Disclaimer, I will be talking about suicide, I will be talking about bi-polar disorder, I will be talking about mania and survivors of suicide loss. If any of these are a trigger for you, please skip this blog. I want to keep you in a good place, as often as possible.
Now, most of you know that I’m a very transparent person when it comes to mental health and losing my husband, Tim, to suicide. I sat on this blog post for a while, probably a good week or so just contemplating what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say. I always want to share my experiences because someone else may be going through the same thing. We may feel alone in our struggles but we are never really alone. I also like to choose my words carefully to keep my husband safe. He was a wonderful husband to me and we had far more good years than rough years.
With that said, let’s get into it. The other day someone asked me if Tim’s suicide was a surprise or shock to me. I sat quietly for a moment, then replied, ‘as awful as this sounds no, it wasn’t surprising. The manner and timing of it was surprising but the act itself was not’. You see, Tim hadn’t wanted to live for quite some time. His desire to leave this earth would be like a ton of bricks when he was in a manic episode. At one point I started to track his cycles so I could be prepared when I knew they may be coming but it didn’t really make them any easier. Mania is a weird weird thing. With Tim having depressive bi-polar disorder, this meant that he was always feeling low and then a manic episode would make that low a million times worse. It was actually pretty crazy to experience because I could see in his eyes when he went from himself, to a manic state. Like a switch, his eyes would change, and in that moment, I knew I was no longer talking to my husband but to his illness. Nothing I could have said or done in that moment would have mattered. I tried in the beginning, tried to calm him down, tried to talk him off the ledge, share how much he had accomplished in life and all the reasons he had to live. But when that mania hit... it wasn’t worth talking about. He was so deep into that dark depression that I would just have to let the manic episode pass. During these episodes he would express a deeper desire to not want to live anymore. He would ask for my consent to just let him go and I refused.
Mind you, these would often happen after I was just getting home from an 8-10 hour work day or right as I was getting ready for bed, to go to work the next day. There were many days that I drove home wondering if this would be the day I find him. Many days where I called him repeatedly throughout the day, just to ensure he didn’t act on his emotions. Often times I didn’t know what I would be coming home to and remember, he was mentally ill, so he would wake up with uncertainty too. I would spend countless hours at work worrying about his mental state at home and how he was feeling. Many times I went into work with a heavy conscious because I felt compelled to stay home during these episodes but I had to go to work. I had to go to work, smile like everything is fine, pretend that I’m OK, when I was an absolute train wreck inside. When people say fake it til you make it, that shit is no joke. I faked it for many years, for many reasons, and in front of many people. In reality, I didn’t want people to know just how bad his mental health had gotten and what we were going through in our home.
Then those other questions, “well what did you do about it?’ or ‘why didn’t you call for help?’ Here’s the thing my friends... I did. I would call our therapist for guidance on how to calm him down, I utilized tools from our marriage therapist, we did various forms of treatment, hell, I even sent him to DBHC (Doctor’s Behavioral Health Center) here in Modesto and that just gave me so much guilt because that place is a trash hole. It’s a dump. The staff doesn’t care about actually helping people, they don’t have an organized system, the place reeked of urine. I couldn’t get him out of there fast enough. We then tried a dual diagnosis wellness (rehab) center down south. Another slap in the face, they took all of our hard-earned money and didn’t do jack shit for his mental health. They wanted to focus on his drinking and we made it very clear that wasn’t why we sent him there. Main problem mental illness, coping mechanism alcohol. He stayed there two months on a slew of broken promises in and they never not into his mental health issues... after two freaking months. We brought him home again. One of the many great things about Tim was that he was very self-aware and he fully wanted to help himself get better. He wouldn’t have gone through all the treatment options if not. No matter how hard I loved him, no matter how many doctor's we would see, no matter how supportive I was...the mind is a very powerful thing. You, Me or anyone weren't stronger than the demons in his head.
