"You're so lucky...
your family's all dead"
It’s a dark statement. I know. I know it seems horrific, but my friend often tells me this. And I get it. We both come from extremely dysfunctional families.
It’s not as simplistic as to say I’m happy that everyone is dead.
I hurt. I ache. I mourn. I feel traumatized and abandoned. I broke down and mumbled something that effect a few months ago in therapy.
And, yet, still—
How we feel about our family is a complicated thing.
It’s not usually just one sentiment.
Because the truth…the perhaps awful truth is also this—
I do feel lucky. Relieved. Much more at peace now that they are gone then I ever did when they were alive.
I wish that my family members were healthy. I wish that that they made better choices. That they had gotten the mental health help that they needed. Trauma healing. Stopped smoking. Lived healthier lives.
But they didn’t. They wouldn’t. Perhaps they couldn’t.
It doesn’t much matter.
Because they didn’t. And I knew that.
Living with my family often felt like constantly waiting for the bottom to drop out, the other shoe to drop.
Constantly. I was forever waiting for another inevitable catastrophe to happen.
After my dad died, I waited for another call that my mother was going into the hospital. Or, I was just awaiting more news of yet another way that my brother was financially abusing and taking advantage of my mother. And another way that he would fight with me when I stuck up for her. And would accuse me of something.
I got used to it. That feeling. As much as one ever can.
But it never felt good. Or calm. Of course it didn’t. It couldn’t.
Because, instead, it always felt like walking on eggshells and living on the edge. No wonder my nervous system became on high alert. It wasn’t just the two active suicides and the one passive one. It was all the moments in between, after my mother’s breakdown and my brother’s own poor mental health state.
So, yes, the truth is—
In many ways, I do feel lucky that they have passed.
And I don’t mean that to sound cruel. But, the truth is—
It’s easier that they are not here.
They wouldn’t ever get the help that they so needed and required. And so, of course, really affected me.
I also believe in an afterlife. I believe they are at peace.
I also believe that there are worse things than death. I believe hell can be a state of existence, in this earthly realm. And I think all of my family members were well acquainted with their own versions of living hell. Hence, the active and passive suicides.
Part of being a [family suicide] survivor and doing the work of healing, is also admitting to the harm that the way that they died (and lived) affected me.
And owning it and claiming it.
And part of it is, yes, —
Sometimes I do feel lucky, relieved, that they are gone.
And at peace.