Let's talk about Suicide.
This year has been a lot of grief processing for me. Not just mulling over the emotions of my mother who passed in 2012, but constant death in the work world, personal world, and just ... world. As you grow older, mortality sets in and becomes real; like a wart that doesn't go away. Having surgeries, chronic pain, watching my husband go through heart-attack scenarios and seeing my five year old in the NICU, all while friends' babies are dying, people at work are killing themselves and peers are writing and documenting their own feelings around suicide. It just finds it's way in.
Death, for me, is like a personified Watcher. There seems to be an emotional, religious, stable connection that has a bit of a mysterious, humorous, omnipotent male presence. The Reaper, Baron Samedi, Odin and other wise men who seem to guard you over the River Styxx and through the realm of the unknown. Who asks how they feel about that? How does the Reaper process all that death?
I try and channel that strength; I envy it. The acceptance and normalcy, the grace and empathy to handle death without sobbing tears or lumps in the throat. To understand, welcome and feel something special about death because it lies forever with Life. There is some deep spiritual 'thing' about Death that I believe we all long to know, and for some, fear. Death haunts me, grief is my ability (or inability) to process that lingering feeling and feel 'good' about it.
I cannot exercise it, rebuke it, and Death is a big part of the 'positive religious process'. If you're forgiven, accepted, in the club and have 'done enough' in the 'right', you'll pass by DEATH without ... pain? Pure acceptance? A pat on the back by someone who judged us, saw our name in a book, approved of us? No... for me, Death is a release from physical burden. One of those big physical burdens of Life is emotional and physical pain and how they feed each other.
Watching loved ones die too soon, to see evil live on too long, to see Death take those who weren't ready and to see Death refuse those who are begging. You are always in awe, wonder, agape at Death - no matter how many times you see it. At least in my opinion, having seen more of Death than I care to, but not enough to know it - it lingers with me differently with each experience. Lately, I've been trying to see the grace and the beauty - but is that morbid one asks? To be there, strong as a mother and friend and say, "How can I help?" To enter into a grieving mother's home, fresh with the bills of death in her hand and the ashes being fought over... and start cleaning her home. Without permission, to ask permission, to sort through the 'crazy' and not judge the response and behaviors of the grieving but instead to HELP THEM cope. To make them dinner, hug them the long hug - beyond socially acceptable, let them cry on your shirt and stain it with mascara. To drive them around at night, after you want to vent about your own kids but don't dare - you swallow hard, cry with them and just BE. No one teaches this anymore. The Reaper never has a catch phrase. There are no words.
So, I've decided to channel my own experiences with grief, suicide, death and how to FEEL it, how to be heard without speaking, how to 'get the remorse out' but still remaining HERE and happy. How to deal positively with Death. Something that isn't always taught or even talked about. So, let's talk - how do YOU deal with Death?
How PSYCHOLOGY is trying to Deal with SUICIDE: Article Here
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| My front yard has one of the most popular bridges in Minnesota for Suicide Jumpers. Some nights when tucking my boys in, I'll see the police boats out in the water, the lights flickering and my boys giggling; they don't know why the boats are out. Most are not successful, as Suicide Attempts are a big segment of Mental Health left unexplored. |
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| SIDS, parents losing children, children dying at all is horrific. I remember the first stack of child protection cases and un-investigated dead babies cases I saw collecting dust; horrific is the WHOLE process. Society doesn't help people cope, therapy doesn't really teach how to prevent but instead is doing crisis intervention clean-up. Statistics are out, Death is real, we will ALL deal with grief. How have you seen your role models, loved ones, friends deal? |
Death, for me, is like a personified Watcher. There seems to be an emotional, religious, stable connection that has a bit of a mysterious, humorous, omnipotent male presence. The Reaper, Baron Samedi, Odin and other wise men who seem to guard you over the River Styxx and through the realm of the unknown. Who asks how they feel about that? How does the Reaper process all that death?
I try and channel that strength; I envy it. The acceptance and normalcy, the grace and empathy to handle death without sobbing tears or lumps in the throat. To understand, welcome and feel something special about death because it lies forever with Life. There is some deep spiritual 'thing' about Death that I believe we all long to know, and for some, fear. Death haunts me, grief is my ability (or inability) to process that lingering feeling and feel 'good' about it.
I cannot exercise it, rebuke it, and Death is a big part of the 'positive religious process'. If you're forgiven, accepted, in the club and have 'done enough' in the 'right', you'll pass by DEATH without ... pain? Pure acceptance? A pat on the back by someone who judged us, saw our name in a book, approved of us? No... for me, Death is a release from physical burden. One of those big physical burdens of Life is emotional and physical pain and how they feed each other.
Watching loved ones die too soon, to see evil live on too long, to see Death take those who weren't ready and to see Death refuse those who are begging. You are always in awe, wonder, agape at Death - no matter how many times you see it. At least in my opinion, having seen more of Death than I care to, but not enough to know it - it lingers with me differently with each experience. Lately, I've been trying to see the grace and the beauty - but is that morbid one asks? To be there, strong as a mother and friend and say, "How can I help?" To enter into a grieving mother's home, fresh with the bills of death in her hand and the ashes being fought over... and start cleaning her home. Without permission, to ask permission, to sort through the 'crazy' and not judge the response and behaviors of the grieving but instead to HELP THEM cope. To make them dinner, hug them the long hug - beyond socially acceptable, let them cry on your shirt and stain it with mascara. To drive them around at night, after you want to vent about your own kids but don't dare - you swallow hard, cry with them and just BE. No one teaches this anymore. The Reaper never has a catch phrase. There are no words.
So, I've decided to channel my own experiences with grief, suicide, death and how to FEEL it, how to be heard without speaking, how to 'get the remorse out' but still remaining HERE and happy. How to deal positively with Death. Something that isn't always taught or even talked about. So, let's talk - how do YOU deal with Death?
How PSYCHOLOGY is trying to Deal with SUICIDE: Article Here
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