((((((((((((SongBird)))))))))))))

I do this every day. I wake up and head for the kitchen and I have to pass my office, which used to be my sons room, I have to pass pictures on the walls that are my son and some of his toys are in the livingroom, some of his books are on the bookshelf, his ceramic handprint on my knick knack shelf, My child will not be home to live until he is 18.

My having DID does not help this situation because somedays it feels like someone died. And at one point for months I didn't remember I even had a child. Everytime someone mentioned him I would either go off to la la land or say "who?" to those asking and talking about him. Thanks to my friends and my therapist at that time and their not giving up I came back from that fugue and now I keep those reminders of my child around so I don't slip back into the fugue.

Every day of my life I literally have to pull myself out of bed I would rather stay there and die.

When I was going through that time period of going into la la land I stayed there for about 7-9 months and only came back out if la la land to be with my therapist at that time and one of my friends here in real life. I still don't have any memory of what happed back then so I would not be surprised to find out I have a memory piece or two from that experience. A friend tells me that sometimes I would say "(Sons name) and I are going biking today" and so on during that time.

During that time I was also actively suicidal - I remember downing handfuls of pills, thinking about walking in front of on coming cars, My friends say they have had to stop me because I wasn't just thinking of walking in front of the oncomming cars.

what finally woke me up from this active suicidal behavior was a friend sent me an email laying it all on the line and then sent me a paragrah wrote by her daughter that had also been a friend of mine who had committed suicide, and also my friend (who was my therapist at that time) stopped me from walking in front of a car and then sat with me in her car and flat out told me what my death would do to her and how much she cared about me and so on.

So now like you suicide is not an option for me. That empty hole for my son is going to be there for the next 5 years and two months (I'd probably be able to give you the countdown of days if I knew what day he would be graduating high school on)

There is nothing in this world that is going to change this situation and how I feel. So I had a choice to make I could let this drag me down into a depression that would end up with me in the MHU probably for the rest of my life or I could set some short term and a couple long term goals to focus that depression hole of missing my son into. and then work on those goals every day. my books and my therapy plans and so on.

And then as things went along I would get reminders of why I should be happy for example if he wasn't in residential he never would have been elegable for a sleep study program he was in and then he would not have been diagnosed with sleep apnea. Now I don't have to worry about if my child is going to stop breathing tonight from his having an asthma (which is what I was told he had as a baby) attack in his sleep. When Katrina hit and a friend lost her home I was reminded about how lucky I am to have the home I have and the food that I have and so on.

It took me almost a year to look beyond my son being gone to what needs to be done for me.

Talk with your therapist, it will help.