From me to you. And back.

I don't expect people to read this. It's just something I'm trying out. Something I've been asked to try. It probably won't make much sense....I don't know if it's supposed to. It's just words written down as they form in my head........

I read your note again today. Although.....it’s not really a note is it? A note is a short, informal letter and what you wrote is so much more than that. Why did you hide it away so well? I know you wrote that you didn’t want me to find it until I was ready. But when can anyone ever be ready to read a goodbye note from the person that means the most to them in the world? You do know that don’t you? You know you are pretty much my everything, even now, when you’re not really here. I’m still yours. You wrote that you were afraid for me, that you had faith in me. Faith that I could move on. Move on. Like it’s simple and easy to do. It’s not. Can you see how hard it is? Is that why you’re crying all the time. I can hear you know. I hear you nearly every minute of every day. Why are you still crying? It’s torture hearing you cry. Haven’t you run out of tears yet? I’ve been trying to figure out why you cry but all I can do is guess. I wish you could answer me when I ask. I wish I could touch you to comfort you. I want to believe in ghosts so that maybe I might be able to see you. What am I supposed to do? I can’t help you....I’m here and you’re wherever you are. I’m paralysed here and you’re not here to tell me what to do or where to go. I’m supposed to face life and all the crap that goes with it without you? All I want to do is be with you. So, all you need to do is tell me, ask me to come and find you and I will. That's all I need. Just find a way to ask me. So I know. And that's it.

In 7 days you’ll have been gone for 9 months. Nine months. We could have had a baby together in nine months. We could be married by now. We could be happy. You could be happy but you’re not are you? Otherwise why would I be hearing you crying? I know it’s you. It’s not in my head. All this and nothing has changed for you. Is that what you’re trying to tell me? Do you want to come back? It’s too late. I wish miracles like that could happen but they don’t. So now what do we do? What are we supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? I’m lost. How do I move on? We’re still together. We didn’t break up. No one ended it. So how do I “let someone else in” when I’m still full of you? And how do you break up with someone that isn’t really here? You can’t so I’m stuck. And I don’t mind that. I don’t mind but why didn’t you realise this is how it would be? I want to say that you’re crying is haunting me but that seems harsh because if that’s what you need to do then I’ll listen. I just wish I knew why. I want to say that nine months has flown by but some days, time just drags and drags. I thought I’d have forgotten the little things by now. Like the way you looked when you were concentrating with that little frown and the freckle you had on your cheek, the way you bit your lip when you were nervous...but everything about you is still fresh in my head. You are the only thing in my head that isn’t blurred. It’s too late to remind you how happy we were. Sometimes I walk past something and it smells of you and for the tiniest moment none of what’s happened seems true but then the smell drifts away and it all comes back.

