This post was originally written for a your grief course done by Refugengrief in September 2022

Hi all,  

My name is Christine Weston. I live with my mom and our pug NIkki. She is a great emotional support for both of us. We live in  Sacramento CA. I have lived there my entire life. I was born with cerebral palsy.  I use a power char to get around . As my lower limbs are the most affected by my spasticity. I am also a congenital amputee ( missing my right arm above the elbow as a rare condition that the cause of which is not fully understood, It also affected my left hand at birth and my fingers with exception of my thumb were fused. (It looked like a mitten) The process of separating them started when I was about a year old. It took two to three surgeries to separate them. So those fingers don’t look like typical fingers with nails. In my case none of my birth defects were caused by drug or alcohol use on my mother’s part. I say that because its a common assumption i”ve encountered over the years.  

If at any point i write something in reference to my condition and you have a question feel free to  ask. I will do my best to explain in my writings. Many people have comorbidities associated with the CP. ( as it is known by for short) i have  a couple of conditions directly related to my CP as it impacts how well my neurological system functions. My medical conditions and experiences will undoubtedly come up. As i now know, they are a source of grief. Given that grief comes in my forms and my different type of losses, not just death. Which I admit I didn’t know until I entered therapy in 2012. Which l looking is not surprising given the understanding  of grief in our culture sucks! As i know all of us here understand all too well😭

What Brings Me Here

 On March, 7,2012  i lost my dad to suicide after he succumbed to his mental illness. At the time of his death he and i were estranged following his abruptly walking out on my mom and i in 2008 just a few short weeks after my high school graduation i was 19 years at the time. He went on a camping trip only to never return home. We did know where he was; he was staying with Lena (my grandmother)   I refuse to call her that though. Let’s just say in the 4 years after he left and following his death his side of the family was quite cruel to me. I haven’t spoken to them since his funeral. When my dad initially left i tried to engage with him unfortunately given he had bipolar disorder that he hadn’t been engaging in treatment for my whole childhood. Although he received his diagnosis when I was a baby following a previous suicide attempt

  I wasn’t formally made aware of his illness until after he left although I had my suspicions that there was something going was going on with my dads mental health. His behavior could be very erratic at times  So much  so I specifically asked my mom if there was anything going on with my dads mental health I should know a couple times ss a teenager. At the time she didn’t acknowledge it out of fear of rocking the boat.

I was relieved as well as angry at the time given that i wasn’t told the truth when I asked i was also relived to know that my instincts were correct and there was a reason for his erratic behavior during my childhood.  Not to mention aspect of my childhood  made a whole lot more sense. My parents formally divorced when I three years  old during which time he was MIA as a parent i would later come to learn at that time in terms of his mental health he was not doing well. So it was just mom and I until they reconciled when i was seven although they never legally remarried.  In many ways own nightmare began in June of 2008. I  know it is not uncommon for  people who die by suicide to emotionally distance themselves from their loved ones even many years prior to their physical deaths.

Just a little note about the language around suicide I use the term died by suicide very intentionally instead of the culturally ingrained term committed suicide. Committed is most often  associated with criminality and sadly also in some states still have laws on the books  making  attempted suicide illegal. So in recent years there has been a lot of effort from mental health organizations to change the laws as well as shift the language used around suicide. In order to reduce the stigma around  mental illness and suicide loss. I want to  stress I myself didn’t know all this until doing some research online after by dads death. In an effort to figure out “where in the fuck to I go from here.’ So no worries if anyone slips up and uses the word committed i will not be offended, i used the term before I know better and I realize it is culturally ingrained and change takes times. Nevertheless I feel it is important to educate in order to reduce the stigma associated with suicide loss.

The reason go extensively in to the background of my dad’s and relationship  is my feelings can be very complicated at times. At a certain point after my dads leaving it became very apparent after numerous attempts to engage with him and realizing he was unwilling or unable to engage in a emotionally healthy or meaningful way. It was necessary to protect myself from him given his emotionally downward spiral which came to its tragic ending on march 7th 2012 just two days after my  23th birthday: needless to say I don’t look forward to my birthday because I know what is coming shortly after..

I know my dad did what he did because at that  time he saw no other way out to end his emotional pain suicide  happens when emotionally pain exceeds the person ability to cope.  With that said am not always okay with how he treated my mom and i when he was living. He certainly didn’t navigate things in a healthy way. Which has hurt myself and mom in way that we will have to deal with for the rest of our lives Which i am not thrilled about if being totally honest/

My apologies for this being so long and any typos I have made and didn’t catch i am prone to making errors sometimes due to my brain injury that caused CP.