Is Living With Estrangement Harder Than Surviving Her Suicide?

Healing the body of past traumas is imperative because most people experience instability or project that instability onto our children, unknowingly causing irreparable harm. Healing grief itself constitutes a forward thinking lifestyle and lots of hard work. You must act, do, keep moving, find something that you resonate with to keep your brain focused in the present moment with every breath and grounding exercise. You must be allowed to express your grief according to Dr. Mary Frances O’Connor in The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn Through Love And Loss. She states grief can be caused by separation in empty nest, divorce, death, and estrangement, arguably the most damaging next to a suicide of a child. But, I think estrangement from a child is harder than my own daughter’s suicide. I know where she is. I can’t think about how she got there. It’s madness to dwell in deepest grief and regret but incongruent to behave as if you don’t miss the person. But, in death you know they are not returning and can accept just that in time.

Healing modalities at home help us calm and work allows for us to practice mindfulness, like resting

or taking a walk to get out of our heads and into gratitude. According to O’’Connor, humans have physical place

cells in the brain that act as place holders in a hierarchy of your relationships. Those cells look for and categorize

all the important people in your life all day, every day and it runs in the background. Reacting and lashing out

come from unprocessed fears or anxieties.

So, when I snap at someone I don’t even realize I just saw a billboard of a successful and beautiful mother daughter realtor team who reminds me that my entire life will be without my children, and look alike like my Taylor and me. I have to ignore the general public in which mothers and fathers talk about their sons being in the same trade or coming to move a couch or having a baby and I have to ignore it all. I can’t allow myself to conceive the idea that I’ll never be close to my son’s children or have a daughter in law to love…and it makes me feel like I don’t want to be here anymore.

O’Connor explains those place cells are arranged like a bingo game board. Picture each square filled with avatars of people ranging from people who are closest to you in location and in emotion to acquaintances at work and people you don’t like. One example is when out of the blue you randomly think of a co-worker you haven’t seen in a while and say, “Oh, hey whatever happened to Mike? I haven’t seen him for a while.”  That’s a great example of your brain rearranging place cells in the subconscious, maybe moving him down as less critical and someone up who you’re engaged with but it can be taxing, according to the author.

So, when my brain constantly asked where my daughter was after she died, the PTSD I experienced would not allow for me to close the loop in my mind as to where she is.The brain only wants to solve your problems. In all death and ghosting or separation, guilt is the most natural response. Neuroscience proves that the brain in all separation, death, or ghosting wants to know:

1. Where is the loved one in the world? How close are they physically? Lack of physical contact brings many more issues, like the hormonal and chemical bonds from physical contact can calm. The physical pain is real and ongoing.

2. What did I do to make them go away? That’s the problem-solving part of the brain and where guilt can be processed in trauma therapy like EMDR.

3. What do I need to do to get them back? The brain needs to settle the question, maybe with an altar or ritual for the lost loved one.

O’Connor presents the evidence that we don’t compute death. We compute ghosting. So, in a matter of ghosting, we keep reaching out because our subconscious mind is struggling daily. That is the loop that can’t be closed. That’s where control is initiated along with depression, desperation, anxiety, and the need for self-love and care becomes mandatory to change the definition of you.

You are not only a mother/father, or spouse, daughter/son, co-worker. You are the manifestation of the Divine in action. That means you must find yourself within a construct that is new and can be created and manifested with joy and confidence as long as you continue to strive to settle your issues with love and acceptance, dignity and grace.

Our children feel fear and refuse contact to diminish their trauma response or negativity, whatever they feel is right for themselves. They should never be the enemy. Our children are not wrong or lazy or incompetent. The truth is that our behavior and lack of knowledge causes an effect that we may never heal. I may never have grandchildren or a daughter in-law who loves me. My son may never feel safe with me. So, my mission is to love myself beyond the mother I was or am. I am finding my strength to be in the world as myself beyond a wife or daughter, too. We do this work alone. It’s normal to miss those we care about on our bingo card. And, all the desperate attempts to love the unwilling is normal. Wanting to give up is normal as long as you can express it and move through it. 