Nine months ago I walked in the door and called your name like I always did. You didn't answer and it felt weird. Things felt weird. They had been for a few weeks and it wasn't your fault, it was just all that had happened and gone on. I didn't want or expect you to be okay or normal. I didn't think you would get over it like people wanted you to. All I wanted you to know was that I was there and staying. I don't know. I walked in the door that night, nine months ago......and you didn't answer. The bathroom door was ajar and that was weird because usually we kept it closed. I don't remember why but we always did, didn't we? I pushed the door and something stopped it. It was you. Your legs stopped it. I had to push harder. I had to push you out of the way so I could get in. And there you were, lying on the floor. Things stopped in my head yet sped up all at once as I took in what I was seeing. You were lying on the floor and I didn't quite know what the hell I was looking at. You had been sick and you’d cut your arm. You were bleeding onto the floor. Your eyes were closed and you looked pale. How far were you gone? Could you see me? Or hear me? I remember shaking you, shouting at you to open your eyes. You didn't....I did all the medical checks, called the ambulance, and I started. I started what I knew, what I was taught and this time I thought, yeah, this time will be the exception, the one time when it works, when all that we do fits together perfectly and you get given a chance to come back. I wonder, if you were offered that chance did you turn it down? What about now? Would you come back now? Would you come back if we swapped places? I would if it meant you’d be okay. I wonder if things would be different if I’d found you earlier. Would you have come back to me then? I don’t even remember the ambulance turning up, they did what they were supposed to. We got you into hospital and they worked on you. I watched them. Normally they remove relatives from the room but I got to stay. So I watched them try their best and it didn't work did it? Forty minutes later the consultant looked up and he said the words "I'm sorry, I think we should stop". I was waiting for those words and he looked at me, almost begging me with his eyes to agree, and all I could do was look to the ground. That was the official moment that you were gone but looking back you were gone long before that. The goodbye I said then meant nothing. I look back and I think what was the point of all that? I knew you had left me the second I pushed that bathroom door and yet I still put you through all that. I knew it was pointless but you just never know do you? There are medical miracles everyday. Pains disappear, illnesses go away and hearts restart. Why didn't yours? Did you feel any of it? Did it hurt you? Do you forgive me? Do you understand? I had to at least try right? To try and give you a chance to change your mind. They put you in that room.....and they try to make that room nice. There’s always flowers in there and the lighting is soft and glowing. But that room is horrible. You can’t make death look pretty. You can’t make death easier with a few wilting flowers and a candle. You lay there and you didn’t look like you but I stayed with you until they came to take you away. Do you know how it feels to know that you’ll never ever see someone ever again? Of course you do....maybe that’s what you were thinking when you were taking those pills. Or maybe not.....I don’t know what you were thinking. I thought you were turning a corner the night before. You let me hold you and we fell asleep together and you whispered that you loved me when you thought I was asleep. You sounded really sad when you said it and I wish I’d opened my eyes and said it back. Maybe you wouldn’t have gone through with it if I had? Is there anything.....absolutely anything....I could have done to make you stay? I torture myself everyday over things I said, things I didn’t say, things I did or didn’t do. If I missed something how am I ever going to put it right? I wish you could speak to me, to tell me what I need to know. Just find a way to tell me, to ask me. Just ask me. Ask me and I'll come and find you. Tell me you want me still. I stayed in that room after watching you go and I was numb. Just sitting. When we walked outside Dean said “it’s light again” and all I could think was “No it isn’t. It’ll never be light again.” Dean took me home and then I was alone. I didn’t want anyone around. I sat on the bathroom floor all night. And all of the next day too. And where were you?

You wrote.....“Remember that I love you, I love you, I love you. You are my one and always will be”

Right back at ya.

I am sorry for your loss, 15. I lost my sister in a similar way, if what I am getting from this is correct. It has been 6 years. I will say it gets easier. The pain gets less, but the memories stay strong.

From her to me......maybe....

It’s regret. I think it’s regret that she feels. Because it didn’t work like she wanted it to. She sounds hopeless, like there’s no hope there. Like it was all in vain because she still feels so bad and now so do I. She’s afraid of something but I don’t know what it is. Maybe she’s afraid of me, of what I’m like now. Maybe there’s something there that frightens her. Maybe it’s too dark. I don’t know. Her tears aren’t from happiness. She isn’t happy. And if she isn’t happy then she isn’t at peace so it didn’t work. Maybe all that she felt here is worse there. She doesn’t feel right. Maybe she’s afraid of being alone.....she sounds like she’s longing for something, someone....maybe me? Maybe she wants me again. But I don’t know if she wants me there with her or whether she wants to come back here to me. I think that maybe she realises that this might just destroy me and I know she doesn’t want that so maybe that’s why she’s crying. Maybe we both feel guilty. I don’t want her to feel guilty. I used to hear her cry more clearly in the bedroom but now it’s the same in the bathroom. I don’t why it’s so clear in the bedroom but the bathroom......maybe she’s upset that I sit or lay there where she died . It is weird I guess. She always used to cry when I cried. She didn’t like to see me upset. I never cried very much......Maybe a few times after talking about various stuff with her and she would get upset seeing me upset. She cries when I cry. Maybe she cries harder when I cry because in a way she kind of caused it. But I don’t want her to feel guilty. She hid the note away because she wanted me to be stronger when I read it so maybe I’d understand her reasons better. I wasn’t supposed to find it until I was better. Did I find it too soon?

I don’t know if any of this is what she’s really thinking or saying or what I imagine or wish.

