ultimate tantrum

You want to know what one of my greatest fears would be concerning my children?

Other than finding them dead in a bed? 

Check! Umm....done that one....

Let's move on.... 

Having a child who feels there is nothing left in this life to live for or not even up to faking it for shits and giggles sake. A feeling that they are not loved enough, cherished enough, understood enough, wanted. enough. even if they are. 

This scenario truly scares me. One can be ever vigilant. Send their kid to the best schools, pay the up most attention to their kid. Give them everything they could want and then some along with showering them with a spotlight hovering their every waking moment and breath and yet this kid could still take their own life in a moment of irrational and hopeless thought.

This past week a 14-year-old from my girl's school, took his life with a shot gun. to stick it to the man or his mother. Because he was grounded. Because he was pissed. 

Another child who was also a member of our church and was 17-years-old took his life yesterday. Again with a shot gun.

Why?

Did he along with the other kid think of what it would truly be like to find their bodies like this? I mean I've always worried about dying because of the shitting my pants factor but seriously, these kids have clearly not thought this business through.

Now. At the age of 7 and 8, I've had to explain suicide to my girls. Because life hasn't been odd enough for them, this other form of death has reared it's funky head in their rear-view mirrors.

While these suicides are not shocking to me personally as I have known quite a few who have actually followed through with the deed along with that one train-wreck who "threatened to" but didn't this past year; I have found myself becoming quite jaded and callous to this very stupid idea.

The idea of offing yourself is so chicken shit and well, easy. Easy for you. Hard for everyone else but easy because you totally copped out of having to deal with life and it's emotions.  It's so easy because you didn't have to clean up your own fucking pig- pen- of- a- mess. You left it for everyone else to deal with and figure out. 

And yes, I'm not empathetic as I have had to go on and live for others. Not giving up because it's a "sin." Not offing-myself because it would be too rude to do so.

Because I would never want to leave that kind of messed up legacy for my children and family to have to deal with. 

Now... if my girls were to ever dare to do so after all of the education, threats, examples and pleading; I will totally bring their stupid asses back from the dead and kick their butts.

In the end. as a parent. I know. I would NOT ever get over this situation. I think it would be the end for me as well. Just how do you come back from this? I ask because I have come back from death at a totally different angle.  An angle I'm familiar with but this slant? I simply don't think I could/would ever be able to do so.

 

 

 

Comments

[Sarah G]

My brother-in-law killed himself and his parents have been through hell. To say nothing of the train driver at the time who must also be going through some unspeakable hell as well.

[esther]

I think the thing is that it totally isn't sane and it's as selfish as fuck and it doesn't make sense to us on any level and because we have been so close, so close to putting our heads in an oven and haven't, and because it simply feels so foreign and wrong and fucked up it just won't ever be something that sits right with us. One (in the proper posh, proper use of the English language term ) can't even begin to make sense of it, it throws us. Because we have seen the devastation of death and have lived through the horror of high school we know, we know what the fall out truly looks like, and it's not all the fucken' moving and poignant Nirvana song they're gonna play at out funeral and how sorry they'll be when we're gone. Because we've looked death in it's unwashed face and seen the truth we know what most people don't... that it's just shit and final and leaves those around you perpetually longing for a do-over and completely unable to move on - because of this, we can see the reality of it and the futility of the whole mother fucken' situation - it sucks for you and for them and... well it just fucken' sucks. Because life IS cheap and an entire existence can be dispatched at the pull of a trigger and that is just wrong on so many levels and somewhere some mother is going to spend the rest of her life feeling less than and wondering what she did wrong and the truth is she is just fucken' unlucky.

[Roberta]

I have lost two people this way and yes it totally pisses me off. They do not know / understand how the remaining have to deal with it... and continue on with life after they are gone! It is SO unfair, and coward an action! Life is too short as is and the good / bad / ugly and everything else is just a part of it!!!

[Danielle (elleinadspir)]

I totally agree. For better or worse, my emotion would be anger. That they took the easy way out. But I guess that's the thing,with deep dark depression your thoughts are self consuming, you don't think about the effect on others.

[a]

I'm sometimes torn on this - because with mental health issues, it's really hard for those people to become unselfish enough to think of their effects on others...even for a minute. I see this in my husband sometimes, and he just has anxiety issues.

I see and agree with your tendency to be angry. Empathy would not be in the picture for me either. Because, while I can understand that they find it difficult to pull their heads out of their own ass long enough to consider the effects of their choices on others, difficult is not impossible.

[gorillabuns]

I get it about mental health issues. i have them in spades. really, who doesn't? i guess i'm of the vein, if i have these issues and you do too, fight to work through them. i'm too stubborn to give up.

[DawnA]

Just reading this made me feel queasy. I don't know how you ever move past something this horrible. I could not imagine walking into a scene like that. I agree with you it is a selfish thing to do. But, I also can't imagine being in the head space where you want to no longer be alive. So sorry that you have to explain more sucky shit like this to your girls.

[Jen]

Last year a cousin of one of my friends, in response to being bullied at school, jumped in front of a tractor trailer on a major highway. I can't pretend to understand the mentality, but I do think there is more we can do to prevent these things from happening.

