I have started a herstory fellowship and one of the questions that they have asked us was to locate our “one page moment,” that moment where someone could hop into your story, and from there, moving forward or backward in time, depending, in the process of crafting your memoir.
I thought a lot about this, which moment I would share…
There were a few that came to mind, that I’m still mulling over, but—
In the spirit of claiming survivorship and owning my own story beyond victimhood, I didn’t want my one page moment to be entirely situated within a victim scenario or what was done TO me. Instead, I have been trying to think about the moments that are other-centered.
One came to mind:
While teaching in Pfeiffer, I had a student who self-disclosed to me that her father had completed suicide, many years ago, but she had only recently learned of the way in which he died. She was grappling with this news that he had taken his own life.
After reading that, I felt such a deep profound sense of sadness, but also an overwhelming sense of solidarity with her.
My heart broke for her, especially because you ‘understand’ in a way that others who have not lost a family member to suicide, simply cannot. (And my father’s suicide was when I was well into adulthood as well, a notable difference in our stories.)
But the truth its—It’s a terrible club to have to join. Thankfully, it’s a very exclusive club, not a lot of members are admitted. While most people will lose their parents in the course of their lives, many will not to be to suicide.
I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
There’s something extra chilling with it—it sets deep within your bones, and even deeper—it penetrates your soul, when you realize that people you share the same blood line and DNA with, that they were so mentally unwell that they took their own lives. When your own parent, someone who brought you into this world, took care of raising you, decides to opt out of life, in such violent self harm.
I have shared before, but it is true, it is very difficult to disclose this “admittance” to anyone, because people feel so socially awkward and don’t know what to say or how to respond. They pity, they sympathize, they can’t imagine.
Quite frankly, and understandably, they DON’T WANT to imagine. And I don’t blame them for that.
Admitting to this student that I too had a father who completed suicide was harder than I would like to admit. It made it easier that I did so through writing.
I ultimately did, express solidarity, I thought it important.
But—
It does still make me feel vulnerable, incredibly vulnerable. Suicide survivorship is feels like bearing your soul with one another. And it’s not just because it happened in the past, but because it happens over and over and over again, in your mind, when someone asks about the cause of a death of a parent.
You relive it again and again and again when someone shares their stories about their aging parents, every time they discuss their normal aging and natural causes of death.
You survive it because you didn’t die from the pain and the grief, but you are still surviving, because you are constantly reliving it. That reality, that truth, holds steady within you all throughout your life.
These conversations about aging and dying or dead parents never ever cease. Those casual snippets of conversation:
“How did he die?” “What age was he?”
They will come up again and again. Especially when you’re still younger, where many of your peers are your age and still have parents alive and well. Some peers are only now starting to lose grandparents.
Because of all of this, suicide survivorship solidarity is a strong one. I believe in sharing your stories about suicide survivorship, in working to de-stigmatize mental illness and suicide.
Though I believe this, and strongly—
But.
It is still does not make it easy.
Every single time, you feel vulnerable and scared, judged and pitied. Some of it, sure, can be self-projection, but I do believe that some of it also is just because of the very nature of suicide.
It’s hard shit.
But, the alternative, the not sharing, knowing and believing that you’re contributing to silence and stigmatization, it often feels worse.
So, here’s to suicide survivorship camaraderie:
It’s a shitty club to have to join, but if you must do so, find yourself a member of this unfortunate club, just know that you are not alone.