I don't know much about the afterlife. In many ways I wish I did. I just know what my faith has taught me. When my sister passed I felt guilt that I didn't see her pain, guilt because I had been taught that with suicide the person goes to hell. However I spoke to my pastor because of these feelings and he pointed out a passage in the bible that speaks of God protecting the meek. This was my sister, she was ill. thereforeee that gave me hope that she is in a better place and some of my guilt has passed.

As for you hearing her, I sometimes wish I could have heard my sister. But now that I read your post, maybe it is better that I cant hear her, now that I see your pain. I am sorry this is a difficult time for you.

I felt like I was right there every step of the way with you. How painful. I even cried myself.

It's so good that you are able to write this out in paper.

Godspeed...

~Allie

Storeys,

This has left me in tears. It could have been me writing about K, the pain I felt seeing her carried out of our house on a gurney, en route to the hospital. Never to come home again. Never to see our son again. Or ever be together again.

But I'm inspired to see you've written it down, letting some of the pain out, along with some honest questions you must deal with. That's a very brave step, on a shaky precipise.

As for hearing her cry...I don't know. I didn't hear K's voice afterwards, but instead had a never ending visual loop playing in my mind of her waving to me as the EMT's wheeled her out. Was she waving goodbye? Or letting me know she thought she'd be OK? This went on for weeks, and only stopped after I went to counselling. Other people had some similar experiences, and it finally made me feel OK to let go of that image. Not that it has stopped altogether, it hasn't, but is far more infrequent...usually when I get very exhausted, so I know the triggers and can except the fact that it is coming back again.

I wish you well my friend, and hope that writing it down has been good for you.

If ever the need, PM, OK?

Your friend,

KG

I've never experienced a loss like this so I have no idea what you're feeling. This information gives me a little insight, but never could it give me the feelings you're feeling. I'd be devastated. Your story does give me an idea of how permanent suicide is and how it effects everyone around you. Makes me appreciate every moment. If I could keep your story in the back of my mind, life would be a brighter place.

It took me a long time to read that. There was some parts that reminded me of my story I admit I had to leave and have a little cry and come back. Not only for you and what you have been through but for me too I think. Very emotional.

I'm so glad that you have written this out, as painful as it must have been I do really think it really does help. I know it helps me just to get things out in this way.

I want you to know that you can PM me too, anytime about anything.

As always my thoughts are with you.

She wrote that this way what we have stays untouched and pure......that kind of indicates that she still wants to be with me doesn't it? I've not sat down and really read her words until now. Now I can't seem to stop. She thought that if she had stayed we wouldn't get through it as a couple. Maybe we wouldn't have but at least she'd still be here, and at least have a chance to change her mind. It tortures me that she might be regretting her decision. How will she ever find some peace if she regrets it? And what am I supposed to do to make things better for the both of us. Reading what she wrote it's contradictive.......she wants what we have to remain untouched but then she says she wants me to let someone else in. What does that even mean? What does she really want? Can you hear me Cass? What do you want me to do? I don't know what she's saying....I can't feel it. I'm just guessing. How do you feel something from just a sound?

15 Storeys - I've been thinking about this thread all morning. I too read it.. wiping tears along the way. The strength that you've had for the past several months is admirable. What you have experienced, I can never possibly imagine the pain.

This last post of yours... I just want to say that if anything were ever to happen to me, I would never want my loved ones to be so alone, so hurt, so unable to move forward with their own future. I'd never want them to live in such pain. I don't think that she would have wanted you to either.

You definitely seem to be progressing at a pace that works for you. I just hope that you "want" to one day feel better. That at some point you will accept that yes, you can and will survive this. Punishing yourself or insisting on never feeling any happiness... is not going to change anything. And I strongly believe that - she wouldn't have wanted this misery, pain, and unhappiness for you.

Hugs to you~~~ You've come a long way. A journey that many of us may not be strong enough to follow..

"she wants what we have to remain untouched but then she says she wants me to let someone else in. What does that even mean?"

Storeys,

I would take it as she wants what you had together to stay in your heart, as pure and blissful as it was.