I was often told by multiple therapists that suicidal ideation usually didn’t lead to actual suicide. It was just their thought about not wanting to live but they didn’t really have a plan to carry it out. Until Tim did. Majority of you don’t know; Tim had written himself an ‘Exit Plan’. This was a list of things he wanted to do before he departed this earth, followed by how he was going to depart this earth. I was less than thrilled about hearing this, with no clue how to react or what to say so I usually just listened. I would tell him that I didn’t get married to do this life alone and I wanted to do life with him. Then I’d continue to just listen. He had everything written out, even down to saying his goodbyes to the people that meant the most to him.
Now this is where I say, had he not been drinking that day, this wouldn’t have happened. It would have happened eventually but not this way and not at this time. Alcohol is a depressant so if you’re already depressed and then you add drinking on top of it, your brain barely can stand a chance at keeping the demons away. The alcohol is what made him irrational that night, during a manic episode. In my eyes, the alcohol made the demons in his head louder and he just couldn’t take it anymore. He killed himself the one way he promised me he never would. But I remind myself that he wasn’t in his right mind when this happened. He was in mania and the things going on in his head were just too loud.
The reason I share all of this with you is actually pretty simple, we the spouses, endure so much that we don’t let people know about it. Somedays we would come home to everything being fine and then the next day, the house a mess and the hubby in bed for days. For some time, I was the sole provider for our family. So, I had to make sure I was getting to work. No matter how little sleep I had the night before, no matter how heavy my heart was leaving the house, I had to do it... for us. I cried many times on my way to work and on my way home from work, I contemplated many times just driving by my house and keep going, where I don’t know but to just keep driving and not go home.
Tim was a good actor you see, many people that knew him had no clue about how bad he really struggled on a daily basis. Unless you lived in our home, you had no idea and I wasn’t going to share about it. Tim could put on that face for a social gathering or a dinner out, he called it ‘turning on the bartender’ but as soon as we would get home, he was worn out, unhappy and flooded with emotions. A lot of people say, ‘I would have never known, he was always so happy’. Well my friends, majority of that was fake. He pretended on the daily. The only person that knew the whole truth was me because I lived it every single day. Which can be a lot to carry.
Losing someone in general is rough, losing your husband is rougher, losing your husband to suicide is the roughest. Yes, it’s tragic. Yes, it’s devastating. Yes, the world lost an amazing man. Next time you encounter this in your life, remind yourself that we never truly know what a person is going through and what they may be struggling with. In addition, please also consider the survivors of suicide loss. The ones that lived it every day, the ones that endured the stress and pain of not being able to help. The ones who saw what no other human could see or probably believe. The ones who had to fake every day just to avoid someone asking if we are OK. Tim was suffering immensely, and I don’t ever want to downplay that or make his feelings invalid, because they were so valid. I would like to just bring more awareness to both suicide AND survivors of suicide loss. Bring awareness to what they may have had to experience leading up to it.
It’s true that we never know what goes on in people’s homes. We never truly know what others are going home to. Their life may be completely upside down and we will never know unless we ask. If you don’t want to ask; just be kind. Find it in your soul to always be kind because we don’t know what others are going home to and kindness can go a very long way. Unless you’ve personally lived this, you’ll never understand and honestly, I hope that you never have to.
My bit of advice: Keep checking on your friends, they’re probably going through more than you’ll ever know because we will forever put our best face forward. Invite them, even if they’ll say no, give them the option. Send a thoughtful text to remind them you’re thinking of them. Kindness goes a very long way. Especially in a very dark time
Here is to my fellow Survivors of Suicide Loss. I know life wasn’t and isn’t easy but we are in this together. Through the trauma, the hardships and the good/bad times. Please don’t ever forget that. Let’s keep talking about it! Awareness is key.
For those of you not so familiar with Mental Illness, I hope this can give you a better insight on how it effects everyone. Mental Health isn't as talked about in our homes as it should be. Let's normalize talking about it more. For those who suffer and for those who support the suffering.
I know this was long but clearly I had an awful lot to say and if you made it this far, I thank you 😊
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