Side Effects

Loss… It sucks no matter who it is or how they leave. For a mother suicide has many lingering side effects. One that I have is that I now question my relationships. How could I have not know there was something going on with Arthur. We were extremely close and I thought we could talk about anything. If I was wrong about that, what else am I missing? Several moms I have spoken to go through these same things. We question our ability as a parent to our surviving children. What if we miss the signs? What if we make the same mistakes we did before? One thing we know for certain is we could not bare for this to happen again.
Another thing is the visions that haunt me. Not in dreams, just out of the blue I see him, that morning. The morning when my world shattered. I don’t even have to be thinking about it and there it is. It’s horrible. I relive the entire scene in little flash movies in my minds eye..
The biggest issue I think I have is regaining focus. When I try and get going on my day I inevitably get caught up in the thoughts that haunt me. The “whys” and “what ifs”. The next thing I know, hours have passed and I have accomplished nothing. I have written about walking in circles before. It gets better as time goes on, but there are still days when my routine involves the treadmill. Walking around and getting nowhere.

I am hoping moms like me, that have lost our babies will find comfort knowing these things are not just happening to ourselves. We unfortunately now belong to “The Club”. It’s members are many, we are fractions of the people we used to be. We can never be whole again for an actually physical part of us is missing. What we can be is strong, we can help others by talking about it. It is important for mothers that have lost children to know that there are people that truly do understand and we are here to listen. We can tell our stories with the hope that one family can avoid this nightmare.
Most important is that we can survive this, we can continue in our grief and slowly die or live and honor our children. Suicide is not something to be ashamed of. It is not a disgrace to lose a child this way. It is no less agonizing in the loss although with it comes the side effects that other families don’t have so much.
So here we are, this group of lost moms. We are from different walks of life, we have all gotten lost on this journey. Life does go on. We do continue to breath, and our blood still flows. We just don’t have the same heart beat as everyone else anymore..