And that she wants you to make room in your life for another, if ever that happens.

As you know, before K ever got sick, we had spoken of the "what ifs?"...and we both agreed to let someone else in when the time was right. But that the other would always remain in our hearts, as the way it should be.

15, my thoughts on the loved ones that have left us are that they are gone physically, but spirtually they are very much around.

I remember when you found the note. I told you that you found it becuase she wanted you to find it. They have a way of guiding us through this life journey even though we don't directly see them or feel them. I have always believed that we are led down certain paths by the loved ones that have left us.

Where ever you think she is, she still loves and cares about you. You have to know that.

I think that she thought that she was hurting you or damaging what you had because of how she was hurting and she loved you so much that she just couldn't do that to you.

I believe what she said is meant in the purest of love, even the contradictions. I also believe that someone who lived the emotional pain that she felt, knew love deeply and all the contradictions of love.

Yes, you will be with her again, but time isn't measured in our mortal days and months and years, your time must be lived out in it's whole path, as we must do that are left behind. Everyday that we go forward and every moment that we carry one, we do in tribute of those we have lost. It seems shallow and senseless at times, but this is what life gives us ... both loves and loses. And pity the poor soul who never learns of loves joys and sorrows.

These are haunting thoughts, your words touched very deeply to my life and I also found my tears. We don't know why we are here and why we are give this pain to carry, but we know we must ... for in it all there is somewhere a reason, a purpose, so we go on ........ and in time all things change, in their own ways and in their own time. We go on, we wait for it all to make sense.

Alone, alone, all, all alone,

Alone on a wide wide sea !

And never a saint took pity on

My soul in agony.

He despiseth the creatures of the calm,

The many men, so beautiful !

And they all dead did lie :

And a thousand thousand slimy things

Lived on ; and so did I.

And envieth that they should live, and so many lie dead.

I looked upon the rotting sea,

And drew my eyes away ;

I looked upon the rotting deck,

And there the dead men lay.

I looked to heaven, and tried to pray ;

But or ever a prayer had gusht,

A wicked whisper came, and made

My heart as dry as dust.

I closed my lids, and kept them close,

And the balls like pulses beat ;

For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky

Lay like a load on my weary eye,

And the dead were at my feet.

But the curse liveth for him in the eye of the dead men.

The cold sweat melted from their limbs,

Nor rot nor reek did they :

The look with which they looked on me

Had never passed away.

An orphan's curse would drag to hell

A spirit from on high ;

But oh ! more horrible than that

Is the curse in a dead man's eye !

Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,

And yet I could not die.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

This is all so powerful and evocative, Storeys...how can anyone's heart not be entirely wrenched in two, alongside you?

But I am so glad that you have put this all down, to stamp it into time, for yourself, for her, for the forces that be, to behold this moving and raw testament of love and pain. I have now read this more than once...and it just doesn't get any easier to read without breaking down a little inside, my feelings going out to you as they do.

For what it's worth...I believe that if she is in a state of consciousness to feel regret about her act, fear for you and a desire for protection, or any other restless and unhappy abiding, she has also the full capacity to be aware and conscious of the overflowing love and compassion you feel for her. And you don't need to go and "find her" then, for this barrier of worlds to be transcended -- has she not found you, with her cries? You have heard them, and so she has been heard! She is not "alone" then, there. She has access to you. And conversely, have you not found her, with your penetrating, yearning questions and tortured lamentations? You are sensing -- with all the powers of an intuitive soul who has no reason to doubt his impressions -- that she is responding in a way that you would expect her to, knowing her nature so intimately: by crying to see you so distraught. So you have been heard. And you are not alone here. This means that you can have a meeting of "hearts", of consciousness, exactly where you stand. There is no where else you have to go to do this or for her to go. You are available to each other, through subliminal communication, the perceptions of your corporeal mind (which I do believe to be sound and perfectly sane, despite the haze of exhaustion you are in) and other channels that we cannot possibly fathom.

I am so gratified that you in fact were able to attempt at interpreting what you think she might be trying to say to you, in return to your questions and inner dialogue. I don't believe it's a one-way street (you simply asking into a void), for the reasons I mentioned above. And reading what you've felt about her "end" of this interaction, a few things come to me very strongly.

