Still dealing with father's suicide

[redpoppy99]

Hello all-

 

I pretty much just need to get this out and I don't feel I can dicuss this with anyone else so this seems like a good place to go. When I was in about 3rd/4th grade (I don't exactly remember a whole lot from that time in my life) my parents divorced and it was nasty. Both trash talking each other, my father trashing my mother's new boyfriend... the worst part of it was that my brothers and I had to choose who to live with. My father was, unfortunately, not the best. He got to the point where he beat my brothers and I and that made us want to go live with our mom. None of us wanted to hurt our dad's feelings, we just missed our mom. Well, one day when I was in 6th grade, my father dropped us off at our mom's and never came back. He wrote me a letter once and that was the last I heard from him. Well, my mom ended up marrying her new boyfriend and our new step-dad adopted us. This happened on the first day of my freshman year in high school. About a month later, we found out that my father had killed himself. My brothers cried and I tried to be sad but I hadn't seen him in so long and I was still so hurt and angry with him for just disappearing. Well, my father's mother refused to allow us to go to the funeral because, in her head, we had abandoned him. I pushed this all to the back of my head until I was about 19, when I decided to go look for his grave. I found it in his home state by accident (a friend of mine went with me and we looked through all the major grave sites and just happened to spot an old, hidden one off the side of the highway and parked RIGHT next to his grave) and still, not much remorse was felt. The biggest feeling I had was confusion. Why did he kill himself? Why did he leave us? My mother and her husband told us that he was there the day we got adopted to give up his rights as father. Is this true or did they make him out to be a bad guy trying to spare our feelings? I don't know what's real and what is made up, I don't know if he really ever loved me or not. I saw a drawing of someone that looked exactly like my real dad last night and I almost cried- but it mostly just made my heart hurt, not knowing the truth. Has anyone else out there ever dealt with this or even just dealt with a parental suicide? How do you deal with it? How do you get closure? How do you accept what they did? How can I get over this?

[jengh]

I'm really sorry. A boy I graduated with, I also babysat his younger siblings for years..his father commited suicide my senior year. It was a truly traumatic experience. A very successful lawyer-why???

Have you tried therapy? Even though it's been years, it still makes a HUGE impact on your life. You could look into grief counseling. They could help you to answer the questions for yourself. Give you a little more closure... I'm sorry I can't be more helpful...

[Honey Pumpkin]

I'm so sorry to hear about this, it's an awful thing to deal with. One good quote about suicide is this:

 

"Suicide flies in the face of people's beliefs abut how life is and how it operates"

 

It's hard to get your head around, and the long term effects are profound. There are these references online, which you may find useful - some of the especially seem to be about your situation:

 

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A study shows that that it's incredibly hard to deal with the suicide of a parent, and that it's about experiencing the pain, hiding the pain, and healing the pain. The need to hide the pain often interfered with the process of healing the pain. Findings indicate that many survivors of suicide during childhood experience painful, unresolved grief that affects their well-being in adulthood.

 

I would suggest talking to a bereavement counsellor - cruse if you're in the uk are wonderful. I'm not sure what the equivalent is where you are - let me know where you are and I'll dig out some references if you like.

 

Take good care of yourself

[NKP]

My father killed himself when i was 11 and there is not a day goes by that i dont think of him or why did he do it, it hurts like hell knowing what he did, he left me, i wonder if he cared or loved me at night and lay awake, i look up at the stars and wonder if he can see me, see my sad broken eyes. I have never gotten over it i have just learn to live with it

[chocolady]

I'm so sorry to hear what has happened. I wish there was something I could say to make it all make sense for you and I can only guess why he did this.

 

From what you have written it sounds to me like he was extremely depressed, things just got on top of him, he had more pain that he could cope with. He lost his wife and then his children, and losing his children by giving up his rights to them (even if it was the best thing for them), was the final straw and more than he could bear and FELT inside that he had nothing to live for.

 

People who are unstable aren't thinking rationally, and DESPITE trying everything they can think of, ALL they can think about is the pain inside them, and what caused that pain and more importantly, how they can rid themselves of it. The pain becomes overwhelming and they see no end to it ever. Negative thoughts playing over and over in their mind just reaffirms their worthlessness and talks them into BELIEVING that there IS no end and never will be. Hope is lost.

 

I honestly believe that if he did not love you all that there would be no pain inside him. He would have felt reilef and move on happily in his life, wouldn't he?

 

You were a child at the time, you had probably never even heard the word Suicide or not understood what it had meant even if you did. And I think that everyone at some point feels or thinks, why didnt I do this, why didn't I do that, Why didnt he tell me, why? why? why? But the truth is, how could anyone have known how he felt inside, emotional pain does not have external symptoms, nobody could see or feel what was going on inside him.

 

 

I think that to accept what has happened, everyone needs to understand and this page might give you just SOME understanding to why people do such a drastic and irreversable thing.

 

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[redpoppy99]

From what you have written it sounds to me like he was extremely depressed, things just got on top of him, he had more pain that he could cope with. He lost his wife and then his children, and losing his children by giving up his rights to them (even if it was the best thing for them), was the final straw and more than he could bear and FELT inside that he had nothing to live for....

And I think that everyone at some point feels or thinks, why didnt I do this, why didn't I do that, Why didnt he tell me, why? why? why? But the truth is, how could anyone have known how he felt inside, emotional pain does not have external symptoms, nobody could see or feel what was going on inside him.link removed

 

 

I have thought of this possibility but it pains me more to think WE were the reason he did it. I don't understand, if this was the reason, why he didn't try to contact us.. why did he just disappear? We never wanted him out of our lives and maybe we didn't communicate that but I don't remember ever making it seem like that. I do ask why and I wish someone could tell me. I have looked and looked for his obituary, for anything hoping to get more insight. I don't even know how it happened... and maybe I don't want to. I wish I knew who he was involved with- family, friends, or whoever- before he did it. What he was like, what he was going through... anything would be nice. I just don't know how to deal with it...

[chocolady]

I wish I had the answers for you. All I can say is that people who commit sucide aren't thinking rationally. Because if they were, they would see and understand that they have irrational thoughts and feelings of never being free from their 'problems' and the suffering it causes them and wouldn't do it.

 

If they WERE thinking rationally, they would seek help, talk to people, do ALL the things that rational people would do under those circumstances but they aren't.

 

I don't think that ANYONE will ever truly understand why their loved one kills themselves, not ever. All we can get is a glimmering to what they might have been going through and I think thats the best we can hope for.

 

I found a good page that gives good solid advice and I hope this wil help you in some small way.

 

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