Fair warning, my story, my traumas, are around suicide and self-harm behaviors.
I'm terrified of hurting people with my words. There's a story behind this that I'll get to. But even here, I worry that telling my story will hurt someone.
If you have been suicidal, if you have children and self-harm, I am sorry. I hope I am not insensitive to your pain as I write about my own pain. I love you and I know everyone tries their best and we all struggle in different ways.
This journal here alone is a big exposure for me...
1. Where am I coming from?
As I write this my body is screaming at me through pain. Stabbing pains in my eyes, feet, hands. I don't know why this is the language it chooses. And now the shift...pain to numb dissociation. It gets loud in my head like someone has boxed my ears in. I get sleepy and drift off mid-sentence. Someone will get hurt and my body and brain want to stop it. As I get closer to posting I will get sleepier. I will yawn and start to drift off. My thumbs will go slack. My eyes will water but I won't be crying. My nose will run. I will yawn again. It'll be a battle.
I was raised by a single mom, severely mentally ill though there was never a discussion about it, just denial. When I was about 15 she started cutting. It was really really bad. Not just a little, really no more than 1/8" between, and up the entire length of her forearms. She didn't try to hide it. She didn't hide her bloody razor blades either. She didn't hide the book on methods to commit suicide, but left it hanging out on her nightstand table all the time.
She left her journal out where we could find it. What we found talked about how she would commit suicide, where she would do it, why she would do it (bad daughter), what kept her from doing it (good daughter), and acknowledged knowing how upset we were, scared we would come home and find her dead but we don't need to worry about that, she wasn't going to do it at home. She was going to do it at her therapist's house.
Journal = bad
Journal = painful truth
Journal = these words can hurt someone
I feel like throwing up. I'm 43. I don't want any of you to hurt. I don't want any of you to die. I need to be quiet or someone will get hurt.
That's so much to live through Armadillo, no wonder it's so painful and terrifying for you. If you made the wrong step, said the wrong thing your M might hurt herself more or she might even choose to commit suicide. It was in your face daily in so many ways and I can see why you would come to believe your actions/words hurt and could possibly lead others to kill themselves. I have similar feelings/beliefs about getting angry at anyone and I am working on it with a T, slowly and building a sense of safety as we go along.
I don't know if this approach would be helpful for you but perhaps it would not be such a hard and difficult journey of recovery/healing if you start slowly and go bit by bit. It might not be so threatening and overwhelming that way. That might reduce the pain as you get used to the idea that your M's struggles led you to believe your words/actions could hurt even kill.
Your choice to share is IMO so brave and I hope by doing so you'll come to feel you're not hurting us here by speaking about your trauma. :grouphug:
2. Shocking Display of Emotion
There was no end point to my fears about my mom committing suicide. It never became something in my past. I continued this whole time feeling responsible for keeping her alive. I remember a couple years ago seeing an article late at night about a middle aged woman being found dead of suicide in the town my mom lives in. I was in a panic convinced it was her and it was my fault. I could barely sleep that night. The next morning I woke up and realized...my mom hasn't fit the description of "middle aged woman" for a couple decades.
She's been battling a couple rounds of cancer, including Stage IV. Also lots of broken bones from falling and not taking precautions of any sort. She ended up in the hospital a few months ago. It was peak COVID season here. There were a few nights I thought she was going to die alone because we could not visit her. I felt sad a bit I guess intellectually.
Mmmm...this part is hard to write...
I don't really feel emotions besides shame and guilt and fear. I cry if I feel those intensely, but not otherwise. One morning while my mom was in the hospital my sis called me with an update after talking with the doctor. She said "good news. Mom's going to be fine she is not dying." I broke down and sobbed. For most of two days. This is unheard of for me. They were not tears of relief, but just immense and pure grief. Grief that it isn't over yet. That is what broke through my shell and brought me to tears.
I have spent my whole life thinking of myself as kind. That's my identify. I spent my whole life terrified my mom would die and it would be my fault.
I cried in sorrow that she wasn't dying. What does this mean about who I am?
I can't imagine how hard that must have been (and still is), Armadillo. What you describe about grief makes a lot of sense.
I hope writing it all down here, helps you.
Hugs
Quote from: Kizzie on April 20, 2021, 03:52:53 PM
That's so much to live through Armadillo, no wonder it's so painful and terrifying for you. If you made the wrong step, said the wrong thing your M might hurt herself more or she might even choose to commit suicide. It was in your face daily in so many ways and I can see why you would come to believe your actions/words hurt and could possibly lead others to kill themselves.
:yeahthat: Kizzie put it so well. What an enormous burden you have been carrying.
Quote from: Armadillo on April 21, 2021, 05:10:48 AM
I have spent my whole life thinking of myself as kind. That's my identify. I spent my whole life terrified my mom would die and it would be my fault.
