This is so hard

Dear ((mistiis)) There are many people in this world who DO understand that most suicides are caused by a mental illness of some sort. There are two tragedies with every suicide.... one being the person who took their life saw suicide as their ONLY option. The second being the family left behind to suffer an unimaginable hell...

I have had suicide effect my life in the past. Each loss was tragic in its own right. Never once did I think badly of the person. If anything, my heart wept for the pain they must have felt. The personal hell they must have been in.

When David first told me that about my Dad, him not being capable of rational thought at that moment, I pondered and pondered about that. I kept thinking about that lady who drowned her children. I remember people saying she was out of her mind. I remember thinking, of course she was! No sane mind could do such a horrific thing. It led me to understand that Dad had an illness, and it wasn't of the cancer/ "physical" kind.

After Dad's suicide, I recall all too clearly the desperation I had to go be with him.....at any and all cost. I was in shock, I was in a deeper pain that I can ever try to express. I saw no way to live with this pain. I did not want to....my Dad was gone.

It was not his death that caused this type of pain, this type of reaction. It was the way in which he died. His "choice" to take his own life, to abandon me and our family.

His hell ended that day. Yet, his suicide created a new and certain hell for me to now face. Every single person who loved him, his 7 children, his wife, his ex wife(my mom) his siblings, his grandchildren, his friends.. each and every one of them..... now know a hell that was forced upon them. They had no choice. The whys, will never be answered. The what ifs will haunt each of us until our hell is over too.

My heart breaks because my Dad was in such excruciating pain. It kills me that I didn't know, that I wasn't able to help him, save him. It has the power to destroy me.

I think most people, at some point in their life have thought about how "easy" it would be to end it all. I know when I was diagnosed with my diseases, I could not imagine living in this horrific pain. I had major depression. Over the years I fought hard and I won that battle. So, I knew the beast of depression. I knew what it was like to believe you were in too much pain to face another day. But... it wasn't until Dad's suicide, until the pain of his loss was so great... that I knew what it was like to make a plan.

I CAN see it from both sides, because I have lived both sides. Neither side is easy. My heart breaks for Dad's pain. But, in brutal honesty, his "choice" has left more pain that he could have possibly been in. I do NOT say that lightly!! I can not know how much pain he was in, but I do know it had to have been great for him to reach that point. Even knowing that......... I feel certain that his own hell, his personal hell... was not as great as the hell he left behind. His personal hell has now spread, much like an invasive unrelenting cancer. It did not die with him. It now lives in each and every person who loved him.

*sigh, tragic no matter which side you try to look from. What can be done? If every person effected, on both sides.... reached out, did even one small thing toward... self help, prevention or helping the survivors left behind...
Imagine the possibilities!!!