know your fellow patients is rough - at least one, and possibly several, will end up dead, often at their own hands. A lot of people I know from treatment have chosen to deliberately distance themselves from the people they met there because of that. She was such a young woman, with so much potential, and finding out she was gone hit me hard. I tried to write about it, and talk about it, and I thought I was doing well; her loss was even one of the motivating factors for me going back to school to become a social worker.
Lately, though, her loss has been weighing on me. It's been two years, and while I can kind of talk about it without falling to tears, the grief is still there, close to the surface. I only knew her for a few months, but those few months were almost constantly spent together, and it felt much longer. I don't harbor any illusions that I could have saved her; I know the profound hopelessness and pain that can drive someone to attempt suicide all too well. But part of me feels lost knowing that she's gone.
I'm not given to emotional displays, but her funeral was one of two occasions in the last 20 years that I've broken down crying in front of others. Privately, I find my thoughts wandering to her loss more often, and as much as I seem to let out, more grief rushes in to fill the void. I'm not sure what to do, but my past with depression tells me that I need to do something, because while my grief has helped to motivate me, it could just as easily cause me to fall back into self-destructive behavior. I'm not sure what I'm asking, but I know I need help dealing with my grief.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by bluebird on
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James,
Your post is very eloquent, both in its emotional content and in its expression. It is very clear that A. was and is an important person to you, in your life. Her death does not change her importance to you, as I'm sure you realize. Some souls are meant to be together, and the length of time spent together in "life" is not always an indication of the important of the relationship. Also, while her death is sad, it is a loving testament and tribute to her that you became a social worker.
It sounds as though you are very aware of your own emotional/mental status, and if you think it's a good idea to get some help dealing with your grief, then it probably is. Do you have a therapist with whom you feel comfortable speaking about all this?
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Permalink Reply by James Smith on
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I am speaking to my therapist tomorrow, and trying to find a local grief support group I can join for more targeted help. It's just... it brings a lot of emotion to the surface that I have difficulty expressing, let alone dealing with. I find myself tearing up at odd times or places, for no other reason than thoughts of her cross my mind. I don't understand how I can talk, and think, about my own experiences so easily, and yet when she comes to mind it;s like an emotional gut-punch.
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