I cried in sorrow that she wasn't dying. What does this mean about who I am?
I believe you are kind. I think what is says about you is that the weight that you were forced to bear was way, way too much for anyone, let alone a child. If your mom were to die, that burden of feeling responsible to try and keep her alive would be gone. I think that your sorrow that she wasn't dying speaks to the enormity of the burden, not about your kind heart.
Thank you Kizzie, Alter-egO, notalone. It really helps to have your pain seen and validated, doesn't it? First time in my life. Thanks for reading and writing and being here. Reading these responses and even writing knowing others will read it is helping me feel things. Thank you.
3. Fanning the Fear
While I always worried I might cause my mom to die by not being good enough or empathetic and unreactive enough (as my T puts it "Armadillo isn't allowed to exist"), that particular fear only applied to her. It wasn't a pervasive fear that colored my whole life. I could wall it off. Be as perfect as I could be toward her and if anything went wrong just stuff my own needs down and take care of her feelings.
I did walk around though with a fear that people I loved would die. My husband is such a stable steady person. I definitely didn't need to worry he would intentionally hurt himself. But when my husband would be late from work I'd check the news and if there was a car accident I'd zoom in to the photos to make sure it wasn't his car. Once we could track each other on google maps I had a way to reassure myself without being a pest to him. The fear was very manageable.
When our oldest was a toddler we got a very surprising call that my father-in-law was suicidal. This was out of character. My husband went to try to help but his dad completed suicide while he was there.
Ok this is good. I'm starting to feel some sadness while I write this. This is progress, for sure. Not quite a robot. More like early generation artificial intelligence.
What this meant for me was that this fear was no longer reserved for my mom. It had leaked into MY family, too.
If his dad could do this, is my perception of my husband as being stable and steady and therefore "safe" from my fear...is that perception of safety unfounded? Do I need to worry about him too?
In addition...his reaction was pretty accepting instead of horrified so I worried that this seemed like a reasonable solution to things to him.
Then worst of all...will my kids be more likely to commit suicide because of the genetic components and having that risk now on both sides?
Fear, welcome to my home...
My sympathies to you and your husband. No wonder FIL's suicide fanned the flames of your fear. :hug:
4. Ten. Ten years old.
In my grand tradition of sweeping things under the rug, I moved on. Shoved that fear back under the rug for a fistful of years.
When our oldest was 10...This breaks my heart. He's fine now. See I'm trying to protect anyone reading from the temporary discomfort of not knowing how this ends.
I'm dissociating again and my feet and eyes are stabbing paining again (nice verb!). Alright that's enough for this installment. I'll try again later.
Ok I'm ready to try again.
****
4. Continued....
When my son was in 5th grade we moved to a new town. I was a bit worried about the adjustment because we were moving from some place pretty low key to an area with exceptionally high achievers and high pressure. I just wanted to be some place quieter with more trees and trails and peace and calm, but where I live that is where the overachievers go.
It started out ok (well the youngest had a pretty rough adjustment but that's another story). But about half way thru the year my son stopped turning in assignments and crumpled them and threw them around his room instead of turning them in. Once or twice I found papers with the word suicide on it which made me catch my breath but I convinced myself I was overreacting because of my own past and fears.
My husband has higher expectations than me and he had been getting on him about assignments and organizations and every time I felt it so hard like it was me...I was being wrong and bad and disorganized but he wouldn't try to fix me so he had to fix our son and it was all my fault he was like that and yeah just a big old shame spiral for me. (And my husband never did or said anything to justify those feelings in me, now I know that's the CPTSD talking but I didn't know it then.)
Anyway I was feeling really guilty for not being a better mom with higher standards and wasn't being united with my husband so I um yelled at my son one day about his school work. I don't yell much and I don't care about school assignments for a 10 yr old that much. I was just feeling so freaking defective and bad and wrong and like my husband deserved someone better etc).
But when I yelled at my son, he broke down and told me about how he had wanted to die since he was about 8 and he didn't know why.
Ok dissociating again. Time to stop.
4. Continued, again
Hearing my son say he had wanted to die since he was 8 broke me. Terrified me. Wow ok dissociating already. I'll stick to the facts for now. I'll work on the emotions later.
I got him to his pediatrician who recommended a psychologist. She was awful. Really could not connect with him on our first visit, told me that maybe he had just conflated feeling upset in that moment with having wanted to die and it was nothing to worry about. Even though I already told her of family history on both sides. And then told me AFTER our session with him that she's trying to move away from that age group so she couldn't help us. Ugh. There's some anger!
I hope you've found a good therapist for your son, Armadillo- things sound barely survivable from what you're describing. Sending hugs your way.
Quote from: Eidolon on April 24, 2021, 05:05:25 PM
I hope you've found a good therapist for your son, Armadillo- things sound barely survivable from what you're describing. Sending hugs your way.
