[Trace14]

On Oct. 29th, will mark the 4 year anniversary of finding Dad after his suicide. Seems like only yesterday and I've been going through my mind all the things we were doing up to that date. All the appointments we had made for the following week. How the night before I came over and wrote out your bills and vacuumed, hugged you and said I loved you and you said you loved me too. But then the next day you were gone. I'm trying to understand it still, did you do it out of love? Was there something else?

Just keeping you company here. You've been on my mind a lot today, as I try to fathom what this week must be like for you each year. I can't begin to imagine. But I can sit here and listen.

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by Bjørnen

Just keeping you company here. You've been on my mind a lot today, as I try to fathom what this week must be like for you each year. I can't begin to imagine. But I can sit here and listen.

Have we talked under another name? Seems like you know me. The week before makes me run through the routine we were going through before it happened. I can remember what happened each day. How worried I was about him on so many levels, he had a kidney removed a couple of weeks prior. He had been through a lot in that past coupe of years. 1st colon cancer, then they found cancer in the prostrate at that time, then they found the kidney cancer a little later. He had a rough time and just didn't enjoy life anymore. He didn't want to be a burden to anyone. But he had made it through so much...why give up now?

It sounds like you were a very good daughter. I’m sure your father loved you very much.

I know words don’t help much. I lost my husband five years ago.

[Open Eyes]

Having all those health issues and treatments may have contributed to him experiencing depression and also feeling a loss of control which is something, from what you have described of your father, he battled with his entire life.

Anniversaries most definitely can be painful reminders, I have them myself so I definitely know the challenge. Each time you experience it, it's a chance to mourn something you have not mourned "yet" too and work your way towards finally developing some peace and acceptance within yourself.

You put in a lot of effort to have a relationship with your father despite his ongoing dysfunctional behaviors. What he ended up choosing to do had nothing to do with you or anything you failed at doing either, he made this choice on his own and often when that happens, as you know, it's very hard for others to accept and there are always those questions of "what did I miss that could have changed this?". Well, people can suffer and never be able to articulate it to others or even themselves. What your father did was "his" choice and "his" way of taking control over his own suffering. There was always a part of him that despite all your effort to love and help him, he kept to himself.
How he developed happened long before you were there in his life. He had deep problems for a very long time and he simply was not able to reconcile these problems and that was not anything you could have really changed.

So when you have to once again deal with an anniversary, as bad and traumatic his choice was, please make sure you consider the quality you "did" bring to his life. He just was never capable of giving you what you deserved and that was something that happened in him long before you were around.

Truth is, we ALL are designed to navigate and if we have to face challenges in our environment when we are young, we have no choice but to learn how to navigate around whatever may be unhealthy or toxic in that environment. Well, your father did not "know" how to be a father and a husband, he most likely was raised in dysfunction and in his generation a lot of men used alcohol to help them manage. A lot of the men were not allowed to have emotions so what they did was they tended to be angry a lot too. Often sitting and "feeling" was something they simply found unbearable, feeling vulnerable can also be something "unbearable". This could be a big part of why your father chose to do what he did. This did not have anything to do with his love for you and he was probably at a point where it just got so unbearable for him that he chose to take his life not even thinking about the impact that would have on you.

This is always so hard to understand for those left behind to understand.

[Buffy01]

I'm sorry for your loss. My brother in law committed suicide in March of 2010. Just take it easy and make sure that you are not alone during this difficult time.

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by Buffy01

I'm sorry for your loss. My brother in law committed suicide in March of 2010. Just take it easy and make sure that you are not alone during this difficult time.

Thank you. Does it get any easier? Did his death trigger past traumas?

[Open Eyes]

Originally Posted by Trace14

Thank you. Does it get any easier? Did his death trigger past traumas?

I think you know the answer to this question, Yes. Trauma always involves some kind of major loss that is followed by a lengthy grieving process that can be lonely in that it IS such a personal loss. Your father left an impression on you where you navigated so much of your life around that impact. Often one doesn't really understand that until a major traumatic event happens that impacts that personal way of navigating. One of the things one has to figure out how to make peace with is how there is actually a limit to our ability to save the people we may love and want to help from "themselves". This is something that tends to come forward in you from your life experiences where you put yourself at the scene of so many traumatic human situations, most of which you could not have prevented.

What stands out the most to me in listening to your life experiences that you have shared is that you had been protected from witnessing a major trauma and how significant that was to you, more than you understood on a deep subconscious level. So, you put yourself in the role of protecting others that same way. However, this trauma was something that did not include someone else protecting you so you did not have to see. That is what makes this specific trauma so much harder for you to grieve because it doesn't fit into your life long theme of the importance of protecting others from witnessing something traumatic the way that had been done for you so many years ago when it came to protecting "you" from seeing what happened to your grandfather.

