avatarAndrea Decker

Summary

A mother grapples with her daughter's suicide attempt, reflecting on their once close relationship and the pain of her daughter's mental health struggles.

Abstract

The author, a mother, writes a heart-wrenching account of her daughter's suicide attempt, detailing the emotional turmoil and sense of loss she feels. Despite once sharing an incredibly close bond, the mother describes how adolescence and mental health challenges have created a chasm between them. The daughter's suicide note, which mentions the mother as an afterthought, leaves her shattered, questioning her role and the depth of her daughter's despair. The mother acknowledges the natural progression of a child growing away from a parent but emphasizes the unbearable pain of nearly losing her daughter to suicide. She expresses her unconditional love, the intertwining of their lives, and her inability to imagine a future without her daughter. The article concludes with a plea for her daughter to seek help and return to her, providing resources for those in crisis.

Opinions

  • The mother feels that her daughter's suicide attempt was a violent severing of their bond, which she finds unnatural and permanent.
  • She believes that her daughter's capacity to love while still feeling overwhelmed by life is both a source of pride and deep concern.
  • The mother admits to having unhealthy boundaries in their relationship, recognizing that her daughter's existence has become inseparable from her own.
  • She is tormented by the memory of her daughter's drugged state and the haunting image of her eyes, reflecting fear and confusion.
  • Despite the pain, the mother is willing to learn to separate her heart from her daughter's, if it means her daughter can find her way back to life.
  • The mother expresses a mix of pride and heartbreak over her daughter's actions leading up to the suicide attempt, including her ability to communicate her intentions.

It Changed My Life

I Was An Afterthought in Your Suicide Note

Letters to my daughter from the night she tried to take her life.

“A cry for death” Charcoal Drawing by Author

I was an afterthought in your suicide note, a mere mention.

It wasn’t always this way. Until this past year, I was your best friend, despite being your Mother — inseparable, fun-loving, Gilmore Girls, the envy of many, and beloved by more.

Adolescence did not necessarily take me by surprise. On the contrary, watching you transform into a gregarious engaging teen enchanted me.

Friends, school, love interests only further demonstrated your vitality. And while it was hard not being your “go-to” anymore, I was adapting. I had a handle on my feelings until the trickling loss of your growing up rapidly changed.

Then, the dam broke, and you washed away. This division happened as your mental health declined, leaving me searching oceans to find a speck of you to grasp.

“I seem to make everyone I meet’s life worse, so I wanted to take myself out of the picture. I love every single one of my friends, and I’m gonna miss you all so much. Especially you, G. You’re the best thing to ever happen to me, and you kept me here longer than I had planned. Mom, I love you so much, and I know you can go on without me. I will miss all of you. Even people I just met this year, I’ll miss. I just can’t stand feeling like this. I feel used, and I overthink everything. At this point, I just feel so exhausted. Dad, I love you so much and thank you for trying this hard. G, again, you’re the best thing that has happened to me, and I love you so much. <3”

Your words, the pain, the depletion I feel in my bones. Your capacity to love while still believing tomorrow is too much to bear plagues me.

I shatter reading these words of goodbye — written before swallowing 46 pills.

I understand the stage/phase when peers become more important. I accept that logically and appreciate the developmental necessity of growing up and growing away.

But when you try to take yourself out of this world, away from me, I not only can’t go on, but I PROMISE, no one will feel your loss more than I. It isn’t possible.

Apparently, in loving you, my darling girl, I forgot how to separate myself from your existence.

Now I’m left heartsick and heavy feeling empty, abandoned, and forgotten. I don’t know how to reconcile having the single most important person in my world no longer view me the same.

I’m confident my boundaries are unhealthy. And, I know our Mother/Daughter/Friendship has been a gift not often experienced.

But you have been my everything since your first inhale. My breath, syncing with yours, and my heart finding its rhythm, your rhythm.

You are still my everything, even in your adolescent independence. I don’t know how to let go and don’t want to.

And while the natural severing of ties is painful — VIOLENTLY ripping yourself away from this world is excruciating, unnatural, and permanent.

“You can go on without me….”

Go on? I can’t breathe without you!

I can’t be alone amidst my thoughts without seeing your eyes, huge and dilated, haunted and over-drugged, scanning the room, confused, frightened, panicked, lost.

“Your eyes haunt my dreams” Charcoal Drawing by Author

I can’t bear the silence because all I hear are your mangled and unintelligible words, pleading with me to understand — your attempts to speak echo like chaotic booms in my mind. I’m helpless and desperate to comprehend but only make out a sparse few.

“Muwm, rrrrr iou poud ahme?”

For what, baby? Of course, I am. I’m proud of each step, moment, tear, laugh, of every breath you make.

Am I proud of you now when you took three weeks’ worth of your prescription medications while watching Alice and Wonderland?

Am I proud that you were able to communicate this fact with me?

Am I proud that you asked me for Melatonin an hour before you tried to kill yourself, hoping you could sleep through your suicide?

Am I proud that you sent me a quick “love you” and “goodnight” before you tried to take your life?

God, baby, I’m lost!

I can learn to separate my heart from yours. Assuming I can find it again.

But I cannot live without your heart beating. I cannot “go on.”

Please, find your way back.

Fight your way back!

Please, my darling girl, find your way back to me.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Lifeline) at 1–800–273-TALK (8255), or text the Crisis Text Line (text HELLO to 741741).

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Suicide Prevention
Mental Health
Life
Life Lessons
Health
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