I've bolded (and underlined, for extra emphasis) what I find to be the most critical insights here for you:

First -- NO, as for the note. You didn't find it too soon. You found it exactly when you were supposed to, in my opinion. I don’t believe that there have been any “accidents” since she left, in terms of your healing path. You were supposed to find it when you were "better"...and that's exactly what happened. If I recall correctly, didn't you find it about 5 months after her death or so? There is no way I think you could have dealt with the things she wrote there right at the beginning, when you were in a state of shock and barely able to comprehend that she was indeed gone. How could you comprehend or even bear to read words about your "letting someone else in" at such a stage of disbelief and immediate, cataclysmic loss? So, you HAD in fact gotten more to a place where you'd be able to at least read those words, even if being "better" still has so much farther to go and is still an onward journey for you. You found it just when you had enough resiliance to bear to read it, and yet still with questions of great import raking at you — not the least of which was why you’d been denied a note at the end, so that settled that one question right there. I am so glad you got a note and exactly when you did. YOU ARE BETTER THAN YOU WERE...and believe it or not, I think you are coming to a sort of turning point because now, you are fighting to reconcile what happened with what comes next. And there, despite wanting to move forward, you find yourself confronted with some critical issues -- about loyalty, devotion, what defines love, the notion of “soulmate”, happiness and self-preservation. In some ways, this is just as difficult as the immediate shock, because you have progressed far enough to ask what the future might look like, what it might hold...and how you are going to proceed to bridge this chasm of what was with what will be -- that being a frightening unknown. But a prospect now anyway, and one that you are approaching more closely and having to face more squarely now.

Now as for the bolded parts that jump out to me. I find this striking, that while the dominant emotion here seems to be regret...what this transitions into, after sadness for herself, is really more about sadness for you, fear for you. “She cries when I cry” to me says it all — and well, you have not stopped crying (in your heart, if not outright) all this while for her, so then how could she stop? The more you suffer with your own guilt, and feeling guilty about her feeling guilty (yes, that would be a mutual, shared response here, big time — a rather vicious circle, at that), the more she cries — the louder, the more persistently. That would, in and of itself, explain what’s been going on, even with all the other reasons you’ve mentioned in the mix.

So here’s the thing...

This is a great thing to ask — how to make it better for BOTH of you. And it would seem that since both of you are kind of saying, “I cannot be happy until you are happy”, there is a bit of a stalemate here. What is going to give? If this destroyed you...would that bring her comfort and peace? Would that bring healing or wholeness to this ripped-outness? Would ripping out the rest of what’s given to you here on earth to live, to go forward with as time still allotted to you, make her feel happy that you were “that loyal” to her to sacrifice everything else that you might still attain?

If she is crying because you are so miserable -- the things you are supposed to do to make things better for you and you collectively (and by that token, for the state of her spiritual well-being) -- is to commit yourself wholeheartedly to your mending what is broken, which is your heart and your life. You help her, you (as Storeys) and you as a pair by telling her that you intend to make your life bit by bit, ounce by ounce, baby step by baby step exactly what she would have hoped for when she wrote that note.

Now, if you feel doubt about this, I would suggest another step to this process you’ve started: write some more to her about your difficulties with all that. Lay your doubts about being happy again, going on “without her”, the question of whether it’s okay, the matter of your guilt...lay that all bare, just as you laid things out in your first post of this thread. Tell her what you’re up against. And ask her about the permission she gave you to “let someone else in” -- what would she feel about that if you really did? Tell her of your conflicts and ask her what she really wants, allowing the answer to come through all that you know, all that she was, all that is happening right now that you can sense. Listen for her response again. And then write that down. Cycle two of this.

Think of it this way: you even offered to swap places with her if it would make her okay and put things right. If the roles were reversed then, if she was the one in your shoes...what would you want for her? What would put your spirit at peace to see? Would you want to see her find everything she deserves to be happy, even though you can’t provide that now for her yourself? Or would you want her to waste her years away in sorrow, merely waiting to die to be with you? Or worse...finding a means of self-destruction, only to meet you wherever you both now can be together, to cry for the rest of time over 2 lives destroyed instead of one?

