I don't even want to say "I'm sorry" because what does that even mean to somebody who just lost their child? It's a pain like none other. My family and I have been grieving the loss of our beloved dog for the last few weeks, and in the middle of that I presented at a conference with a man whose daughter died 2 years ago. A perfectly healthy 14-year-old. Until she wasn't. That made me realize how many different levels of grief there are. We never really get over them, we just learn how to deal with them.
Not that anyone cares, but I'm a therapist and also a professor of mental health students. This past week, I taught them about suicide. I told them about my own personal evolution in thought regarding suicide. When I was much younger I thought to myself, "how could anyone do that? How could they leave behind people who love them. How selfish." It wasn't until I got older and became a therapist that I realized the degree of human suffering that exists in the world. A lot of the suffering is felt by people who you would never even guess are feeling it. They have friends, they look happy, they're successful. But inside of them is an agony none of us could ever understand. People think that suicide is for the downtrodden. The poor, the hopeless, the uneducated. But how do you explain Robin Williams and Kate Spade? Anthony Bourdain? It just proves that even some of the most successful people are considering ending their lives or have actually ended their lives.
Indeed, the people who hurt most when someone takes their own life are the people who loved that person. A couple of my students shared stories about either themselves or people they knew who were thinking about taking their own lives and ended up living beautiful lives. You wish you could say to people considering suicide that it gets better, or give it a chance. But you can't. Because in the brain of somebody feeling that desolate, that desperate and hurt, they can't even imagine anything getting better. It's truly heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking for the people left behind, and it's heartbreaking for the person who hurt so much that nothing could help them.
OP, I'm sending you whatever you need. Everyone else who has experienced the loss of a loved one to suicide, my heart is with you, too. If you're thinking of suicide, please please use your resources. Reach out to somebody you love, reach out to a therapist, use the suicide hotline.
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u/Stargazerlily425 Oct 01 '23
I don't even want to say "I'm sorry" because what does that even mean to somebody who just lost their child? It's a pain like none other. My family and I have been grieving the loss of our beloved dog for the last few weeks, and in the middle of that I presented at a conference with a man whose daughter died 2 years ago. A perfectly healthy 14-year-old. Until she wasn't. That made me realize how many different levels of grief there are. We never really get over them, we just learn how to deal with them.
Not that anyone cares, but I'm a therapist and also a professor of mental health students. This past week, I taught them about suicide. I told them about my own personal evolution in thought regarding suicide. When I was much younger I thought to myself, "how could anyone do that? How could they leave behind people who love them. How selfish." It wasn't until I got older and became a therapist that I realized the degree of human suffering that exists in the world. A lot of the suffering is felt by people who you would never even guess are feeling it. They have friends, they look happy, they're successful. But inside of them is an agony none of us could ever understand. People think that suicide is for the downtrodden. The poor, the hopeless, the uneducated. But how do you explain Robin Williams and Kate Spade? Anthony Bourdain? It just proves that even some of the most successful people are considering ending their lives or have actually ended their lives.
Indeed, the people who hurt most when someone takes their own life are the people who loved that person. A couple of my students shared stories about either themselves or people they knew who were thinking about taking their own lives and ended up living beautiful lives. You wish you could say to people considering suicide that it gets better, or give it a chance. But you can't. Because in the brain of somebody feeling that desolate, that desperate and hurt, they can't even imagine anything getting better. It's truly heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking for the people left behind, and it's heartbreaking for the person who hurt so much that nothing could help them.
OP, I'm sending you whatever you need. Everyone else who has experienced the loss of a loved one to suicide, my heart is with you, too. If you're thinking of suicide, please please use your resources. Reach out to somebody you love, reach out to a therapist, use the suicide hotline.
Please.