One Year After Losing my Daughter to Suicide

Unedited from original 2016

Let’s get the questions out of the way first. No, I don’t feel any better. No, I’m not unusual in this. No, this is not a quick process and it doesn’t ease up after 11 months. No, I did not enjoy the holidays, even with family as there was a clear and significant part of our family missing. Yes, I’m getting help but grief has no timeline and no rules. The only healthy thing I would advise that everyone should do is to stay alive. It’s not a matter of what you want to do for yourself, especially as a parent. I stay alive for my family. Yes, suicidal thoughts are normal. No, they don’t last forever. No, having another child doesn’t help and people who have lost their only child, although I try to connect and even replace all of her needs by transferring them to my son, I believe I have done more harm than good to him. People who comment that at least I have another child is like erasing her from 22 years of our lives. My son is different with different needs and I focus on him as I feel I’ve always done. Just as I focus on my relationships with my family and partner.

I remember things now but almost never know the date. I don’t remember people’s birthdays that I clearly remembered in the past. I don’t remember the first 6 months or about after her passing from the physical. I don’t feel the immense and excruciating physical pain that rocked my body in the second and third months and I don’t wake up every day with panic but the anxiety presents.

 I feel as if I’m not rushing myself but failing at healing so that I can honor Taylor. I want to educate and raise funds for Borderline Personality Disorder and teach about mental health. I want to get a good job first for a year and have no interest in doing it because I feel like a massive weight is sitting on my chest still. I feel useless and hopeless. I tried to learn astrology, I tried to learn about crystals, I tried the I Ching and tarot cards, Christianity and I read about other religions to find out how others see death in the physical and how to reach her in her spirit form. None of it helps. Counseling has helped with other relationships and group meetings are horrible for me. People are “stuck” for years and years and I cannot live like this forever. I’ll give myself the time now but in this time I suffer with my Self. I do not feel useful and do not want to hear that people need me. My immediate and caustic response is that she needed me and I failed. I know that’s not the “right” perspective but good luck changing a parent’s process.

I’m not even close to the same optimistic, funny, hard-lined animal advocate. I don’t blame myself for focusing on Africa but I’m completely different now. I don’t feel hope except for my son and partner. I don’t feel happy inside. I am not optimistic. I am depressed and I believe still in shock. I do take medication and don’t care what people think about it.

I hang my head every single time I see my parents or her friends, feeling I took her away from them even though I know it’s not true. Stop giving me logic. I can be logical on some days and even for a week. But, there is nothing I can say to my crying parents who are now losing my big sister and their daughter to cancer. I am trying so hard not to have regrets about her and love her and help her transition peacefully. That’s all I can do.

I ask questions every day and try to go back and examine what happened in those last months and days and I want to know why no one told me, why I felt anxious and didn’t know why, why no doctor or counselor ever asked the right questions or even mentioned BPD. I am angry sometimes and I’m scared I’ll always feel this way. I want to go back and talk to her about the diagnosis and to the doctor who she said made her feel like there wasn’t much hope for her for at least a year. She wasn’t talking to me about that at the time. I want to expose her abuser because he hasn’t changed a bit, even after cutting her down. He was the last person she spoke to after she tried to call me. He abused her until the end and she stepped off the chair. How can you possibly think a year of this trauma would be better?

 

I know all of the rational answers and I don’t want to hear anyone mitigate the process I’m going through. The best answer I’ve received to date when I have had to tell people she passed is “I’m sorry.” That’s it. People don’t understand it and I’m ok with that. I understand. I’m not holding anyone accountable but myself. But, for me this is what an almost year looks like and this is where I am. I am angry, fearful, in despair, selfish, without an ounce of self-love (I don’t even understand what that means), and in physical pain. The only advice I can give now to anyone is to please phone a friend or 10 friends if it means you’d take your life. I understand completely why you want to if you’re suicidal. It makes sense to me. But, things will change and suicide is permanent and ruins the lives of those who will stick by you and will suffer. I won’t let anyone suffer for me the way I suffer for Taylor.

Inside my head I rage, I scream, I cry, I flail. My mind still cannot comprehend what has taken me a year to understand. I am in shock, I torture myself with questions, and no I am not better. No one who has lost a child has EVER told me that they are “better” after the first year. I heard it’s the worst but you don’t get “better.” The most I can do is wait…feel useless waiting…for the day that I can pick myself up and create a new “me,” which is the last thing I want to do.

I want to see my son happy and successful. I want a better relationship with my parents and partner. I want to WANT to do something good again. I want to WANT to live fully again. She cried as I held her and kissed her head. She said, “I don’t want you to leave but I’m proud of you.” I said, “I’ll cancel right now. I will not get on that plane if you just say the word.” She wanted me to go and walked away a little teary. She could not reach me as she was taking her life. I can’t reach her physically and a year is not even close to feeling a bit better.