I have spoken with people who have “visitations” of various kinds of their loved ones...and universally it seems, those spirits come to the living in peace, tranquil and even blissful presentations. Even in the cases of children who died prematurely, parents do report their departed children as appearing in a protected space — not dark, not solitary and gloomy. Likewise, when people who have lived until a ripe old age are on the brink, but surrounded by loving and caring relatives, they pass gracefully into the next dimension, not to return with mournful and haunting presense. So it is my belief — what little I tentatively allow myself to believe of this confounding matter of existence — that the state of a spirit’s consciousness is not about the PLACE they go to — it is about the place they came from. The state they left things in, the world they left and how they left. I think it’s the state of consciousness Cassie is in, not that she is in a “bad place” in a physical environment way, but in the sense of the damage she did and the pain she’s caused.

But consciousness is very changeable, and so it’s not like she’s damned somewhere in a purgatory of regret that can never be healed. I think an expansive state of peace is available to anyone, whatever their form (which is why I don’t believe in eternal hells; though temporary ones, constructed of our own emotions, exist.) So not is all lost for her — and you know something, she is on an evolving journey as much as you are, though we have no idea what that consists of. It is not the mortal one we understand, so we cannot know. But I believe there is redemption, peace and happy abiding to be found at any point along any path. And how dare I profess to know? Well, there is nothing in this universe that remains just STATIC, AS IS, forever and ever. Do you know of anything like that? I don’t. And thereforeee, I have to assume that all phenomena does, can and will change. Both in form and non-form, which is the pure consciousness state she is now in.

But so then now, you can be an instrument, an agent, for that change for her as I’ve said — by devoting yourself to her spirit through the pursuit of your own happiness and well-being. I know this is so much easier loftily bandied about than done (which other posters have all expressed here, just more succinctly)...and I know that right now, you simply feel it would be a betrayal. But you’ve got to get to that point where you see her healing as an extension of your own.

You know those optical illusion works of art where they ask you, “Can you see a such-and-such in this picture?” And all you can see is something else that the image is made to look like? You stare and stare until your eyeballs wanna fall out, but you just can’t see the such-and-such? You are so fixated on the one image that you can see, you just can’t discern the other form at all. And then — something suddenly flips! And you go “Ah ha!! Yes, I DO see the such-and-such now!” And then you can see both, and flip back and forth at will.

I think this is the kind of “flip” that is on its way here for you...for you to see that loving her (that much I will say is “forever”!) does not equate with having to disavow yourself, the rest of your life, to cast in the love you have left to give anyone who is lucky enough to receive it. Love, by the way, belongs to no one. Like a candle flame, you can give it to another candle without the main candle being diminished in any way at all. The fire is just fire, it is not any one candle’s fire and can be distributed infinitely. Once you realize this (another “flip” , you’ll see that you are not depriving her of anything. But she already knows this. She doesn’t need to be convinced or apologized to. When Cassie wrote that note, she gave you permission to use your love just like this.

And all that remains is for you to accept her permission. To give YOURSELF that permission. It’s you that needs to feel convinced in your heart of this.

I say “all that remains”, but that is what is so hard here, and it’s really an upward climb from here. It’s going to be a slow and gradual process, but if you know that this is what will help make things better for both of you, then you have something to strive toward, to devote yourself to, even to promise her.

And know that as gradually as you go, so will her tears of sadness and fear gradually be lessened. None of these things will transform all at once, even with some determination and a lot of commitment on your part. But to break that stalemate of guilt and regret, you can start the wheels moving. You can say, “the buck [or the pound, or the euro] stops with me” (I just realized that’s an American expression), my effort now is to break the spell of perpetuating mutual guilt that keeps both of you stuck.

So...if Cassie is in a state to regret something, sensing all that is wrong...she also has the power to sense what else is evolving into something new, to know how much she matters, how much you miss her — and to bless your striving for both your sakes. Neither of you has to remain stuck. You can get unstuck together, just as you have been feeling guilty together, and crying together.

