A Silent Scar

 

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a mouse …..

 

That is unless you are bereaved because when the house goes quiet the mind and emotions of those left behind after a loved one died starts to rev up and in these people’s hearts there sits a scar, a scar so deep, so painful, the hurt and the pain sometimes has to be shut out.

 

Christmas and the lead up to Christmas is one of those times when you will miss your loved one more intensely. 

 

When we have been bereaved we can be physically and emotionally disrupted, our life has been turned upside down as we battle with the thoughts and feelings of numbness and pain we may shake and tremble and feel as if we are not in our body as we become disorientated.  We stop sleeping and eating as we are confused and quickly become exhausted by the quickening of the mind and body.  Some people can have migraines, headaches and nightmares or feel guilty, shame and shamed and experience flash backs, feel they need to withdraw from the world.  

 

At Christmastime no matter how long, it has been since a loved one died those left behind can re-live all those feelings again ‘as if’ it has just happened there is no gap between then and now.

 

Add a loved one’s death by suicide and there is always a vacuum left in our heart where our loved one once sat.  People who are going through a bereavement whilst not easy can usually share and talk openly with relative and friends, express their feeling in the moment.  

 

This is often not so when a loved one completed suicide because of the fear, the stigma and the judgements people have about the person who died, the spouse or partner and the family as a whole. 

 

When you are bereaved by suicide such a death in its wake leaves behind a silent depth of sorrow, anguish and unreality that can and often does persist especially at this time of year

 

The vacuum within the heart of the survivor is never really empty however, it is filled with a myriad of thoughts, feelings, sensing's, unanswered questions and excruciating pain which they carry around with them unable to put down for very long. 

 

Eventually the pain will become more manageable and those bereaved can find a little distance between the pain and themselves, the rest seem to continue in differing strength and intensities for years and may not subside but be more managed as time passes

 

This is known as disenfranchised grief which is a loss and grief which is not or cannot be openly talked about or acknowledged, by the individual griever,  personally within ones family or  socially so cannot be publicly mourned.  This cuts down on the grievers support network and can have a profound long-lasting effect upon the well-being of the grievers. 

 

People bereaved by suicide are left isolated and alone to ‘get on’ with their grief.

 

YET they too are feeling hollow, alone, lonely and suffering greatly left in a void on their own ….

 

Suicide in the UK is not against the law of the land yet there is such stigma surrounding death by suicide in society today in our communities, it becomes the elephant in the room no one wants to acknowledge or talk about with others, even amongst family members who have lost a loved one in this way.  Family members can feel alone and lonely even when in the same room as each other.

 

For ALL of us what we don't understand is what we fear the most

 

​The language we use blames the person who completed suicide, the usually saying is 'committed' suicide as if this was a criminal offense, the word 'committed' does nothing to help or support those left behind.  In fact it has so many negative connotations that it adds to and hinders their healing and recovery.

 

Sorrow and despair don't go away because it’s Christmas it just highlights what happened -  it’s there and always will be!

 

Suicide is very far from the easy way out for the one bringing their life to a permanent close and neither is it an easy clear-cut decision made.

 

Sat in an overwhelming darkness which takes over any reason or rhyme, there is no choice to be made, a person is not able to take responsibility for self or what they are about to do in those precise moments; time stands still and we are alone with our thoughts and feelings, all that is seen is a turbulent river of black, dark skewed thoughts, feelings and sensing’s forging us forward, crashing us upon jagged rocks.  Sat in this place there is no helping hand one can give self permission to reach for, no  lighthouse on the horizon and no life buoy to hold us up; only hurricanes, tornadoes and tsunamis one can’t seem to get a hold of or find a way through and out; being pulled down by the unknown undercurrent of even more dark and deeper darkness.

 

NO ONE IS TO BLAME FOR SOMEONE ELSE TAKING THEIR LIFE

 

NOT THE PEOPLE LEFT BEHIND AND NOT THE ONE COMPLETING SUICIDE BECAUSE TO DO SO IS NEVER SIMPLE OR CLEAR CUT 

IT IS A COMPLEX, COMPLICATED AND DIFFICULT ACTION.

 

Those left behind are faced with a complex and traumatic grieving process which is added to by the lack of understanding and judgments by others and they can become isolated most of the time and especially at this time of year.

 

When a loved one died at their own hand they didn’t have a mind which could or would think as you or I do and in one sense this is what those outside looking in fear … the unknown!

 

Their thoughts and subsequently their feelings become so skewed that they believe everyone would be better off without them, feeling they are a burden and they don’t have any sense of belonging and feel hopeless and powerless to change their situation.

 

This “better off without me” couldn’t be further from the truth.

 

I read somewhere suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem and it quiet possibly is!

 

That’s just one statement of the desolate knowledge those left behind live with day in and day out for their rest of their lives.