Dear Reader,

After my father’s suicide, I searched for books to help me through my grief process, but there weren’t many available, especially not one page meditations. The nature of recovery from a loved one’s suicide, for me, was silent. The people that knew about my loss did not know how to console, and I rarely spoke about my father’s suicide. I was afraid of what others may think of my father or me. Unearned shame kept me quiet. I needed words and feelings from someone who had walked down the same path. I did not need graphic descriptions of a person’s suicide. I couldn’t deal with words that brought home the horrible scene of finding my father. But still, I needed to know that the churning feelings inside me were normal. With the thought that possibly another person could relate to my feelings, writing them has been a catharsis.

For me writing has always been a release. There was an old game I used to play as a child called pick-up-sticks. The object was to remove one stick at a time without moving the others. That’s what writing these meditations has been like for me; I picked up one thread of a thought at a time to look at and express. Singling out just one thought and developing it into concise words was difficult and frustrating. Yet, it left me with a clear heart and the ability to get on with my life. Writing these one-page thoughts were both my own cathartic attempt to make some sense of what happened to me after my father’s death, and my attempt to help others cope with their sorrow.

Writing was just one tool in my efforts to heal from the grief of losing my father. Professional direction from a psychologist helped me to understand, also, that once I was able to see my father as no longer in pain then I could begin my own healing. Joining a support group gave me confidence to stop isolating and helped me to talk about my father’s suicide.

Efforts at good writing ask the writer to always speak their truth. It was the truth that I adhered to in these reflections. I did not whitewash the pain. If you have lost someone to suicide, I hope my truth will not cut sharply into your agony. And painful though they are, I believe these reflections have a healing grace. I hope that you will find something in them that will help.

Sincerely,

Karen Phillips





Friday, June 10, 2011

Post-Traumatic Stress—Blood

            I didn’t realize the streams of dark liquid were blood.  Maybe it was because Daddy was in a shadowy area in his garage, or maybe it was because my mind had begun already to mercifully stop processing reality.  My thoughts had reduced to a crawl.  I didn’t see the gun hidden in a sock laying a yard or two away from his body.  It must have jumped from his hand when he shot himself.   There was no exit wound from his head because he had used such a small bullet.  Thinking he had perhaps had a massive stroke or heart attack, I didn’t know he had shot himself.  I saw the dark streams as motor oil.  Slowly, looking at his body, I wondered what he had been working on before he died. 
It bothered me that I hadn’t recognized something as vital as his blood.  That first night at home in bed, I tried to explain to my husband how guilty I felt that I didn’t know it was his blood.  The words howled out in such rushed anguish that the bedcovers twisted around my body.  I had seen my father’s blood rolling away in rivulets and didn’t know it.  If only I had of known, I could have tried to scoop it up.  Surely, I could have done something!             
Afterwards, if I saw where someone had poured out liquid on to concrete, I felt queasy, a sick pounding just under my heart.  My ribcage would widen-out in fright.  I worked, then, at an automotive dealership.  Seeing oil or some other dark liquid on the concrete was an everyday occurrence.  I felt I couldn’t get away from the sight.  Even the habit of tossing out the last few swallows of coffee from my cup when I got out of the car took my mind right back to that moment.
I had developed a phobia of dark liquid.  I felt no one would understand, so I only spoke of it once in a support group.  I cried so hard that I lost my breath.  I didn’t speak of it again for nearly a year.  I wrote my thoughts and fears in a journal where I felt comfortable crying in private.  Thankfully, that intense fear of liquid being dashed out on the ground subsided.  I’ve since learned that no matter how much I think to the contrary my mind can’t hold itself in an extreme state of fear forever.
The thing about fears is that they always seem to have a source of origin.  The truth is fears are wider and taller in the shadows than they are in the light.  Put them in the light.
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