March 28, 2013
Dear Brian,
I think you'd be surprised at how many people have approached me for help and/or advice regarding a friend or loved one's suicidal feelings because they know I lost you to suicide and must be an "expert" of sorts. I feel like saying... seriously?
Let me explain... while I obviously can empathize with the situation they find themselves in I find it perplexing that I would seemingly be someone who they think could help? I knew you were struggling and we talked about it so often those last 5 months... and regardless of what I did or said to try and help, the end result was the same-- I was unable to save you and you killed yourself. I'm pretty sure that isn't anything to throw on my "human experience resume" as a bragging right. If I wanted advice on... let's say passing the bar exam-- would I approach someone who had failed the exam or someone who had actually passed?
You and I were both cursed with an affliction of extremely intense emotions; we both feel things so strongly and so passionately and are so easily affected by the pain of others and desperately want to help. However, I find myself immobilized. I'm caught in a place where my heart so badly wants to help but my mind is telling me that I am in no position to do so. By the time I realize this, not only do I feel unable to help but I've become involved to a degree where I have emotions invested but yet I feel powerless to do anything about them. Hearing their stories often triggers me and I find I am transported right back to where I was in 2010 when I worried about you every single day-- I could talk to you, I could listen to you, I could tell you I loved you and how badly I wanted you to stay; but each time we hung up the phone I'd worry about you every moment until I heard your voice again.
What complicates things for me with regards to being asked for advice is my own history with feelings of suicidality. I will be brutally honest and say that when I was at my absolute lowest there was NOTHING anyone could have done or said to have helped me; the desire to get better had to come from within. Everything was so distorted for me. If someone had said to me, "I love you and want you to be happy and I don't want you to leave" what I heard was, "It would be better for me if you would just continue to live your miserable existence-- it would inconvenience me greatly if you were to end your life." I kept thinking if they truly knew how much agony I was in every single day they wouldn't ask me to promise them that I would stay. And yet I asked you to promise me that very same thing. And truthfully... I absolutely regret having said that to you. I don't regret letting you know how I felt about you but I wish I hadn't imparted any additional feelings of guilt upon you.
Now here's where I get really confusing! Remember how I said there wasn't anything anyone could have done or said to have made a difference when I wanted out? And how I knew that the change had to come from within me? Well, apparently I refuse to listen to my own words when I think of how horribly I let you down. Someday perhaps I will not feel the guilt that I do today... but for now there is still a huge part of me that blames myself for not being able to save you. For that reason alone I feel completely unqualified for providing anything to anyone beyond a whole lot of empathy and maybe a few hugs.
Love Always,
Laura