If you sit and think about all rescue workers and emergency care responders,
the one consistency is minimizing exposure. It is these individuals that are also at a greater risk of experiencing PTSD in that they do see a lot of human trauma. However, these individuals learn to develop a detachment when it comes to dealing with traumas that involve other human beings. Actually, you have described how you had learned how to zone out and focus on dealing with different emergency situations and control the adrenaline rush and hyper focus. Surgeons, and ER workers have to learn how to practice this. Actually, the one area that tends to have a five year burn out is the the ER staff at hospitals that tend to be located in areas where the trauma traffic is high. This is also true when it comes to the police officers that have to deal with high crime areas in inner cities compared to a calmer beat in the suburbs or rural areas. Most of these individuals are at risk when it comes to dealing with a more "personal" trauma that can most definitely break that ability to detach. This is also something that soldiers can experience when it comes to suffering the loss of their partners that they develop a deep relationship with in battle. This becomes a deep personal loss that these individuals cannot articulate the depth of and it's a very deep bond that unless one experiences it first hand, they won't be able to understand it.

Part of this loss when it comes to your father is that this is something that happens to other people NOT YOU. Actually, this is what your brain/mind is struggling with when you recall the traumatic things you witnessed when it came to other people NOT YOUR OWN. What your brain is struggling with is that deep line that takes place where one learns to dissociate in that it's not about "self" but outside self and the self world. This is where you are really struggling with developing the ability to reconcile.

However Trace, you have been making progress. You have been slowly and gradually talking about your personal challenge instead of just sitting and disassociating. Actually, you are doing rather well considering that it's only been four years and what happens when it comes to going through the stages of PTSD that results from a major trauma that deeply affects the individual's personal sense of self in the world. Your father is not in limbo or experiencing his own deep internal battle anymore, he is at peace now, that is what he wanted. I have a very strong feeling that even though he fought cancer, the path in that fight and all the medications he had to take took a toll on his brain and his brain was older too. Often a surgeon doesn't want to do surgery on an older person because of how the brain tends to not handle the anesthesia very well, chemicals and different treatments can be harder on an older more fragile human being so it's always more of a risk. If you think about it, you did have to do more for him because he was failing at doing for himself more and more. This was never something you could stop either.

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by Open Eyes

I think you know the answer to this question, Yes. Trauma always involves some kind of major loss that is followed by a lengthy grieving process that can be lonely in that it IS such a personal loss. Your father left an impression on you where you navigated so much of your life around that impact. Often one doesn't really understand that until a major traumatic event happens that impacts that personal way of navigating. One of the things one has to figure out how to make peace with is how there is actually a limit to our ability to save the people we may love and want to help from "themselves". This is something that tends to come forward in you from your life experiences where you put yourself at the scene of so many traumatic human situations, most of which you could not have prevented.

What stands out the most to me in listening to your life experiences that you have shared is that you had been protected from witnessing a major trauma and how significant that was to you, more than you understood on a deep subconscious level. So, you put yourself in the role of protecting others that same way. However, this trauma was something that did not include someone else protecting you so you did not have to see. That is what makes this specific trauma so much harder for you to grieve because it doesn't fit into your life long theme of the importance of protecting others from witnessing something traumatic the way that had been done for you so many years ago when it came to protecting "you" from seeing what happened to your grandfather.

If you sit and think about all rescue workers and emergency care responders,
the one consistency is minimizing exposure. It is these individuals that are also at a greater risk of experiencing PTSD in that they do see a lot of human trauma. However, these individuals learn to develop a detachment when it comes to dealing with traumas that involve other human beings. Actually, you have described how you had learned how to zone out and focus on dealing with different emergency situations and control the adrenaline rush and hyper focus. Surgeons, and ER workers have to learn how to practice this. Actually, the one area that tends to have a five year burn out is the the ER staff at hospitals that tend to be located in areas where the trauma traffic is high. This is also true when it comes to the police officers that have to deal with high crime areas in inner cities compared to a calmer beat in the suburbs or rural areas. Most of these individuals are at risk when it comes to dealing with a more "personal" trauma that can most definitely break that ability to detach. This is also something that soldiers can experience when it comes to suffering the loss of their partners that they develop a deep relationship with in battle. This becomes a deep personal loss that these individuals cannot articulate the depth of and it's a very deep bond that unless one experiences it first hand, they won't be able to understand it.

Part of this loss when it comes to your father is that this is something that happens to other people NOT YOU. Actually, this is what your brain/mind is struggling with when you recall the traumatic things you witnessed when it came to other people NOT YOUR OWN. What your brain is struggling with is that deep line that takes place where one learns to dissociate in that it's not about "self" but outside self and the self world. This is where you are really struggling with developing the ability to reconcile.

However Trace, you have been making progress. You have been slowly and gradually talking about your personal challenge instead of just sitting and disassociating. Actually, you are doing rather well considering that it's only been four years and what happens when it comes to going through the stages of PTSD that results from a major trauma that deeply affects the individual's personal sense of self in the world. Your father is not in limbo or experiencing his own deep internal battle anymore, he is at peace now, that is what he wanted. I have a very strong feeling that even though he fought cancer, the path in that fight and all the medications he had to take took a toll on his brain and his brain was older too. Often a surgeon doesn't want to do surgery on an older person because of how the brain tends to not handle the anesthesia very well, chemicals and different treatments can be harder on an older more fragile human being so it's always more of a risk. If you think about it, you did have to do more for him because he was failing at doing for himself more and more. This was never something you could stop either.

One thing wrong here. I was walking behind my grandfather when he fell, so I did closely witness it. But thanks for the thoughts on this.