words cannot describe

I can't even find the words to say how I still feel about my ex boyfriend's suicide 7 years ago. It still haunts me because after a very abusive relationship, which is such a long and exhausting story to be saved for another post, I finally gathered the strength to leave and drive 500 miles back to home base. He constantly called my Mother's and left messages begging me to come back. My Grandfather passed shortly after I arrived back home. I had to leave home again to fly to the west coast to take care of his things.

The night before I left, my ex left a message on the machine again saying, "I'll show you, you'll be sorry." I was used to his threats and left the city. While I was at my Grandfather's grieving, I got a call from my Mother telling me he had passed. He apparently had overdosed. I completely lost it. Now I was dealing with two deaths. All I kept thinking of was that final call that I did not pick up, and those words. Almost every single day I think about it. I talked about it with my pdoc, and all she says is Im not responsible. I know I didn't physically do anything, but I abandoned someone who was also mentally ill and maybe I could have helped. But I tried to help him while he was still alive and couldn't. I had to help myself, I was drowning. I still feel the remorse and sick feeling of somewhat having played a part in someone's death that maybe could have been prevented, If I only would have picked up that phone.

many hugs if wanted. And a huge "IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT". This sounds like an absolute nightmare to have gone through and i do understand you feeling remorse about this but honestly it was not your fault. This person sounds like he was deeply troubled and that must have been very difficult for you to deal with. But Ultimately what he did was his responsibility and not yours. We are responsible for our actions - mental illness or not. It is not your responsibility to keep him safe and putting that on you was very very unfair and wrong. I dont know if there is anything I can say to make this go away for you - I doubt it. But really and truly it was not your fault however ill he was. I tried to commit suicide when very ill and got found when unconcious. I rwas really unwell with bipolar but irrrespective of that it was my choice to do it and no one elses - and I had to take the fallout and take responsibility. It is the same in your case with your ex. Honestly not your fault. Do you think it would be worth talking this out more with a therapist?

Huge hugs

Cracked

CrackedGirl wrote:many hugs if wanted. And a huge "IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT". This sounds like an absolute nightmare to have gone through and i do understand you feeling remorse about this but honestly it was not your fault. This person sounds like he was deeply troubled and that must have been very difficult for you to deal with. But Ultimately what he did was his responsibility and not yours. We are responsible for our actions - mental illness or not. It is not your responsibility to keep him safe and putting that on you was very very unfair and wrong. I dont know if there is anything I can say to make this go away for you - I doubt it. But really and truly it was not your fault however ill he was. I tried to commit suicide when very ill and got found when unconcious. I rwas really unwell with bipolar but irrrespective of that it was my choice to do it and no one elses - and I had to take the fallout and take responsibility. It is the same in your case with your ex. Honestly not your fault. Do you think it would be worth talking this out more with a therapist?

Huge hugs

Cracked

I've talked about it and she just keeps adding more drugs. She says I am not responsible for his actions. She is not the first psychiatrist I have had. She just keeps adding to my medication. Psychiatrists have not been much help for me in any way. Where I live, they are covered by the province, but psychologists are not and I cannot afford a psychologist. I'm so sorry for what you have gone through, and glad you're still here to share your story. I am just hoping one day I will come to terms with it. Thanks so much for your reply:)

hi

mystic803 wrote:I've talked about it and she just keeps adding more drugs. She says I am not responsible for his actions. She is not the first psychiatrist I have had. She just keeps adding to my medication. Psychiatrists have not been much help for me in any way. Where I live, they are covered by the province, but psychologists are not and I cannot afford a psychologist. I'm so sorry for what you have gone through, and glad you're still here to share your story. I am just hoping one day I will come to terms with it. Thanks so much for your reply:)

I am sorry you cant get to see a psychologist as it sounds like that is what you need. One thing that I thought of was whether you could find anywhere that offered free bereavement counselling - for example it has been available at some hospitals where I have worked. You wuld be able to talk things through there and it might help plus, at least here in the UK, it is free.

Thank you for your kind words about me- I ama lot better these days.

Take reallly good care

hugs

Cracked

Oh God - your post is somehow one of the saddest things I have ever read. Please believe it wasn't your fault. Suicide is a tricky thing... I know that the generally received opinion is that suicide is not a selfish act and that the sufferer cannot be blamed for it, but I think it can sometimes constitute a continuation of abuse (albeit in a very tragic sense that also hurts the abuser) and I think that's what happened here.

Your story made me think of the suicide of the author of David Foster Wallace, who was a great writer, but also an abusive asshole. He was clearly very troubled and unwell, but also did some inexcusable things to his partners (attempted murder of both a woman he was dating and her husband; smashed and thrown objects; stalking; etc.) and he eventually killed himself.

I think what David Foster Wallace said about suicide long before he actually did it was true:

The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.

But I also think that what Wallace's friend Jonathan Franzen said about Wallace's suicide after the fact is also true:

The depressed person then killed himself, in a way calculated to inflict maximum pain on those he loved most, and we who loved him were left feeling angry and betrayed.

To prove once and for all that he truly didn’t deserve to be loved, it was necessary to betray as hideously as possible those who loved him best, by killing himself at home and making them firsthand witnesses to his act.

It's a very tricky thing cause it's tied up with the thorny issue of to what degree someone who is mentally unwell is responsible their own abusive behaviour? And to what degree can suicide be seen as a selfish, or intentionally hurtful act? They're unpleasant questions to address and the kind that I'd be crucified on Tumblr for even raising, but the fact is, that even if the unwell person is so unwell that they can't be considered responsible for their abusive actions, that doesn't change the way that their actions hurt those they lash out at nor the legitimacy of that hurt.

It sounds like you ex was suffering a great deal and maybe that could help you forgive him, but it sounds like he also hurt you enormously in abusive ways and maybe that can help you forgive yourself, as abuse is never the victim's fault.

Wonderful post sprock

I absolutely go with people who are unwell still needing to maintain personal responsibility unless they are psychotic with no insight or floridly manic. Otherwise imo there is no excuse for bad/hurtful/abusive behaviour. This is coming from someone who has attempted suicide.

I am so sorry you are going through this mystic803, please try to hear that it was not your fault.

Hugs

Cracked

Thanks, CG.

I can totally understand how awful this must feel. I believe you when you say that words cannot describe it. You're a victim though. It wasn't your fault. And I think that's you're a survivor too.

I wish I could offer more advice.

CrackedGirl wrote:Wonderful post sprock

I absolutely go with people who are unwell still needing to maintain personal responsibility unless they are psychotic with no insight or floridly manic. Otherwise imo there is no excuse for bad/hurtful/abusive behaviour. This is coming from someone who has attempted suicide.

I am so sorry you are going through this mystic803, please try to hear that it was not your fault.

Hugs

Cracked

Thanks so much, I am still dealing with it after all these years, thanks for your kind words:)

-- Fri Jul 18, 2014 1:22 pm --

It sounds like you ex was suffering a great deal and maybe that could help you forgive him, but it sounds like he also hurt you enormously in abusive ways and maybe that can help you forgive yourself, as abuse is never the victim's fault.[/quote

Thank you

I hope this finds you doing OK

Hugs

Cracked