Day 20

Originally written for writing your grief course done by Refugeingrief in October 2022

Day 20

My grief is a little different since he wasn’t physically present given our estrangement. In the early days when waking up from sleep having forgotten he  had taken his own  only to within a few short minutes to remember. I was mortified that I could forget such a thing. I shared this with my therapist and she reassured me this was quite common when waking up from a sleep and given he wasn’t present in my life made it a little more likely. There was one particular time  this occurred that was terrifying. In May of 2012 I had to have my  baclofen pump replaced. The pump has to be replaced about every six years  as that is how long  the battery lasts.  

There were complications with the replacement. The  pump is about the size of a hockey puck and is placed under the skin on my right side. The pump is connected to a catheter placed in my spine that delivers a spasticity medication called baclofen directly to my spinal fluid This is done when the oral form of baclofen doesn’t  work well enough anymore. Unbeknownst to us the catheter was kinked and I wasn’t getting the dosage I should have been at least not consistently. The thing about baclofen is it is a central nervous system suppressant and if you get too much at one time you can stop breathing.

That is exactly what  happened the doctors hadn’t turned my rate back up slowly enough and l lost the ability to maintain my own airway: I needed to be intubated and placed on a ventilator. I was told later by my mother I was in a coma for two days. When I started to wake up I was quite disoriented being that I was still intubated I couldn’t talk, not to mention I had started gagging on the tube. Mom was sitting next to me terrified, forgetting that dad had died by suicide I got kind of angry at him. Being that mom had to be by herself for hours: I started thinking dad is probably having more  fun then we are, spending time with one of his many girlfriends Dad was dealing with hyper sexuality when he was spiraling after he left us  

I digress, It was only a few short minutes  later I remembered I had watched him be placed in the ground only two months before; as well as the circumstances that caused his death. Let’s just say I felt horribly guilty for the things I had thought  I grieve  more that he emotionally couldn’t be a safe presence in my life, which would have made him a physical presence in my life.  That was not the situation I was in. It was necessary to protect myself from him given his behavior and the fact he wasn’t engaging in treatment for his illness. 

It has been over 13 years since I last saw him alive , coming up on 11 years since his death.. I guess a shift  in  grief has been having short periods  which I don’t think about his downward spiral that occurred over the last years of his life and his tragic death. That is not to say my knowledge of this ever goes completely away it is  always there at some level even unconsciously. It can be hard to reconcile who my dad “authenticity” was versus behaviors caused by his bipolar disorder. I love the aspects of who my dad authentically was. I don’t think I will ever forget those completely . With that said I will never also be completely ok with his behaviors even though I am aware they were caused by his illness. They were nonetheless hurtful not only to my dad but to others as well. 

Perhaps another shift in my grief has been my sharing my experiences as a suicide loss survivor in the hopes it will help others who have lost a loved to suicide feel less alone. I haven’t always shared about my loss so authenticity. My therapist and I had worked  on expressing my feeling as my authentic self extensively which had kind of gotten buried  due to years of medical and emotional trauma that hadn’t been processed. That shift had occurred over the last two or three years. As difficult as it can be to talk about the hard realities of suicide loss there is no one better than people who have lived through  it to increase awareness, it is vital to decrease the stigma associated with suicide loss.