:hug: thank you. I found him an AWESOME therapist and he is so so so much better...just took 6 months cause he was so young it was easy...and now his awesome therapist is my therapist. That of course is taking much longer cause I waited to get therapy until I was almost 41.
Armadillo, I don't have a lot to say right now, but you're doing great sharing things that you've been struggling with for so long, despite your own fears. You're also doing a wonderful job of stopping when it becomes too much (dissociation).
5. Angel's Landing
So after that first therapist, things seemed... ok. He seemed ok. I took comfort in the therapist's opinion and discounted my fears as being maybe a bit more reactive because of what I went through as a kid.
We went on a nice spring break road trip after that to Zion National Park in Utah (US). My son and all of us just loved it. It was so beautiful. We had younger sis with us, and she's a bit wild so we stuck with easy hikes but my son really wanted to head back to hike the Narrows and Angel's Landing.
This made me so happy because he was happy and looking forward to things and making plans. And nature...it's so good for our mental health. So we started making plans for him to return with Dad for his 11th birthday.
Then a month or so later I got a call from the mom of one of my son's classmates. Her daughter had overheard my son talking with another kid. He had suicide plans.
Wow. That didn't just break my heart it broke me. Plans are different than wanting to die.
The mom continued to tell me his plans. He was going to jump off Angel's Landing on his 11th birthday. I thanked her for telling me, reassured her I had experience with dealing with suicide, and hung up.
The next few days I desperately tried to find a therapist. That was hands down the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Calling randomly on the phone, saying my 10 yr old has plans to kill himself and can you please help him. And all I was getting in return AFTER going through the painful story was: "I'm sorry I don't treat that problem" or "I'm sorry I don't work with that age group" or "I'm sorry I'm not accepting new clients."
Eventually I found someone through a friend. When I talked with him on the phone he took it seriously but also confidently. Yes we need to be careful given the family history. Yes I can help you. Yes I know how to fix this. It will be ok.
My son connected with him and his dog. He worked with him for 6 months and came out a different kid. That was 4 years ago. Even through the pandemic and lockdown...he's good. He's happy. I'm relieved.
But as I admitted to some friends: I was NOT ok. I was broken. Night after night I sat in a corner of my living room floor dissociated. I'd make it through the day somehow but after that just shutdown and panic were my two states. With my mom and Father In Law's histories, I thought: I will NEVER not be afraid for him. I panicked going to work. Every day. I panicked when he was late getting home. I panicked if he was unhappy. I panicked if he got a bad grade. A headache. I panicked if I heard a chair skooch across the floor. I could not parent being so afraid of upsetting him. Nightmares. I needed help. I did not think about getting help though for this because I did not think for one second I even had the option of not being panicked about this. I would ALWAYS live in terror of someone I love killing themselves. Of it being my fault.
6. A Friend and an Ex
At the same time an old friend from college popped up in my inbox. He wanted me to use my career position to help him with something. I offered some advice but not what he wanted. It escalates to suicide threats. He was so desperate if I didn't help him in this unethical way he was going to kill himself. I of course wanted desperately to stop this to fix it to save him so I got too involved. He was in another country one without mental health services. It became very manipulative but I couldn't see that. So I was just enmeshed in this. It was everywhere I turned. Oh, I had also found out somewhere in there an ex-boyfriend had jumped in front of a train. There's more. Jeez I'm not done yet.
Quote from: Jazzy on April 24, 2021, 11:56:20 PM
Armadillo, I don't have a lot to say right now, but you're doing great sharing things that you've been struggling with for so long, despite your own fears. You're also doing a wonderful job of stopping when it becomes too much (dissociation).
Thanks Jazzy. That means a lot. I'm trying and realizing that the way to start feeling emotions instead of hating myself is to just go slow and stay within that window of tolerance.
Wow Armadillo that is a LOT to process and try to live with. I am so sorry you have held all this pain alone for so long. Very glad that you're able to start sharing some of it here with us. We can hold space for you here so you can share at your own pace and as you say, stay within your window of tolerance.
As to words having power, I can relate to that. I was both emotionally and physically abused (apart from the RA) and I would 100% rather be physically assaulted than emotionally assaulted. The emotional wounds are so deep and pervasive and no one can see them. At least broken bones heal with time and are visible evidence of the damage done. I am glad you are able to acknowledge the power that words have and my biggest hope for you is that you find ways to make words work as tools of healing power.
As someone who was also raised by a mentally ill mother who was undiagnosed (certainly BPD ++) and made me the parent long before I was able to be I can relate to how deep this fear and damage runs. The 'if only's' drove me for a VERY long time and that line from The Wall really speaks to me "Momma put all her fears into you", as does the song "Because of You", especially the line "and now I cry for the same **** things".
My mother has been gone now for over 10 years and I cannot tell you the relief I felt when she died (and the underlying low-grade guilt for being relieved). To this day she is the most prolific negative voice in my head, but at least her voice is getting much weaker.
