Hushed Voices, Secrets Untold

Giving women a voice, one day at a time

Archive for the tag “suicide”

Silent Pain

These last few months have been really hard on my extended family has we have dealt with yet another suicide. This time it was my ex-brother-in-law. He left behind a 20 year old son and a 16 year old daughter. He and his wife had been married for 25 years. Later that same week a friend of mine also suffered a suicide loss in his family as well.  Then this week I have watched two of my friends struggle with how to get their loved ones mental help that are struggling to deal with awful things that have happened in their lives.

I am struggling with trying to help these people with their pain and suffering as much as I can but at some point I have come to the realization that these people need more help than I can give them. Silent pain, as I call it, is a killer. This means keeping stuff bottled up inside, refusing there is a problem, not wanting to change the situation, or wanting to change it but not wanting to do the work to make it change, and cutting yourself off from all those that love you to be around those that make you feel better about yourself in very bad ways.

Silent pain is something domestic violence victims are very, very familiar with. If there is no treatment after domestic violence, this silent pain starts to eat away at the very fabric of your being and you become defensive to those you love, you cut yourself off from those that love you the most, you begin a self-destructive pattern of alcohol, or drug abuse, sleeping around, doing anything that makes you feel “good”, and I use that term loosely.

Watching someone try to stuff this pain deep inside and act like all is normal is hard. They are literally a walking time bomb waiting to go off. They act like if they ignore it, it will go away, or if they don’t think about it, it just won’t be there. Or they keep moving so fast, staying busy as to not to have to deal with it. Does this sound like you or someone you know? If so please, please seek help before this silent killer, kills you. Therapy is critical after any traumatic event that leaves you broken and vulnerable.

If you have children, you must seek help so that you can continue to be the stable parent they depend on. They cannot help you, do not turn to them for help and comfort. You need expert help, someone that can understand your suffering and help you deal with the demons that are taunting you. If you need help there is help available here on my website. Your call will be kept confidential, but please get help before it is too late.

thegeekwife

 

Perseverance

I was speaking with someone the other day and they asked me, after everything I have been through, why had I not just thrown in the towel so to speak. They wondered why I wasn’t suicidal, nervous, on drugs, a mental case per se. I get asked that question a lot. My life has been hard, but not as hard as some I expect.

In 1975 I lost my father to suicide at age 9. I lived in a household where my father was abusive to my mother, was an alcoholic and he eventually died. His death was horrible and tragic and my mother did not handle it well. My mother then remarried.

When I was in high school, my boyfriend was murdered after he dropped me at home after a date. Later, in 1985 I married a man that would abuse me for 10 years before that marriage ended in divorce. In 1993 my beautiful daughter Ceara Alexa died. This for me was the most painful thing I have endured in my lifetime. Then in 1999 the night before Thanksgiving my brother committed suicide when he was 32 years old. In April 2010 I buried my last remaining parent, my mother. Grief and I are very familiar with each other; there has been a great deal of it.

Now, while all of these things are horrible and seem to just go on and on I have always reminded myself of five things:

Life is too short to be miserable, you must go on living and loving.

With God anything is possible.

Life is too precious to waste.

There is always someone worse off than you are.

Finally, my motto: That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

I owe a great deal of my ability to persevere to my church and clergy, my faith has never let me down. Also, after my domestic violence ordeal, I owe a great deal to the people within the domestic violence organization, without them my life after my ordeal would not be what it is today. If you had told me 15 years ago I would be graduating Cum Laude with my Master’s Degree in a few short weeks I would have looked at you and told you, you were crazy, it wasn’t possible for me. Time changes things but so does your ability to persevere. If you are being abused, just have faith that you will and can change your life, this isn’t and doesn’t have to be forever. There are people here willing to help you. They helped me and I have persevered.

thegeekwife

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