©After His Suicide, Grief Meditations by Karen M. Phillips: 06/07/11

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

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Numbness and Flashbacks

My feelings swung from one extreme to the other for a long time after Daddy’s death. Numbly, I reasoned that I must be doing fine. I would feel guilty that I didn’t feel anything about Daddy’s suicide. Then I judged there must be something terrible about me and doubted my ability to love. The next day, or maybe even the next minute, something would trigger a flashback. It could be anything, the food I ate that day before I found him, a movie scene with gunshot sounds, or a sudden sound of silence. And I became a trembling volcano of feelings and memories that I couldn’t turn off. I felt like someone stripped me of my skin and dragged me through salt.

My soul burned from those flashbacks. I felt embarrassed by them if they happened to me in public. I felt afraid of them if they came while I was alone.

Those experiences led me to believe that I would never get over my father’s death. I felt I was either a rudderless vessel carried or tossed by raging currents or sitting flat on a dead sea. Then the anger came, and I vowed that I wouldn’t let my father’s choice affect the rest of my life. None of those ways of thinking predicted the truth of my future.

The actual relief of my experience came when I realized time had gradually slowed those swinging emotions and memories to something less extreme. Little by little, I stopped reliving the pain. Recalls became bittersweet and controllable. That adage about time healing wounds became my truth.

Suicide is like a razor slashing at the souls of those left behind. The cuts are deep and serious. No matter how much you want this to be over, keep talking, keep breathing. It takes time to heal.

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