I applaud your courage in speaking out here and hope that this is cathartic for you. I'm so glad you have a good support with your T. Very much looking forward to witnessing your healing journey.
Sitting with you - with your permission - in your fears and holding space for you to process in whatever way helps you the most.
Something else I wanted to add. Thank you Armadillo for advocating and standing up for your son and getting him help. That is not an easy thing to do especially when dealing with your own trauma.
And thank you for being one to break the generational cycle of trauma as well! That's huge. I hope if nothing else you can see what big pieces those are in your story that you've shared so far.
PhoenixA thank you for the empathy, encouragement and kindness. It means a lot. You know, you see all these painful things people have gone through here and well yeah...I feel like this is not that bad and get over it and stuff. And you've just reminded myself to be kind to myself. Thanks.
But the most meaningful thing you said...about helping my son and breaking the cycle. Thank you. Brings tears to my eyes in a good way because that is the single most important thing to me...breaking this cycle and helping my kids be safe, healthy, and happy.
Quote from: PhoenixA on April 29, 2021, 01:55:39 AM
Something else I wanted to add. Thank you Armadillo for advocating and standing up for your son and getting him help. That is not an easy thing to do especially when dealing with your own trauma.
And thank you for being one to break the generational cycle of trauma as well! That's huge. I hope if nothing else you can see what big pieces those are in your story that you've shared so far.
:yeahthat: I agree!!!
Part 7. No therapy for me
My mom went to therapy when I was a kid. Through the self harm and suicide threats. I remember her therapy journals about talking about how she would kill herself at the therapist's house.
I remember one time she was leaving the house late in the evening and I asked her "when are you going to be back?" and she angrily said "I. Don't. Know." Then I asked "where are you going mom?" She screamed at me "none of your goddamed business" and slammed the door and left.
My memory tagged that for a long time that I was a * for asking because i remembered that I probably KNEW she was going to therapy so why was I being a * and asking? Later (when triggered by my therapist going on vacation and not knowing when he was coming back)...I had a more complete version of that memory complete with emotions. It was a trip...I've never had a memory with emotions before?
Anyway I realized how I probably did know she was going to therapy and I wanted to know how long to expect her to be gone, so I'd have some time bounds on when I should worry. I was terrified that she was going to go and kill herself and not come back. I wasn't being a *, I was a scared kid, alone with this huge responsibility and no power.
The other association I had with therapy was that just one time my mom dragged me and my sis to her therapist for a family talk. She never acknowledged what was happening and I was terrified of showing any emotions about it.
Anger or disappointment were scary cause they might trigger her, and sadness and fear were so so painful to admit or show because it made her happy I was sad or scared but didn't stop the behavior so it made me feel hurt and powerless.
So I find myself in a therapy room with her and my sis. It feels dangerous. The therapist starts with my older sis and asks her what she thinks about "what's going on with your mom" and she was always aggressively angry and blunt so her answer was not what he was looking for to get things started. Bless her I love her. So so much.
Then he turned to me. So small and cautious and frightened and asked me the same question. I just remember feeling so trapped and not knowing what was safe to say. Then I made some weird animal wail and my recollection is feeling like I was hit by lightening...everything going dark, and I don't remember anything that happened after that except a vague sensation of walking out of the building to the car after awhile. I know now that what happened was dissociation. I had no idea then what had happened. I didn't know what it was until I started going to therapy myself when I was just a couple months shy of 40.
:hug:
Thank you notalone. I love my kids so much.
:hug: Armadillo, I have tears in my eyes from reading your last post. I have so many emotions. My biggest feeling is of wanting to take that little girl on my lap, wrap my arms around her and hold her and comfort her.
I'm so sorry for what you went through, Armadillo. You didn't deserve to have to deal with your mother at all. It wasn't fair to you.
Thank you Eidolon and notalone. It really means a lot and is very healing to hear these things from you all. I don't know all you've been through but it sounds like...a LOT. And probably like many others on here...i think..."I didn't have it that bad, so what is WRONG with me that this is so hard to get over." So this empathy from all of you is really validating to the extreme and helps me feel kinder toward myself. Thank you. :hug:
Part 8. Cracks
I have to rewind a little bit and explain that the 2 or 3 year period before my son started talking about suicide was very rough for me, though I was in complete denial....not intentionally but just completely unaware, you know?
I decided I wanted to go to grad school, while working, and I wanted to rush through to try to qualify for a career that had age limits and a degree requirement. At the same time that I got accepted into the grad school program, I found out that my mom had stage 3 breast cancer. She lives alone, has no friends or other support, and I'm the only family nearby. But at that point in my life I felt pretty confident that I could handle it all.
And I did. In the end I graduated in less than 2 yrs with a 3.9 GPA. Kids had less mom time than they wanted but I still took good care of them. Took my mom to radiation, chemo, surgery. And dealt with a lot of the other stuff that comes with caretaking someone like her.
