It plagues a lot of people to replay their life choices and to consider what their life would be like if they hadn’t made that mistake or met that person or pursued that [wrong] choice.
We can drive ourselves crazy with these dizzying possibilities, which is of course not a rabbit hole we want to go down. It’s not healthy and it [can] never end well. Because— we can’t change anything. It also can never end; we can play out these possibilities indefinitely and take ourselves out of living in the present moment.
But for those who have lost someone to suicide, the “what if” mental battles can be an especially arduous and pressing.
It is hopelessly intertwined with the survivor’s guilt and the horrifying ideas that you are responsible for their deaths. You ask yourself: what if I had reached out, had done something differently, not said that one thing or had that disagreement with them.
Which is all of course entirely pointless. It wouldn’t have made a difference. We can’t save someone from themselves. We are not that powerful.
If someone wants to take their own life, they will do so.
And, terribly and heartbreakingly, that is also their choice.
Today I was thinking about all of the what ifs because I was talking to my best friend. I am fortunate to have a childhood friend who grew up similarly to how I did and we share an understanding and kinship over how we were raised, both in dysfunctional families.
We often compliment one another on our normalcies, despite it all. And it is indeed something to be proud of.
We also sometimes wonder what/where we would be if we had had more stability and parents who tended to their mental health and got the help they so desperately needed, and if the situations weren’t so untenable and precarious. If we felt secure and safe. And we didn’t struggle with the constant stress of money and meeting basic needs in our homes.
Today my best friend told me—imagine where we’d be… we’d be the shit.
I have been thinking about that a lot.
I do sometimes covet a simpler childhood and one with more ease. Certainly life with less suicides.
But it’s also just so hard to tell—all of our life experiences have shaped us and indelibly molded us into who we are today.
I also think that I would not be as strong and resilient and as independent as I would be, had I not have to fight for it. My mental health may not be as strong, my well being now. Because even if I grew up in a more stable environment, I do believe that I would still have born the wounds of my emotional inheritance and ancestral intergenerational trauma.
In many ways the suicide tsunami of my family members pushed me to have to heal, transform, as I looked for ways to survive.
The unintended consequence of their deaths and all of these losses were that it pushed me to survive the only way that I knew how—through reading and stories and learning all that I could. Then to getting therapy and healing.
As such, now, I don’t believe myself hopelessly plagued with depression and generalized anxiety disorder and chronic insomnia; I believe that I was traumatized and the somatic healing and therapies have lightened those loads.
I’m not saying this is/would be true for everyone, but it certainly is for me.
I know because of how different I feel. I used to carry around such a cloud that the only times I felt bursts of normalcy were post hot yoga practices or post cardio/heavy workouts when the adrenaline and endorphins and feel good hormones would be counter balancing the weight I carried.
I had accepted that this was…just me. A genetic ‘gift’ from my mother.
I now believe that it was trauma and emotional inheritance from my family members. And it could be addressed and some healing was possible.
It’s not because I had a good attitude, stronger faith, or just thought the good thoughts, or because I learned things.
My survival—and in essence, my greater wholeness and sense of well being, was because I went looking for things to try and I did. I tried to heal myself and didn’t accept that I was just going to be like this.
If everyone hadn’t died and I hadn’t lost babies and my mother and family members all at once—then so soon after if my vapid narcissist of an ex hadn’t got caught in what my best friend called a cataclysmic level of betrayal—I’m not sure I would have sought out the help as intensely as I did.
I am not sure that I would be as good as I am now.
I knew, after it all happened.
I had many moments of my inner monologue screaming:
“Fuuuuuck….. This is just too much. What now? What do I do with all of this death and loss and grief and suicides?”
So I started my path of healing.
I’ll never end it. I know. Perhaps none of us will…or ever should.
But I also know this—my quality of life and happiness and wellness now—
I’m not sure that I would have had it if all the shit hadn’t happened either.
My fortitude and resilience was certainly challenged. But though it has been a path and journey, I also feel that I rose to the occasion. Even if I stumbled a few times along the way and didn’t stride singularly focused on healing.
And I believe that I am not only a healthier person for that now, myself, but I also am a more empathetic and compassionate person because of it as well.
That became the silver lining of the suicide tsunami and after the shitshow of loss.
The only thing is that it is not merely a silver lining. It is actually…everything.
It is the whole damned sky. The heavens. A space as wide and as vast as my eye can behold.
Yes, the suicides changed everything. But it was not all bad.
This is what I’ve learned:
There are opportunities for growth and healing and transformation, even within the muck of trauma. Some of the gravest losses of our lives can also transform us and to become better people and healthier people.
And that is the moral of the story and my ultimate answer to the “what if” game.