My Bridges

Photo @thoughtcatalog

Looking Back

This time of year can be tricky to navigate as there are many anniversaries that bring up intense emotions. And, there are many holidays that are fun and heart-warming too. Where I am at now on my journey, I am very thankful for the distractions of the holidays because it can be easier to redirect my attention to things that I enjoy.

I went into my marriage to Erik with my eyes wide open as to his life-long struggle with suicidal ideation. As I look back, I can see that me not having any ability to truly understand his struggle as I had never even dared to consider such a thing for myself was a gift. Because I didn’t have any experience feeling this myself, because of my love for him, I just listened. Something that surprised him was that I didn’t judge him for this and I wanted to continue to be with him. Something that we did during our engagement period was to confess all of our most shameful secrets. We both felt like we wanted the other to be fully informed and aware of who each of us were so we could make the best decision for ourselves.

Throughout the course of our marriage, Erik never told me when those dark and ugly thoughts would begin to plague him again. He would tell me awhile after he had pushed through them. I am thankful that he did because I always did what I could to make sure I told him how much I loved him and how amazing he was. To this day, there is nobody that inspires me more.

A Greater Understanding

When my brother Dan lost his own battle with suicide, there was a lot of chaos going on in my life with Erik’s health, my dad’s stroke and the crisis I had been dealing with at my job. So, there was plenty to keep me busy and out of my head. About six months later, things had calmed down and leveled out. Then I had some health issues arise, it sent me to bed for a good portion of time due to extreme bouts of pain and very low energy. The issue was found and a routine outpatient procedure was scheduled. The doctor told me I should be in and out of the hospital the same day; worst case, I would be kept overnight.

Due to things being worse than thought, when I woke up, instead of everything being better and me going home, the pain was now persistent instead of intermittent like before the surgery. I was sent for another procedure where complications arose and I ended up almost dying.

When I was a young mother, women I knew began to get cancer and die, leaving their young kids without a mother here. So, my worst fear was to die when I had young children. Now, there I was two days of extreme pain and I was exhausted. I had been praying the whole time asking for the pain to be taken from me, to no avail. Then, I began to vomit blood and they rushed me to critical care. As I lie in that bed, I tried to distract myself from the pain. This time my prayer was different, I told God that I knew He loves me and that I trust Him. I told Him that I knew that my family would be okay if I died because I knew He would take care of them. Then I just began to thank Him for every person, blessing, and thing that I was grateful for; starting with my husband and each of our children. The dilaudid that they pumped into my IV began to take effect and I drifted off to sleep.

Two things happened inside of me after this experience; two sides of the same coin I guess you would say. The blessing that came was that my fear of death was taken from me. The struggle, as a side-effect, was that I would go back to that time and be sad for my family that I hadn’t passed. I, many times felt like I was a burden to my family and that they would have been better off if I had died back then. My whole life, I had stayed busy as a way to do enough and be enough. If something difficult happened, I pushed it down and out of the way. It was my way of focusing on being a productive member of society.

Because of all of the time I spent in bed before and after, I couldn’t get up and distract away the thoughts that I didn’t want to deal with. I learned that just because I had learned to walk through my life and be very productive and good at everything I did, I had not taken the time to process through my traumatic and difficult life experiences. I don’t recommend this approach because to wade through so much at once is so painful and overwhelming.

However, better late than never. There were two times that I danced with the suicide monster because of my impatience to face my demons and work through my experiences; to get completely honest about everything. I began to be sad that God had not taken me from this life during that experience. I felt so bad for Erik and my children because through the process, I would get to feeling better and then I would get knocked back down again. I had such intense emotions that were ebbing and flowing so much and it made me feel like such a failure. Life was changing so much and I was always one that really valued order, structure and routine and now everything was chaos inside of me. I couldn’t quiet anything inside of me like I used to.

It gave me a much greater understanding for Erik and my respect and love for him deepened immensely. I was in awe that he lived his whole life in physical pain of some sort, much of the time subtle, but more than most he had bouts of extreme pain. Then, because of his life experiences, he danced often with the suicide monster. My empathy for him went into overdrive. He walked me through that time with grace and such deep love and acceptance.

Looking Forward

Then, he lost that battle one morning; just like that he was gone. I would say that one of my biggest blessings that happened to me with that experience is that my dance with the suicide monster was over. There have been times where I have thought that our children would have been better off if I would have died back then and he would still be here with them. However, because I am the parent that is left here, I made myself and my children a silent promise inside of me the morning after he passed. I promised that I would show my kids that I could be okay and be happy. I knew that if I did that, then they would know they could do it too.

It has been a tricky and interesting journey, but these days, I am so very happy in my life. I am excited about every day that I wake up and am so excited about being surprised about how things unfold and work out in every aspect of my life. I learned about pre-paving in my life coach training. It is something that I had already learned to practice before my coaching course, now I know what the name of it is. Every time I knew I was going to go somewhere or have to do something I wasn’t looking forward to, I would spend time days before and especially in the morning when I woke up to set the intention as to how I would like the experience to be. I found that it made a huge difference in my experiences when I did this.

As time has gone on, I have thoughts about my future that excite me. Historically, in my life, I was not one that wished for a lot. A big part of this was not wanting to be disappointed. And, being a part of such a large family, (I have 15 siblings), my parents worked hard to provide for us. Being one of the oldest, I helped a lot and didn’t want to overtake so as not to leave less than for someone else. However, the times that I really have chosen to dream and really want something, what I noticed is that every time, things always worked out better than I could have imagined myself.

As I have worked to let go of control and be open to things working out in a great way for me, there was something inside of me that told me that if there was something that came inside of me and ignited excitement inside of me, I just knew that it was possible. So, I began getting the courage up to believe I was worth it and that me getting great things never takes away anything from anyone else. Let me tell you, that has been a long and dedicated process for me.

When I first heard this song, I was doing quite good for the most part. However, there were times that I romanticized death. I wasn’t looking for it. I had a positive outlook and wanted to still be here with my kids and for my kids. Mostly, the song spoke deeply to my heart; whenever I hear a song that speaks strongly to an experience I have had, it reminds me once again that there are others that really do resonate with my hard experiences and have also gotten through tough times similar to mine. Now, when this song played recently, I just smiled because now I am in the place where I can see that I have used many bridges in my life to get to the other side.

As I reflect back on my journey, I can see that my process is first being willing to believe something is possible for me. I continue to hope that it can be true for me. Then, there is a natural evolution that happens as I learn more as I practice hope. As I learn more, I begin to see proof of these things in other people’s lives and then start to see it in my own. Then, before I know it, I am living the reality of whatever it is in a powerfully confident way. I hope that you are blessed with all the great things that your heart desires because you are worthy of all of the best things that life has to offer!