But after the cancer treatment was complete she fell a couple times and broke her back, lied about it, and wouldn't see a doctor. Just laid on the couch barely able to move. For a month. When I found out how bad it was I took a day off work and forced her to a clinic which set off a whole series of appointments to try to figure out what was wrong. Cause she wouldn't say she fell! So many appointments. For so many days. So much time off work. Hospital trips. Doctors thinking her cancer came back.
All based on lies. Then the pain was so bad she had to be on hardcore pain meds which interacted with other meds. She was a complete risk for her to live alone for awhile. She couldn't even operate a phone. So I told her she had to come stay with me for awhile.
Many days I'd take the kids to school, spend the day at medical appointments for my mom, pick up my kids in the late afternoon, take my online classes while making dinner, spend time with the kids and put them to bed, work from 9 to midnight, then move on to school work from midnight to 2am, and then watch a couple comedy shows to unwind before sleeping a few hours.
All while having my biggest trigger in my space. She could tell it was so much work for me and she appeared to absolutely delight in me bending over backwards for her during this time. Having her near me even on decent behavior makes me very stressed and extremely uncomfortable and there she was all the time. I was a total mess. Her behavior and lies were awful. Her pain was awful. The medications were awful and I found out eventually she was not taking any of her psychiatric medication.
This period of time strained our relationship so much that when she went to live back at her own home I could barely speak to her. And this came with a lot of fear....she's going to die or commit suicide and it'll be all my fault. I spent a few months in low contact with her, feeling extremely guilty, ashamed, and terrified but also angry underneath it all and hurt.
My husband didn't understand her impacts on me at the time and wanted me to just be nice and do whatever she needed. So I felt extra ashamed that I couldn't do that. I didn't know at the time so he couldn't either that this was trauma and PTSD and triggers.
A couple months into this is when my son started talking about wanting to die. It was a situation that would have been extremely distressing to any parent. But for me it came on top of my own unrecognized trauma, active present moment triggers from that person and the backdrop that my father in law...my son's grandpa...had died by suicide.
I was a mess but I really had no understanding for myself of what was happening. I didn't have the language of PTSD to apply to myself, I didn't understand or know about dissociation let alone have any awareness I was triggered and majorly dissociated, and I felt nothing except shame and guilt and fear, and total complete overwhelm. Nonstop. Literally nonstop for a year.
Finally, as my son was wrapping up with therapy and was deemed all better, I approached his therapist to see if he could recommend someone for me to see....to help me set boundaries with my mom. He very wisely suggested himself and my son generously agreed that would be ok with him too. I expected a couple months working with him at most.
I didn't even think to ask about healing my suicide fears because it did not seem at all like even a remote possibility I could ever live free of this fear. I would always be terrified of someone I love killing themselves. There's no fixing that. And I was so dissociated and numb without knowing it I had no idea there was anything else wrong. I was happy. My life was good. All good here. :whistling:
Armadillo, that sounds incredibly difficult to live through. I've been through something similar- it's one of the roughest things in life, to have a parent like that. Self neglect/self abandonment is one of my biggest fleas and I feel like it was one of yours, too. Please be compassionate towards yourself in these times. :) You're doing a great job at journaling!
Thank you for the reminder Eidolon. It's easier to take it in from you all than from others. Yes. I neglect myself. More than that I'm just mean to myself. I'm sorry you went through similar on top of everything else, E. I hope there is just a whole world of peace waiting for you once you get through these memories.
*TW*
**I'm going to put an extra trigger warning in here. Nothing bad happens in this post but the description of what I had to do in therapy to start managing my fear of people committing suicide might be upsetting. It is for me! Ugh. I still can't believe I did this. I don't think I recommend it, even though it worked. Honestly it seems more like retraumatizing psychological self-harm than therapy. I was putting on a tough "I got this" act and not being open with my therapist at the time about my symptoms.**
Part 9. Exposure is brutal
So I started therapy just as my son was ending therapy. I'm guessing I'm not alone in this but the first few sessions we spent some time building some grounding skills and they were so far from grounding for me! Yikes.
Taking deep breaths and feeling your body? Hah. Yeah. Right. Bye! My dissociation whips me out of that danger zone by the time I'm at my neck.
Loving-kindness meditation? Imagine someone you love and say the meditation picturing them in your mind? Ok, first, I learned from this exercise that people can actually picture people they love in their minds. Whoa! Thought that was a figure of speech. I can't even imagine an apple. Second...the meditation included the phrase "may you be safe from harm, inside and out." I just couldn't handle that one. Picturing my kids and saying that? The "may you be" took all my control away...like no! I CAN keep you safe. There's no "may you be" safe in my brain.