(If you’re thinking of giving up, reach out. Don’t do it, it’s also part of the brain trying to work out the right thing and it’s confused. Put yourself to bed or get on the phone or out on a walk.)

It’s time to engage with acupuncture, yoga, breath work, massage, Reiki, Rolfing, sun exposure, walking in nature, meditation, writing, and lots and lots of support. Even that sense of hope that seems to thread in is part of the process of neuroscience, love, loss, and life. I know I’ve been growing since she died and will always carry a very large hole in my heart that is filled with her spirit in the quiet moments and in dreams. I also go to see my son in my meditations and love him. I won’t give up on love. Finding gratitude, present moment joy and forward thinking physical activities along with trauma therapy, and remembering who you are, we come back different as we all shed the old and discover the You.

Telling Stories

University writing peaked my interest in writing. Animal advocacy spurred my writing into a new direction, and I learned new writing styles and formats, including how to write in technical formats. Writing helped me process through a bit of grief, too. In fact, I wrote blogs and Facebook posts about the ramifications and realizations within the tragedy of my daughter’s passing.  In October, 2018 I stopped writing out my pain. Eventually, I had to learn to stop expressing it to people who could not support me or talk about Taylor at all. I utilize a multitude of practices to heal and to cope and after moving through the shifting intricacies of life and death, I destroyed some practices I engaged in during the most shocking and intense times of pain, too. For example, I listened to a certain meditation app to help me sleep, I visited a horse that lived close by, and I wrote this blog.  

Something happened after I stopped blogging at the end of 2018. I couldn’t visit the horse anymore. I worried about him dying, a natural and temporary casualty in death. I most definitely do not listen to that mediation app I used in the beginning. In fact, when people mention events from 2016 and call to mind people or memories, I feel panicky and I exit the topic immediately. I choose not to expose myself to the trauma of the first minutes or year. I found those triggers to be driven by anxiety still.

So, what is this if not a blog about grief and pain? Well, I think I created this blog to talk about Taylor. I thought a few things would happen:  People will call me and message with lots of memories and laughs and they will send me pictures of Taylor with her friends and we’ll all live in togetherness with stories of Taylor as our bond. We got the bond part. The rest never happened. To be fair, after 4 years it’s still hard for people to talk about someone who dies by suicide.

As I looked back at my blog recently, I couldn’t understand why I would title the blog about my daughter’s life and then just write about my pain. I understand now that I start to panic when I think of telling a story about Taylor much less about how to celebrate her life. I feel nervous and she’s my daughter. I want to celebrate her life and still my memories are scant. The brain fog of grief protects us for a bit but I’m not sure why I struggle with the best part of my daughter; her life.

I’ve been alone so much in the past 4 years that I may have processed through the public side of myself, the one who wants to scream at the world that I messed up or that she should be here or no one cares about her to talk about her or no one cares about me; temporary manifestations expected in grief. I triumphed over loneliness. I like being alone. I read, hike, write, research, eat, and micromanage three pain in the ass dogs.

The truth is, I don’t remember so much that I maybe should. I feel like I don’t know how to tell her story or to bring her to life in words. I feel like it’s not real or it’s not enough or it’s diminishing who she is. Talking about her dying isn’t working anymore. 

Telling random stories or packaging her life feels like I'm boxing her in, like this is all there is. How do I put her in a box? What the hell kind of box could contain Taylor? Why can’t I do this? I’m an expressive writer, I know the subject, I adore her. She’s worth talking about. She’s interesting and funny and those are just words and they don’t mean anything on paper, you see. 

How do you choose to describe the sky, the earth, wind, and water? I know big words. I know how to use big words and flowery adjectives. I am ashamed of myself for feeling this way. It’s not that Taylor isn’t worth a library of books written to, for, or about her. I think that maybe if I really concentrate on telling her story, on talking about her, really digging in and finding the right words, doesn’t it diminish her to being just a story that people can't identify with or relate to? I can’t answer my own question and I can’t get this lump out of my throat. 

My worst fear is happening as I write this. In my last blog I talked about her. Now, I feel anxiety and I'm rattled. I feel defensive and caught. Why can’t I just write page after page of stories?

