If you’re someone who has been through the grueling pain of being on the other side of suicide, you will undoubtedly resonate with these five emotions. Losing someone to suicide is an obstacle on it’s own, but battling several emotions from different ends of the spectrum causes even more of a chaotic storm. The order in which we approach these emotions will always vary, but the bottom line is; you’re not alone and all of your emotions are one hundred percent valid.
In 2012, I lost my childhood best friend, Amanda Kellie Andrews, to suicide at the age of 16. It is still undeniably the worst experience I’ve ever had to go through and I still carry the pain from it every day. To her, I dedicate my strength, sensitivity, and compassion to others. Not every single experience with suicide is the same, but I can only hope to use my experience to bring some light the emotions many others face when going through the loss of a loved one to suicide.
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1. Shock
July 11th, 2012 started as any day that my annual vacation to Laughlin, Navada would. I left my phone in the hotel room because I would be out on the lake all day with zero reception. Normally that would have been a nice escape from the technology driven teenage world to focus on my family and enjoy the beauty that surrounded us. That day was everything, but normal. Those vital hours I had spent isolated from communication shaped the initial shock upon receiving the news that would turn my world inside out.
I remember returning back to the hotel room, grabbing my phone to catch up on all I had missed in the social media world. I’ll never forget going through my Facebook feed and reading a sweet tribute to someone who had passed away and then the ending words slapped me in the face. “RIP Amanda Kellie Andrews.” To this day, I can’t tell you how many times I re-read those words over and over… and over again. Then I began to rapidly click the tagged name to ensure what I already knew. It was in fact the same Amanda Kellie Andrews, my first friend in kindergarten, my childhood best friend. I ran through the connecting door to my parent’s hotel room to see my mom’s face. She already knew. Amanda’s mom had left my mom a voicemail to ensure that I wouldn’t see on Facebook first. Had I just waited, just maybe my shock would have been different.
I don’t think I cried for the first hour. I could feel the color draining from my whole entire body. I could feel the lump in my throat, too hard to swallow and nagging to come up straight out of my mouth. Now looking back, I know that I was hyperventilating. I had my knees wrapped in my arms, my back leaned against the wall, with sets of eyes staring at me waiting for me to break, but all I could do was go through the ins and outs of my breath. Thinking about it now, I was trying to find some kind of control. My brain was swarming with words from the numerous Facebook statuses I had read, the words from Amanda’s mom’s voicemail. Amanda, dead, suicide, RIP, angel, too young, heaven. Then came the overwhelming flow of memories the two of us had shared the past 11 years. Amongst all of this, I could find nothing I was ready to confront. As silly as it may sound, my breath was the only thing that I could control. I did this for the first hours of intaking the worst news of my life, the shock I was never ready for.
Shock is still the hardest emotion for me to put into words, mostly because my head wasn’t in the right place when I went through it myself. I didn’t understand the saying “hit me in the face like a brick,” until that moment. It was one thing to comprehend that I had lost my friend, especially at such a young age, but trying to wrestle with the idea that she took her own life was the actual weight of my shock. Suicide seems like such a distant part of our society, until it touches you personally. Some experience warning signs, but others, like me, had absolutely no clue that suicide was on our loved one’s mind. I couldn’t begin to fathom the pain I was about to endure and the concept that I would never hear her laugh or spend another family dinner with her. It’s hard to imagine a life without that person. With a million thoughts, it’s hard to find the right one to focus on. To me, shock was just chaos, the beginning of the worst.
2. Anger
Suicide is such a selfish thing. Really. It is. I want to scream in your face and say “What the hell did you think this was going to do to me?” I just want to know if you thought I’d be okay. Did you think that I would just forget after awhile? Because I didn’t. Did you think that I wouldn’t ask questions or blame myself for this? I blame myself almost every time I think about what happened, which is almost every single day. I’ve cried hysterically hoping that I’d find peace with myself, accepting that there was nothing I could have done. Did you think people wouldn’t miss you?. I practically barged into your house when I heard the news and I swear I’ll never forget the feeling of collapsing into your dad’s arms. I could feel his pain and I still feel it every single Goddamn time. There is absolutely nothing I can do to get rid of the ache I have from missing you. I feel it every single fucking shitty day, Amanda, and it’s not fair. I pass by that white church that I said goodbye to you in and I crumble. I pass by Mayflower and Foothill and I wish we were eating rice, beans, and tortilla at Rigos. I paint my nails and I remember how much you loved to paint them. I put on make up and I remember that you taught me how to put it on. I see a Mad Libs book and I want to buy it just to make myself think you’d be here to do it for me. I deal with Spike and his horrible breath because you loved that dog more than most people. I could go on forever, but the point is, I am just so tired of missing you. I just want you here. I want you to hug me and tell me this pain is going to go away. If you were here, who’s to say that we wouldn’t just lose contact. We were headed that way anyways. But all I know is that you leaving my life that day did a lot more damage to me than I think you realized it would.