Circle of protectors? Imagine people you love surrounding you supporting you? All I can think is this person I love and am thinking about as part of my support circle might die and I go into a panic attack.
Yeah....even though my therapy was supposed to be about setting boundaries with mom, my fear of people I love dying or committing suicide was everywhere, even in the exercises that were supposed to calm me.
So, we ended up "working" on that. And by necessity. I completely lost it anytime my son was remotely upset about anything. I compeltely lost it if I heard a sound in his room late at night. On my walk to work every morning and on my way home..lost it. Thinking about taking a spring break to visit national parks like we usually do. Lost it. Lost it. Lost it.
So, I asked for help dealing with this fear. Y'all it was brutal brutal work.
First, my T asked me to write down on a piece of paper "my family is going to commit suicide." He asked me..."can you do that?" And handed me some paper and a pen. I didn't think I could but I surprised myself and said...I'll try. I took the pen and paper and started writing. My T asked "can you write it?" And I said "yeah" and started writing. Then I really surprised myself by describing why I could write it.
At the time I had no idea what dissociation was or that I dissociate regularly and have since I was a kid. I kind of narrated what I was experiencing as it happened. I said "I can write it, because I'm writing it over here, on the right side of my body" and then I used my hand to visually split myself into halves and motioned to the right of my body where I had the pad of paper and was writing "my family will kill themselves." Then, I motioned my hand to the left side and said "but I am over here" and motioned far to the left. Then I realized um, that's a weird thing to say. And feel. But "I" was super calm because the writing part of me was separated from "real me."
Eventually we moved onto imaginal exposure and flooding where I would imagine people I love killing themselves, which my T would narrate with horrifying detail, over and over with the goal of getting my anxiety to a 10 on a 10 point scale. But I would always dissociate around an anxiety level of 5 and would then get super calm or start laughing. But we did it over and over, every horrible scenario of my son killing himself, graphically narrated by my T.
Even with the dissociation it was awful. But I needed to get over this fear because it was debilitating and I could not parent a preteen if I was terrified of him ever being upset. So I kept at it for months. Having to imagine it when I walked to work over freeway overpasses...there goes my son jumping onto the freeway...graphic details of his mangled body. Seeing dead deer on the side of the road during this time would send me into panic attacks reminding me of these exposure scenarios.
Waiting at the subway to go to and from work... he's jumping onto the tracks and I'm watching but can't stop it. Over and over and over and over. March through June.
In between this *, my therapist would also reassure me over and over again. My son was fine. He was not going to kill himself. Educating me about suicide and choice and what we can and can't control. Finally we were going on vacation, me and the kids to a national park. Jumping off a cliff at a national park was my son's plan a year previous.
My therapist convinced me that to really prove to myself he was ok, to get rid of this fear, I would have to let him go up to the edge. To look over. To see that he wouldn't jump. That would be my ultimate exposure.
I trusted my therapist. I trusted my son. Yes I was terrified. Beyond belief. But I did it. Over and over. I took him to multiple scenic overlooks. Parked the car under the guise of wanting a photo. Bribed my son and daughter with candy to get out of the car and pose near the edge. Over and over and over. He seemed nervous about being near the edge. He did not know what I was doing, that I was proving to myself he wouldn't jump. Finally I had done it enough that my brain could relax. He was not going to kill himself.
I felt victorious. I felt at peace. I could relax. And then the next day, driving away from the national park, the enormity of what I had done hit me. How could I be so stupid? So trusting? He could have jumped. Why would I trust this therapist? He could be a total quack.
I was driving back from the national park and was going to stop at my sister's house for a visit. I started panicking. They have guns. He could kill himself there. I was on the I-5 in Oregon, a 5 lane freeway. At the moment I was panicking about the guns I passed an enormous mangled buck that had been hit. It flashed me back to those imaginal exposure sessions, imaging his body mangled on the freeway. Holy crap I was so freaked out on this massively busy freeway.
And so it went...a couple steps forward in defeating this fear and then a couple steps backward. The fear got less intense. I'd still have nightmares, still get scared when I'd hear a chair move across the floor in his room, or if he was late getting home from school, or upset about something. But it gradually became less intense, more manageable. I could function again. My son was ok. It's ok.
Wow, Armadillo. That sounds awful. I couldn't even read the suicide scenarios, I had to skim over those. For you to dive into that in detail--yikes.
armadillo, the fears you describe are so potent, so heavy. to have to live with them, well, i can't even imagine it. i couldn't read your entire post, but i did see the bit about 'testing' your S and D, and my heart went out to you. i'm very glad you were relieved by that experience, but i also get how drudging it up in therapy could be brutal. i've had some of that feeling myself. stirring it all up again can be like reliving it but with full clarity about what it all means, what's going on inside you, how that feels, etc.
i give you so much credit for your courage in tackling this. honestly, it's amazing what we go thru simply to try to get thru a day. sending love and a hug filled with strength for all you're going thru. keep taking care of you, ok? :hug:
Thank for for the support, and understanding of how difficult the fear has been to manage. I truly appreciate it especially knowing it isn't easy to read or scan. This is the first time I am writing it down or even telling the story in one piece. It's just been new triggers sneaking up and knocking me over repeatedly and dealing with it or not the best I can, getting back on my feet, breathing a sigh of relief then getting knocked over again. But each new trigger gives me a chance to practice and build my resilience and diminish the fears. And I think I am in a much better place to help others deal with suicide now too.