I don’t know where to go from here. I know I want to tell her story. Maybe I already am. I hope I don’t forget all the stories I want to tell by the time I’m brave enough to tell stories. I hope I don’t start resenting all the people who never mention her but also lost her and are not expected to do a thing? There's no reason for me to feel left out of her life via others. I know it doesn't make sense, like everyone else who knew her holds the keys to who she was as a human. How does that even make sense? 

I guess the reason I stopped this blog in 2018 is that I’m not ready to progress here. I don’t know what I need to be ready for, how long it will take, if I will forget, or if anyone really cares that much about Taylor to read stories about her by her mom. I’m not sure why bitterness leaks out here after I feel like I’ve resolved these issues. I just typed above that I’ve healed a bit! Did I learn something today or just give myself more suffering in effort to do the impossible? Damn all the expectations in the world that we place on ourselves. You'll get your story, Taylor. 

I Miss My Mom

Taylor called my name at least ten times a day. Or, if she wasn’t home, she called or texted. A crisis of epic proportions called her to the phone. I smile thinking about how she said my name. A lot of times, she’d call me when she felt safe. She called my name while she was in bed, worrying sometimes, but never showing the extent of her emotions or state of mind. She worried about beautiful hard things. Not always. Like my sister and me, she giggled a lot with her friends when she hosted a sleepover, the best time in my life. She liked to be held. I think it was the dark that soothed her into conversation.

She worried about the animals at a nearby circus and I sometimes wished I hadn’t educated her about their plight, but Taylor knew how to fight her battles one at a time. She fought for other people’s rights. She spoke gently to them, whoever it happened to be. When she called me to her at night, even until she was 22, she wanted to be held. The visceral connection of mother to daughter and the devotion and struggle we shared…so many parts of us wove together and I felt as if my heart grew two sizes bigger when she held me. Sometimes, she’d tell me about a dog WE needed to go find again because she couldn’t catch it.

She called my name when she felt safe in the shower, too. Maybe the curtain between us, the excitement she felt at going to a carnival, the mall, or if in crisis, Taco Bell or Buffalo Wild Wings. I never did convince her to eat vegan. She chose her battles, I thought. I feel like I was suspended when she talked to me. I didn’t want to move. She told me funny stories about her friends and family members. It was like news hour. She didn’t speak negatively about them; she and I shared a love for our gang of miscreants. She told me about a person who needed help or needed a phone call. Her loyalty gave her authority and power and she showed love with a hug, a tiny smile, and a kick in the pants.

I turned off my ringer at night because she would be in an area with people who were not healthy, and some crisis would occur, usually a traffic violation or something minor. If you ask her about the people she could have avoided, she said they needed her. Taylor was right. We needed her.

When she was born at 9:05am on June 23, 1993 Taylor brought with her a tiny face surrounded by thick, soft and dark hair. 4 pounds, 11 ounces and 21 inches long. She arrived into the world in protest of the light and cold. I’m sure she was hungry. She cried, I cried, her dad cried, the nurses laid her on my body, no clothes, just physical touch and quiet. Taylor Nicole fell asleep with the sound of my voice.

I dutifully returned to full-time work and after three very short weeks, I vowed to sell whatever necessary because I decided to raise my child. I am grateful to have been supported in raising her and her brother. They benefitted immensely from support systems and unconditional love. But, Taylor experienced crying spells earlier than normal colicky babies. She was overwhelmed by too much movement or stimulation. Rocking her, patting her, singing to her with the lights on could not happen and Taylor mostly napped in some lucky soul’s arms. But, she needed me then too. I didn’t want to work full-time and the crying became a problem and it seemed as if I calmed her.

When she was about two years old, her dad and I watched her scream under the coffee table where it was safe, I assume. She screamed at 6pm and it usually lasted for about a half hour. Although hard to watch, and doctors who tried but couldn’t’ determine any issues. So, naturally Taylor talked early enough. She also frequently stated, “I miss my mom.”

I remember that she didn’t want me to see her smile. Often, her cousins and friends descended upon the house and she hid her smile. But, if there was a single problem, question, request, “Mom!” I don’t know what it feels like to win an award but hearing her call my name was my favorite sound in the world.