 

I’m not writing this for sympathy, empathy or through the Ego. I’m writing to tell you that if someone is suffering, support them like I have been supported and don’t do it for that first week or month. So many friends have returned to their lives because Taylor was not their daughter. I understand that. But, if you do make the commitment to support someone, remember you’re walking with them and possibly holding them up or allowing them to hold on for one more day, for life…for hope. This writing is an example of one way I try to “fix” people. I want to help people and when people call me with problems because it gives me a sense of purpose. I just couldn’t fix her from Africa or for 22 years of her life. I will sit with my pain until it no longer serves me. I’m told that suffering is our greatest teacher. I’ll let you know when I figure out that lesson. But, it’s not after a year.

Managing Holiday Grief at the Office

What do you say to a co-worker who has lost a significant loved one or worse, how do you function in the workplace after losing one of your own? None of us really know what to say to people who have experienced loss. So, most times we say nothing at all. As the holidays approach, pay close attention to your workplace culture around normalizing the human experience of  love and loss and human beings experiencing emotions in the workplace. Grief in the workplace can be difficult for all and expressed by all. I strongly recommend reading the neuroscience behind grief in  O'Connnor's book, "The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science Behind Love and Loss." O'Connor describes what the shock does to the brain and you can see why your co-worker may need a minute or two to catch up. The book frankly made me feel normal in my grief. 

Never again should the words, “You need to keep your personal life at home” be uttered at work as those words stem from a stoic and toxic environment. Co-workers can offer a few minutes of refuge, with offers like, “Do you want to take a walk, or just sit with me for a moment" instead of saying get it together. Distract your team member with a joke or ask for help on something if their mind tends to stay in that pain. Overtalking about the death is not helpful to the brain, according to O'Connor.

Some emotions we thought we reconciled or buried come back even years later during the holidays. People cope by a quick jaunt outside, to the car, to the restroom for a quick walk, talk, or cry or to just sit in silence to settle the body and breathe. After a brisk walk away, stroll back in to the office or jump back on that Zoom feeling refreshed. Listen by making eye contact and listening with no advice. Sometimes, work may be the safest place to be if we have support. But, some of us were taught that to be strong, we need to not show human emotion. We know that fierce strength is a silent killer in every way from addictions to heart disease. You don't never bury your feelings. You allow them to flow through you or they manifest into physical disease. Cry it out.

“The purpose of thinking is to let the ideas die instead of us dying.”

― Alfred North Whitehead

Why are holidays so hard?

The holiday season is about family or lack there of and it's about money and pressure and belief systems. Ask around how many people dust off festive decor and remember the people who owned that stuff before you did. The person we lost plays a vital role still. Include them in discussions about family members if other family's member are discussed. Since my mom died, I have never received a wrapped gift again from anyone. Not a new car just maybe a hat or something tiny. Loss seeps into all the little decorated crevices. You think of buying them gifts, talking about them at work, and their favorite dishes or traditions during this festive time. 

IT IS NORMAL TO MISS SOMEONE FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. 

Most of the time we want you to speak of them, ask questions about their lives, and honor the person who passed on with a word of kindness but only at these appropriate times. In fact, there are several ways to acknowledge and honor the person who passed on. 

For the grief spasms that can occur so long after a loved one has passed, it's normal to be incapacitated. One of O'Connor's trusted best practices for the grieving brain is to stay busy and keep a normal routine. When the mind is troubled, the body falls ill more often, especially if the grieving experiences PTSD and high levels of depression and anxiety, often healed by EMDR trauma therapy.  

Work places sometimes host calm rooms for the purpose of resetting the nervous system, or they should. Walking in nature or exercise all year long, every morning at sunset resets the nighttime pain and you arrive at work refreshed.

Surprisingly, being at work helps us feed the prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of the brain where hope is found in the creation of the moment. When we calm or distract the brain from ruminating, glucose changes course and decreases the limbic response. We calm the body and we can think. At work, we perform tasks in a safe environment for the brain. Social interaction offers the possibility to feel whole and to be surrounded by people we count on and who count on us. Ask the survivor how he or she can be supported. Productivity can be fostered even a little bit from hope. Hope gives us drive and a meaningful existence in the workplace. 

A healthy workplace offers the grieving social support which is critical to healing.  The holidays are the perfect time to honor the whole human in your presence. The work place is the perfect setting to give back to the community and heal your heart. Organize a sock or coat drive, a food drive with your co-workers. Make it a contest that will impact the community effectively and cheerfully. 

Being of service in any community and giving love heals the brain and body when grief displays as love without that special person to love now.

Now is the time to schedule wellness trainings for the mind, body, and spirit. We function as a whole person. Your workplace can become a safe haven for the person who experiences loss. Thankfully, we're learning to foster workplaces that allow for support through grief, creating opportunities for more productivity, a solid culture of awareness and trust, and even a nice celebration for the holidays.