Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Skiing - end of the holidays

My life has been very busy these past few weeks. But let me start from a few weeks ago. At the end of our Christmas break stood a ski trip with some good friends. Luke had been looking forward to this trip very much while my feelings were more differentiated. After the holidays had been painful and hard but also encouraging for our way through our grief I was still emotionally exhausted. How would I do on a trip with friends where it would be hard to be by myself? It turned out that the skiing, the nature gave me the freedom of nature, the feeling that I could be and move anywhere. When I was going through the trees all by myself (it did work out) I felt like I was in a higher realm of things. While getting physically exhausted I also felt the Befriedigung of doing something for me. There was a sense of exhilaration in the air, I felt more daring than I had ever done. This is something that Iris Bolton, author of the book I quoted a weeks ago, calls a “gift” from the person who left us. I feel like I need to live intensely, breathe life in as much as possible and try to make the most out of every given moment. Often, I fail. However, skiing there on this deserted mountain gave me the feeling like I was being myself again. What a rare feeling.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Outside

Many things happened with me since my brother died. I know I changed. But there is something that is so pressing on me on most days. It is hard to find the right words to explain it. I always liked being outside and in the country. However, now I feel like it is a force inside me driving me outside. Never before did I feel so easily trapped in the city. And yet that is where I live and where I spend most of my time. Since I am working from home I have nowhere to look, no balcony or anything and it drives me nuts. I wanted to move very shortly after Alexander died already for exactly those reasons, I believe I have said so on here before, too. Every time I see nature I just about freak out. My outlet today was looking for a new apartment since I am trapped in this city for at least two more years. And it looks as if there is the possiblity of one a bit further outside, a bit bigger, with a balcony and cheaper than the one we are in right now! I am hoping so much that it is what it promises to be and we could get it. Being closer to nature somehow calms me down so much and I feel as if I am still somehow connected to Alexander. I feel so alone and desperate here for most of my days.
I am so overloaded with work right now that I should not even have written this little bit but I felt as if I needed to share this and it just helps so much to be talking about it.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Mood Swings

I am still reading all I can find about suicide survivors, their stories and professional help books. In one of them I found the following of which I think helps my husband to deal with me a little easier:

“A persistent component of the process of recovery seems to be the mood swings which persist through the weeks and months of mourning like an endless ride on a rollercoaster. One soars to a euphoric peak on a Sunday and then, within the week, dives into a hellish abyss. […]” (Iris Bolton: My Son… My Son… A Guide to Healing After Death, Loss, or Suicide)

This seems to be a very precise description of how I feel so often. Just wanted to share that, maybe it helps someone else to realize that they are not crazy all of a sudden, either.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Eight months without you

Dear Alexander,

it has been eight months since you chose to leave us. I am still having a very hard time trying to understand your decision. I miss you every day, think of you every day and wish I could do something to have you back. I play the scenes of us talking about your problem over and over, trying to see where I went wrong, where I should have done something different to prevent your decision. And then I try to understand that after all it was still your decision. But oh, it is so difficult. I try to accept that you saw no future for yourself but it is so hard to believe. Sometimes I even don’t see how I can get over this pain myself. Do you see how much we are struggling? Do you have bad days in heaven because you worry about us who are struggling with your decision?
Last month was the first holiday season without you. Especially the time right before was difficult, all of us were so caught up in our own feelings and fears. It turned out that we can still work pretty well together and we had a relatively peaceful Christmas, if one can say that. But we missed you. I miss your smile, your laugh, you teasing me, the way you would hug me and smile at me. Oh Alexander, I cannot imagine never seeing all this again. Why, oh why? How could you not see a light at the end of the tunnel? You could have made it, if anyone, then you. It is so hard, so impossible for me to understand that you had no way of seeing beyond your pain anymore. You did not seem to be so much under pain. It is so hard to believe that you just did an amazing job of covering up how bad you really felt inside. I know that you tried to tell us but we did not listen well enough. I am sorry that I was unable to read the signs, that I was not educated enough to help you. I wish I could turn back time.
My dear brother, it is so strange without you, so much has changed these past eight months. Can you see how much father has changed? I believe that he turned into a person you would have loved to have as a father. Do you see how much mother suffers? Do you feel guilty for that? Do you see how she does not have time for our little sisters, time that she would have had otherwise? Do you see how they are both struggling with school and their immense grief for you? Do you try to help them? I feel like I need to help them all and it is overwhelming. I am so tired of doing it all in addition to my work which is enough anyway. And yet I can’t stop because I am so scared, so incredibly scared that I miss the signs of someone else suffering, someone else needing my help and I am not there in the right moment. But I am so tired, so exhausted. I miss you so much. I always knew you were still there to help our sisters with whatever problems they had when I did not find the time or was busy or whatever. Now there are still the two other brothers but it is not the same. I wish you would answer me some time and give some answers to my many questions. But even more than that I want to see you happy again, laughing, joking and with all that love in your eyes. There are no words to describe how much I miss you.
I love you, little big brother.
Forever, Carola