**TW - domestic violence and suicide**
Part 10. I should have seen this coming
I started to get a handle on this fear. I felt pretty confident my son was ok. I mean the fear never compeltely left but it was definitely manageable. I still had nightmares but not too bad. I still got scared, but it was short-lived. I could talk back to those fears and calm down pretty well.
The universe decided to keep testing me, just to make sure I was really healed I guess?
So...another back track. I never knew my father. He left when my mom was pregnant with me. My sister lived with him and my mom for 4 years. My mom wouldn't talk about him but I heard the label abusive drunk thrown around, knew his name, and had one very blurry photo of him and my mom. As a kid I'd ask my mom about him wanting to know especially his ethnic background, like just wanting to know more about who I am, you know? I'd ask if we could track him down for child support and to help pay for college but she'd get angry and tell me it wouldn't matter anyway he's probably dead or in jail. Then she'd shake a bunch of pills out of her purse.
Well, a couple Christmas' ago...now in my 40s...my mom decided to get me a genetic test kit for Christmas. I told her thank you, it really was thoughtful, but that there wasn't much a test kit could tell me and it would mean more to me if she would tell me about him herself. Shockingly she agreed. He was an abusive alcoholic and drug addict. He abused her. When she was pregnant with me she tried to call the police and he pulled a knife cut the phone line, and threatened to kill her. She shoved my sis out the door then eventually got out herself. He fled stealing everything he could (the money, the car my mom used to get to work, the photos). Never saw him again but he would call and threaten her.
I told her I had tried to track him down in my 30s. She looked surprised and asked if I had found him. I told her he had died a long time ago, I found a death
record. She wanted to see the proof herself. So I tracked down the death certificate to give her a copy.
Y'all can probably see where this is going. Somehow I did not. I went to get the death certificate from the mail and was surprised to see: heart dysrythmia as the cause of death. I was like wow! That's so...normal...then I kept reading and saw it was due to intentional ingestion of potassium...suicide. I ordered the autopsy report too and learned a lot about him. I also learned he had first tried to die by intentional overdose of opioid meds but it didn't work. He took a bunch of potassium heart medicine to finish.
What this meant to me was...well..crud...my kids now have genetic suicide risk on 3 out of 4 sides. One grandparent with ideation and self harm and two with completion. That old familiar feeling was back...I can never ever let my guard down. Suicide is everywhere I turn. So, another couple steps backward in healing after all that progress. And also a lot of shame of what I come from. But that's another story and I'll keep that separate from this trigger filled journal.
hey, armadillo,
i can relate to a lot of your story - suicide, self-harm, mental illness, addictions all run thru my mother's side of my family, then thru me to my two daughters. both of them have suffered within themselves because of my family genetics. unfortunately, i didn't realize the extent of how this has gotten passed down thru the years. because of their knowledge, neither of my daughters are choosing to have children of their own. i'm actually very glad for that - i'd hate to see another generation deal with so much pain.
as a side note, i'd like to say to you that the shame you feel is not yours. you didn't choose your family members, and couldn't possible know how this dynamic works until you began discovering your own issues. i think, if your kids are armored in knowledge, they will make wise choices, and if they decide to have children, they'll be prepared, informed, and know what to look for and how to manage whatever comes up. my thoughts alone, and please ignore anything you don't agree with.
i, too, have the layers upon layers of triggering going on, tackling them a little at a time, as much as i can when i'm able. i appreciate your courage and insight.
thanks for being here and sharing so much. sending love and a hug filled with determination as you continue forward. we're in this together. :hug:
:hug:
Thanks San. I'm sorry you've been through the same personally and with your babies. Thank you for reading and supporting despite the personal pain.
Thank you for your wise words about shame and I should clarify that it has less to do with shame about my parents mental illnesses and addictions and more like I guess I'm not good enough for my current life...like imposter syndrome at work, my community, my marriage, and as a mom. It runs deep.
I've noticed I stopped feeling any emotions at all as I've written the past several entries. It's really embarrassing if I open up in real life to tell a friend some of what happened with my son. The second i say just the tiniest non dramatized truth... "yeah, a couple years ago, S, was talking about suicide" tears spring to their eyes and they look rightfully horrified. Showing more emotion than I ever managed. I'll then downplay it, laugh, say it's ok! He's fine! Laughing still I'll say it was scary though because of an extensive family history. Hahaha but everything is ok! And then change the subject.