I believe you can heal together, in the sense that even being separated for a while in this life, you have both dedicated yourselves to each other’s happiness in your respective realms.

And to fulfill your end of that, you start with loving yourself back to health, Storeys.

You don’t have to imagine that all at once, but by the measures, small and bold, that can be taken each day towards that end.

From me to you....

The thing is....I wasn't really all that happy when I met you. I was kind of a mess. On the outside I looked fine....everybody thought I was fine but I was always good at faking that things were okay. You saw right through all of that and it made me sit up and notice you. At first I was kind of wary about you, the way you spoke to me, the things you just seemed to know about me.....But I looked forward to seeing you and talking to you, and it was you that made me happy and changed things for me. Maybe you don't realise how much you did for me, maybe that's why you think I could move on so easily.....that I could just let someone in to take over from you. It isn't going to work like that. There is no one like you. No one that can say things like the way you said them so how can anyone replace you? Because that's what you're telling me to do. Replace you. And I know that people will say it isn't like that....that I can still love you and be with someone else but it just doesn't work like that for me. There's no room for anyone else. And maybe I have fleeting pangs when I realise that this probably means that I'll be alone from now on. But that's okay because I had you, just for a little while, and that's okay too. I'd rather have been with you for a short time than no time. Could you really see me with someone other than you? Can you really watch that happen? I know you want me to be happy but what will make me happy isn't someone else. It's you. How am I supposed to change the way I think? I can't just switch off how I feel. And you can't break up with me in a suicide note, yet tell me you love too. I'm not going to accept it. Did you see me the other night? Did you watch what I did? I regret it. I hate it. I'm sorry. What did you think? Did it upset you? I feel guilty about that, and the fact that I didn't or couldn't help you, that I missed something, that I didn't say something I should have, that I didn't do something you wanted me to, that I put you through the resus attempt, that I took away your dignity in death, that your ribs cracked.....Did you feel that? I felt it, under my hands....that was the moment I lost it. Do you remember? I yelled at them to hurry up, to get you out, to help you. I swore at them. I yelled at you to open your eyes, not to go, to stay, to come back. So I'm sorry about that....I dream about that a lot.....when your ribs cracked underneath my hands. I've felt it before, lots of times. It always makes you pause and you have to take a deep breath and compose yourself to carry on. It's different when it's the one person you love the most in the world. It's worse. Does it hurt now, wherever you are? Do you forgive me?

You did what you had to do Storeys, in that situation you did what anyone else would have done. Even if not everyone could, you did.

You did what you had to do Storeys, in that situation you did what anyone else would have done. Even if not everyone could, you did.

I agree Dags. Storeys, you were trying to save her, and probably acting on pure adrenaline....pleade don't beat yourself up for this, it was your response to a terrible situation.

KG

Storeys, you were doing what you are trained to do. I am sure you were on auto-pilot. The whole scene did not seem real. You were doing a job that you had done hundreds of times.

If it had been a complete stranger, the same thing would have happened.

Please - stop beating yourself up for this. It simply serves no purpose other than to torture yourself needlessly.

~Allie

I can't help it. It's always in my head no matter what I do.

Those are memories I have struggled with too especially in the early months. It was as if my mind kept throwing it up the the front of my head.

Even now when it gets thrown up again I just tell myself that I did eveything I could. If I could of done more I would of done and I tell myself that it is not a memory I need to look at anymore.

Stories,

My high school crush was in a horrible car accident when he was 17. The first person on the scene was a doctor, his father and he could do nothing, he was incapacitated by seeing his son. This was in the days before cell phones and 911 emergancy service. He survived but it caught up to him later in life.

What I want to to hear from this is that even the most skilled and best trained sometimes cannot perform, you did. You did more than others could have.

We ALWAYS want to be able to do more, that's a pretty normal response. She knows that, she knows what is in your heart.

Think about it this way --

If you had just stopped in your tracks and called the ambulance, trying to spare her "heroic measures" and shying away, or cringing...and they lost her after all, as they did...what would be going through your mind?

"What if I could have saved her?? I was trained in this for f's sake, what happened to me when I needed to do it the most?! Why did I freeze up like that? What if those few precious moments were the difference between her living and not making it?!"

