Mental health after loss is an important subject. From postpartum mood disorders or “complicated grief syndrome” to suicidal feelings or desire for self harm, there are multiple mental factors that can be expressed after loss. This page discusses those.
Please note — for more than a year after my loss, I personally experienced suicidal feelings. I do not currently feel those things, but this page does openly discuss them because I think it’s an important subject.
31 Jan 2018 – Choice
The choice inside suicide—Before my son died I thought suicide was cowardly, escapist. I now realize there is so much more inside this conversation. Choosing to live after my son’s death is one of the hardest choices I’ve ever had to make.
22 Feb 2018 – Fuck
I wrote a letter to Target a while back. I still find myself walking through the baby aisles, thinking about things I would be buying. Should be buying. I should have a living son.
009 – 33w2d
This week was hard, but it put some things into perspective for me. I’m going to meet you soon, and our lives are about to change in the most wonderful way.
28 Jul 2018 – A Letter from the In-Between
I’m not actively suicidal, but this is the beginning. This is the in-between stage; this is where it starts. This is what it looks like when someone is crying out in pain and the entire world tells her, “You’re strong; you’re fine…Simply because I’ve decided you’re not allowed to be anything else.”
027 – Mon, Aug 14, 2017 at 12:15 PM
People ask if I’m suicidal, but I don’t think anyone really wants to know the truth. I think about it every day. I look out the door of our cabin and think how easy it would be. I could just jump. It scares me. I don’t think I want to die, but neither do I want to live.
032 – Mon, Sep 18, 2017 at 9:24 PM
There’s a place apart from suicide. A place where you don’t think to cause yourself harm, but neither do you have reason to live.
“If She Dies, I Die”; Grey’s Anatomy, Life, & Echoes of Grief in Pregnancy After Loss
I am pregnant now, 24 weeks. She is healthy and active, and she brings me joy. And I find that I want to be here, and I want to be her mother. But if something were to happen, and that darkness were to fall again—if TWO of my children were to live beyond my world, I don’t know that I’d survive.
26 Mar 2019 – The Worst Thing that Never Happened
This is quite possibly the darkest thing I’ve ever written. Please note that the following screenshots are simulated tweets. This is the timeline of an event that never happened.
Awareness Isn’t Enough – Preventing Suicide Starts with Understanding
Three years ago, I would have said suicide was cowardly. I didn’t understand, then, how quickly life can change. Suicide may not be an ideal answer, but I better understand the complexities behind the issue now. Awareness isn’t enough—suicide prevention starts with understanding.
Sea Lions
Walking along the pier with my daughter where I used to walk alone, I think about the drastic changes of the past two years. Despite the sweetness of her new life, I don’t feel thankful for the hardship that preceded her. Life doesn’t work that way.