Yet everytime my T asks me to stop and tell him what's happening in my body...I report...my eyes are stinging like they want to cry but I'm not sad.
Occasionally tears will gather in my eyes, not enough for a tear drop but enough to feel damp, but I don't feel sad. But once about 2 months ago I had the actual feeling of feeling sad. I was driving my son and daughter. My son was hunched up in the seat with a migraine and normally I might feel intellectually sad that he is suffering but this time I actually felt the sensation of sadness throughout my body, and then cried a little while feeling that sadness. It was such a trip to realize "oh when people say they feel sad, this is what they mean?"
Do you ever have those moments when you realize how different your experience of life is from "normal?"
absolutely. in my case, i've come to discover i've been suffering from a condition called alexithymia. basically, neural networks between emotional side and verbal/conscious side of the brain have not been connected. i've spent most of my life confused because i didn't know what was going on w/ others, and didn't feel basic emotions like love, joy, pleasure, happy, fear and anger. i could intellectualize as well, but had no real connection to what the feeling/emotion actually felt like.
as i've continued working on all this, and have been in a healthy relationship w/ my d (also eliminating most friends), i'm beginning to feel emotions more often. altho i know it's making more human, to feel them at this stage seems like getting hit by a bus. just yesterday i asked my t how people have lived with all these emotions all their lives! they're so devastating to me now that i can't imagine an entire lifetime of consciously knowing them.
it's getting better, even when it feels like it's getting worse. keep moving, armadillo. you've been making such huge steps here. maybe too huge too often, and you're getting overwhelmed. be careful of that, ok? love and hugs :hug:
Thanks San. I'm actually ok with the fears part now. I've had a lot if things come up in the past year that proves to me, I am ok. I can handle these things as they come up. Now I am trying to get to the emotions part and yes it is exactly like that...I learned somehow to sever communication between those (and many other) parts of my brain and now don't know how to reconnect things. But I'm ready to try. But you're probably right that I'm being too aggressive here in trying to make it happen. I focus too much on trying to fix myself (feeling weak for not being magically better by now, like you mentioned in your own journal) and not on being kind and gentle.
sending you a hug filled with kindness and gentleness toward yourself, if that helps. :hug:
i think the reconnection comes gradually, (it has for me) as we continue recovering and rediscovering ourselves (or discovering our true selves maybe for the first time). being connected to this forum and disconnecting from toxic people has allowed my mind to see a different, more positive, helpful, and accepting perspective which includes myself and people around me. being accepted has been the main thing, i think. it's allowed some of those past wounds to heal, and has released some of the fear i've had of being authentic. i hope you find a similar experience as you continue forward.
i so appreciate you, even in the short time you've been here. love is flying out to you - i hope you can accept it. but, please let me know if it's not comfortable, ok? :yes:
Thank you Sanmagic. You have a gift for having the right words. :hug:
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Sometimes the universe is interesting. In early April I reached out to an old friend I hadn't hung out with since I moved 4 years ago...even though I only moved 20 min away. We ended up hanging out (outside) and she shared some struggles she was going through and I shared what we had gone through with my son. She just called and is going through something similar....a little less serious...and really needed to hear from someone who's been through this. She was very cautious not wanting to upset me and I could tell her honestly that I am OK and that one of the silver linings of having gone through this so many times with so many people and working on it in therapy so intensely is that I am now in a good place to help others dealing with it. Actually now that I scan a couple past entries..this is the friend I referenced when I told her and she cried a little but I just laughed it off saying it was fine! That's bothered me for the past month...that others can show appropriate emotion but I can't. Yet. One day....
one day - i believe in that. you continue to move forward, and i know that takes courage and determination. plus, you've been helping others on this forum since you got here. that's a big deal, too.
sending love and a hug filled with progress :hug:
I went running with this friend yesterday to give her support for all shes going through. She was very worried about triggering me with talking about it. It's just so very
strange. 3 years ago I never ever dreamed this was a fear I could get through and never even thought to try. That wasnt my goal in starting therapy. I would ALWAYS be terrified of people I love killing themselves. They was just fact.
But yesterday I could look my friend in the eye and tell her truthfully I was 100% ok and so very happy I have been through this so many times and worked so hard in therapy that I could now support others going through similar things instead of being triggered and not being able to truly support others because I was so terrified myself.
I also disclosed to her how I felt when she was able to cry as I told her about my son a couple months ago even though I am unable to cry about it. That was on my therapy homework list so yay!
I also haven't finished telling my story here and need to get back to finishing it. I'm just giving myself a long pause to avoid roboting it.
well done, armadillo, on such remarkable progress. keep it up! :thumbup:
sending love and a hug filled with continuity :hug:
Good job! You're making amazing strides in your healing journey. Always happy to see you making big steps.