[Gamanda]

I completely understand your anger. I work for a mental health agency doing strictly MH evaluations when people mention suicide or harming themselves. I've become very jaded with this job and it's sad.
There are two types that really get to me: the ones that are impulsive, thinking nothing of others or what death means and then the Axis II ones who revel in the attention.
Sadly, from what I've witnessed, these types tend to undermine those with serious mental illness that are unable to see a way out. The ones who suffer every day in their own hell and truly think the world would be better without them.
It all sucks and it's all gut-wrenching. Your girls are better off in a perverse way that they've been in contact with this. Now suicide is laid out on the table and they will be able to understand how finite it is and the ramifications it has on others.

[Sizzle]

That would break me, truly. How sad for those parents.

[heather]

as i read this i can't help but think about gun control. guns made this act all too easy for these children. it takes a lot more planning to kill yourself most other ways and a gun shot to the head is so instantaneous. hate to get political on your blog, sorry.

[Debby Pucci]

I agree with Heather and the gun control but I also know a child who hung himself. It is something that you never get over because in most cases there is not an answer. Moving forward with all death you must have a reason, something you can put your mind around before you start to move through the grieving process. Our best friends from HS lost their 12 year old son 12 years ago when he hung himself in their basement. I am so sorry that your girls have had to hear about these tragic deaths on top of already losing their baby brother. You are doing the best you can do to as a parent for your girls. Do not doubt yourself. There is a woman I follow who lost her son over two years ago when he shot himself. http://wonderfulworldofweiners.blogspot.com/ I will be praying for your girls and all the youth in our world that they can see the bigger picture of life and not let one moment in time end their lives. My daughter with her OCD/BDD has threatened ending her life more times than I can count. I always live in fear of it. ((HUGS))

[Jessica]

I guess I can't really say how I feel about it regarding people who are so very depressed that is seems like it's the only way out for them. However, I feel very strongly about people, men or women, who use it as a means to threaten someone else. For instance, my husband's brother's girlfriend threatened to kill herself when they broke up at one point. She did it knowing that she is the only parent her son has. There is no excuse for that.

[Cristin M.]

I'm with you on this, Shana. And I'm angry at people who threaten it. Just f'ing do it already because we're sick of listening to you.
I get that depressed and anxious people aren't thinking rationally. I've been there! But the chain of suffering from one suicide is so great and immense.
My mom always said, permanent solution to a temporary problem.

[Page]

Suicide is such a lame-assed cop-out. I want to feel sympathetic to someone who is in a horrible place, but it's a load of shit. TOTALLY. So thanks for saying so. Kick-ass, as usual, my dear.

[Ninabi]

Oh God. It's my worst nightmare.

I have a young adult child with mental health issues and he has come close. Damned close. I know the statistics. One in five kill themselves. I'm not in his body. I don't know how it feels to be him. All we can do is get him the medical care and medication that he needs.

Sometimes it doesn't feel like enough. Other times I see the storms in his life dissipate. Slightly cloudy with a chance of hope later on in the week.

I am still haunted by a friend's attempt, after she survived cancer while her child was undergoing treatment for cancer while her mother was dying of it. Toss in a cruel, distant husband and I learned about breaking points in even the most caring mothers. She survived but only because of another friend who made an unexpected stop at her home. All of her friends love her to pieces, respected in her field, the person who goes above and beyond for little kids and sick people.

It rattled me to think that someone I thought was so stable could end her life.

All I can say is this- love people who have had a rough time of it. I know with my own son, the problems have been there for a long time. It was as if he fell down a well when he was small. I put my life on hold, trying to get him out of that dark, dark place where children should never be.

And if we lose him in the end? I don't know about what would happen to me. I'm already seeing a therapist because I feel like a failure despite my Donna Reed house, taking him to lessons and therapy and OT and making sure his IEP was in place and he took his medication and appropriately socialized, his train continues to jump the tracks. One kid amazingly successful, the other not so much. C average for me.

[180]

I am way too stubborn, too, but the thought of these young children killing themselves is too much to comprehend.

[Ashley]

I missed this story on Ch. 4 this weekend and I'm glad I did. How sad. I cannot imagine what their parents are going through. Sad, sad, sad.

[Amberly]

I never really thought of it before because so many common parental fears involve the physical safety of our children, but I think you're right about this one. And P.S. thanks for adding one more worry to my parenting! Hahaha JK! :)

[Tracy]

I've always felt like such an asshole for not being able to relate to the pain that a person must be in to commit such an act. In high school a friend's brother ate a bullet with about 10 friends in the house. If his brains hadn't been blown all over the wall - I would have kicked his ass. What a selfish asshole to make not only his family, but the friends present in the house, live with that for the rest of their lives.

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. In killing yourself, you're killing the only person that could have helped improve the situation.

Completely selfish assholey act in my book.

[katrina]

A friend of mine had a cousin who at age 16 hanged himself from the stair railing that crossed over the living room/family room of his house. He did it at night, so that when the family woke up in the morning and began the mad rush of the day, they would see him there. For the life of me I can't imagine WHY someone would do that to the members of his own family. His mother, his younger brother and sister, his father. He was "getting back" at his girl friend for breaking up with him. That was his reason for taking his life. Okay, I get that...I guess....but WHY do it in such a way that your family will be haunted with the image for the rest of their lives? So cruel, so selfish. As a mother my heart would be broken, completely shattered and devastated, yet I'd be so damn angry at my kid for doing that to me! So angry.

[Robin Brunet]

I have been thinking the same thing lately...that it must be truly terrifying to have a child that feels that way, anyone to feel that way really. There have been a lot of suicides in that age group of late and I wonder, are the numbers increasing or are we just more aware.