I think that would have made the difference between your sanity about reviewing that scene in your mind, and insanity, right now.

You were placed in a terrible position -- there were no good choices. But you made the call that of the couple of choices you had, was the ONLY one that would leave you with a clear conscience. I can see that your conscience has managed to torture you even so, but recognize that is only because there were no good options and you simply couldn't save her and were ultimately powerless. Separate the outcome from what you had to do. If a miracle had happened and it had saved her, you would have been so glad to have done that even with what it required you to do. Let your conscience have a break for once.

So it WAS heroic what you did -- to help her fight for that last chance, as you call it, to change her mind, whatever last-ditch effort it took.

I know the images are very compelling to return to, that must be just horrible. I'm imagining what you go through with this and it's sickening. HOWEVER, it's one thing to have an image play out again and again that is just sickening and to just deal with that. It's another thing to have an emotional script that goes along with it that -- one that involves your having guilt and feeling you did something bad, and incriminating yourself.

Please, try to separate the two: the image just as an image of something awful, and the emotional overlay that is not an appropriate or correct assessment of YOURSELF in the scenario.

Instead, when the feelings about yourself and what you did (what you had to do, really, if you wanted to give her a fighting chance) come up in your mind, have a script ready in your mind. You might even want to write this down, to take that pointless, self-defeating state of self-blame out of this equation:

"I'm grateful that I had the skills to even try, that I was not at the mercy of having to wait for someone else to try."

"I'm grateful that I had the chance to give it the BEST EFFORT anyone could have, so that I wouldn't wonder forever if someone else tried when it was too late to try."

"I did the best I could."

"She knew I would try. She knows what my natural response would be. She expected that to happen. This is the first thing she allowed me to do, she knew it would be attempted. She gave her permission when she made her decision."

And entertain the idea that she in fact welcomed this as a final act of love, desperate love in the hands of a capable person who was doing what she always admired. Entertain the possibility that she willingly allowed it all to proceed, and even loved you for the effort and strength that it took; and that not only does she forgive you, but she looks upon it as one of the things that makes you so dear to her, that you went to such lengths, that you did not give up on her physical body even though she had.

When you start to separate the emotional bondage of your second-guessing yourself from just the pure memory of the gruesome images (and in fact, give the whole scenario this "positive" kind of slant as one of efforts that were appreciated by her), I think the image itself will become less and less charged.

I keep telling you to go "within" yourself to hear her responses because I think you are capable of intuiting many things beyond some people. Which is why I say, even if you couldn't communicate with her at all, the above stands. But now...with you having had some interchanges with her spirit...I think you could ask her "Do you forgive me?" and clear your mind of the slate of your own pangs of self-doubt here, propose an alternative view as I've laid out above, and see that in fact she confirms this.

I feel very strongly that she does. That she would.

When you find yourself in that situation, as you did when you walked through that door that day Storeys, there is no time to think only to act.

There is no weighing up the consequences or time to consider it's just, "bam! This is the situation now what are you going to do?"

There is only one thing that you could have done and that was to help her and do everything you could. And you did.

Now when you look back and you see what happened it's only natural to think was it right to put her through that when it was already too late but the truth is when you walked through that door you didn't know how things were going to work out. The future was not set, you had to try, you had to do everything you could and you did.

"she wants what we have to remain untouched but then she says she wants me to let someone else in. What does that even mean?"

 

Storeys,

I would take it as she wants what you had together to stay in your heart, as pure and blissful as it was.

And that she wants you to make room in your life for another, if ever that happens.

I also wanted to add that KG is right on the mark here, in terms of how I read her words. I couldn't have said it better myself.

I don't think she has said anything contradictory. She has said that she wants the love you shared to remain in your mind and heart as it was before all this happened. But that this doesn't mean you don't allow others (or someone else) to develop their own place in your heart. That those are not mutually exclusive.

I understand how you feel now, though. You simply cannot go there now in your mind and heart and you know something, that actually cannot be expected at this juncture. So at this point, I think you should take her words in that note not as "instructions" about what to do right now, but rather what she has allowed you to create whenever it should arise, however it might.