I wrote this in one of my blog posts when I was 18, two years later. I wasn’t sure how else to write about my anger because I’ve come to terms with a lot of it now, so I took this back to a time when my anger peaked. It’s easy to feel guilty for being so angry, but I’ve come to realize that it is absolutely valid. When someone decides to take their own life and their loved ones are putting together the pieces, it is so easy to be angry at them for making such a permanent mistake. Of course you’re angry. Not only are you angry at them, but you’re angry at God for letting the good one’s go, you’re angry at yourself for not saving them, you’re angry at anyone who still has their loved ones. It’s okay to be angry and know that one day it passes. I went through my angry stage, to the point where I was more angry than sad, but have the ability to forgive. Forgive them for not seeing past the darkness that we have no way of understanding, forgive God for wanting to have a piece of your angel, forgive yourself for being angry at all.
3. Guilt
Could I have done more?
Did I miss the warning signs?
Was it my fault that you felt so alone?
Should I have kept in contact more?
Is it my fault that we weren’t as close anymore?
I didn’t tell you I loved you the last time we were on the phone.
I didn’t squeeze tight enough the last time we hugged.
Did I fail you as a friend?
Battling with my guilt was by far the most damaging of them all. With suicide, it is impossible not to feel like we could have done more, being on the other side. Why didn’t we notice? Why didn’t we see it coming? Could we have done something differently? You start to go through all the conversations, memories, pictures, Facebook statuses, anything that would have given you the slightest clue that this was going to happen. You think about all the things you didn’t do that maybe you could have done to make him or her still be with you. You even start to feel guilty that you’re the one still alive. Why did God choose them and not me? Why did they have to go through that pain? All of this guilt is so painful, but it’s normal. There’s nothing you can do, but work through it. Understand that looking back won’t change what you see looking forward. You have to keep moving and knowing that it has already happened. They would absolutely want that for you. Cherish the memories made and know that at the time, you were everything you needed to be. Even if the guilt never fully disappears, you know that you would have done anything to make the circumstances different.
4. Grief
Most days I’m fine, which in all honesty, I never thought I would be after the day you died.
But I was right about one thing. The pain of losing you will never subside or lighten by any degree.
I can talk about you in conversation, think about you often, and even send a prayer up your way with calm state of mind, but there are always those moments where being strong no longer applies. It’s always random; that one thing that hits a little too close to home and the tears immediately start to fall.
So tonight, I miss you. I’m hurting and aching for that one chance to be a child again, cuddled in bed and talking about what we envisioned would be the rest of our lives. I love you, Manda, and know that you are nowhere near forgotten and forever in my heart.
This isn’t a blogpost from very long ago, it was only three months ago. The point is, I’m still grieving. I’ll grieve her loss until the day we meet again. When someone you love passes away, I don’t think that pain is supposed to go away. People always say “It gets better,” but it doesn’t really. It just becomes easier to live with. I’m still sensitive to people saying “I’m gonna kill myself” in casual conversation because they have a lot of homework or someone at work is bothering me. My heart still aches every July 11. I don’t like to wear scarves very much because I feel like it’s suffocating my neck. I still feel weird using your name with the past tense. The list goes on. The one thing I learned through this is that it’s okay to just be sad. I tried for so long to put up a really strong front and to hold in my pain on the days that it was hurting the most, but now I think it’s absolutely healthy to let myself cry when needed, to go over to your house to get a hug from your parents or sisters for comfort, or just to talk to someone and admit “Hey, I’m not okay.” Grieving someone is not supposed to be easy. Let yourself embrace the sadness and know that the weight becomes lighter, even if there are bad days along the way.
5. Acceptance
I’ll never be able to say that I’m happy with how things played out, but I will say that I’m blessed to the person I do have as my guardian angel. I’m blessed that I was able to intake the pain that followed after losing my best friend and project it as love for other people. It made me more understanding that everyone is going through a struggle behind closed doors and to be accepting of everyone that comes my way. It presented me with the opportunity to learn more about mental health and to be able to be more aware when symptoms do present themselves to me. The cons will always outweigh the pros in this situation, but I’ve accepted that Amanda’s heart was needed elsewhere and now not only is she my angel, but millions of others.
Handle acceptance however you must, but ridding the bitterness and negativity surrounding a terrible situation has helped me grow as a person. Nothing about death is easy and all of these emotions will continue to consume us on harder days, but I think with time, acceptance will always follow. Even if you have to do it with a heavy heart, acceptance is healthy and needed to go through the process of losing someone to suicide. Put your pain towards something your loved one was passionate about, advocate for mental health awareness, or even insert something in your daily routine that reminds you of them. Do anything you can to bring comfort to yourself and turn your pain into something good.
