kendra.l.nicholson

Hey there. Remember me? I’m sorry that it’s been a while. 

I have sat at my computer over and over and stared at the screen. I have typed and deleted, typed and deleted.

I have pulled out the old school pen and paper. I have written and scratched it out, written and scratched it out.

I realized today that the reason that I haven’t been sharing as much is that I’m finding myself revisiting my old nemesis, and it makes me very uncomfortable. Coming in at number two on the list of the Five Stages of Grief:

Anger. 

This one is a toughie. It just feels so wrong. Sadness is easy to justify. Losing a child is sad. There’s no way around it. When I tell people that I lost my son to suicide, nearly everyone has the same reaction. “I’m so sorry. That breaks my heart.” I have never had anyone say, “That is infuriating.” 

But it is. It is absolutely infuriating. 

Anger scares me, though, because I’ve seen what prolonged anger can do to people. Not too long after we lost Trevor, my husband and I went to a support group for people who have lost children. I sat and cried throughout the entire two-hour meeting, and I remember very little about it, except for one woman who was there. Her son had gotten cancer, and had been gone for fifteen years, and she was still angry. She was angry at the world. She complained that no one came around anymore, and she felt very alone. I could tell that everyone in the meeting was accustomed to her, and they listened politely but didn’t respond. Her support group didn’t even know what to say to her. I remember getting in the car and turning to my husband and saying, “That poor woman is holding on to so much anger that she has driven everyone away. I don’t want to be like that.”

Yet here I am again. I’m smack dab in the middle of anger.

Trevor has been gone for four years now, and I’m so mad. I’m not mad at him. I’m not saying it would be wrong to be mad at him, and I can understand why people might be angry with their loved ones who attempt or complete suicide. I just truly feel like the choice was out of his hands. 

I’m angry at the illness that took him. I’m angry that his mind was so clouded that he couldn’t see himself as I saw him. I’m angry that his illness was so manipulative that it kept him from talking about it. 

I’m angry that we had to struggle so much to get therapy for him. I’m angry that his therapist and psychiatrist couldn’t share how he was doing in his sessions. We had very little guidance about how to treat his illness at home. I know he was technically eighteen years old and was therefore being treated as an adult, but he was my sick child. 

I’m angry that I don’t know what to say to those who have lost children, spouses, fiancés, and friends. I don’t have the words to take away their pain, because those words don’t exist. I am helpless as I watch them suffer, just as I was helpless watching my boy suffer. 

I’m angry that I don’t know what to say to the people who live in fear of receiving the same phone call that I received four years ago. I hear from so many, and it’s always the same. “I don’t know what to do. What should I do?” and I simply don’t know what to tell them. I don’t know what works, because I loved my son fiercely and I told him that every day. I took him to therapy, and I took him outside and exercised with him. I did everything I knew how to do–everything I was told to do, but it didn’t work. 

I’m angry because every time I read about someone Trevor’s age whose parents are excited because they’ve graduated from college, gotten a new job, gotten engaged, had a child, or any of the other wonderful and exciting things that we dream of, my first response isn’t joy for them. It’s an ache for what I’ve lost.

I’m angry that when my friends and family complain about their teens, all I can think of is that they need to be grateful, because it could be so much worse. 

I’m angry because the things that people complain about, which are the same things I used to complain about, seem so petty to me now. I’m envious. I want those minor annoyances to be the worst part of my day too.

I’m angry that he didn’t get to grow up and do the things he wanted to do. When he was in elementary school, he decided that when he grew up he wanted to have muttonchops and a handlebar moustache so that he could go to bars and challenge people to fisticuffs. When the hipster style became trendy, he changed his mind, but he still wanted a moustache and a beard. After he died, I read the coroner’s report, and in the description of him, it mentioned that he had a small moustache, and it nearly did me in. When I think about it even now, my stomach drops, my eyes well up, and my face gets hot just like it did that day. I’m so mad that he didn’t get to have his beard. He was so close.

I’m angry that the worst part of my day, every day, is that I wake up and realize that I have to live another day in this world without my son. 

I’m angry that we have had yet another high-profile suicide with the loss of Chesly Kryst. She chose the same method of suicide as my sweet boy and reading about it takes me back to the day we lost him. And yet again, I’m reading comments talking about how maybe now things will change. Here we are talking about it again, but what are we DOING about it? Thoughts and prayers are OK, but they don’t build mental health facilities. They don’t pay for school counselors. They don’t train mental health care workers. 

I’m angry that there is still so much ignorance when it comes to depression. Every time I read a post about tossing out the medication and taking a walk outside, I want to scream. That kind of talk is so harmful. It minimizes mental illness, and it shames the people who need the medication in order to function. If you are sad, then yes, a walk outside can be helpful, but if you are depressed, it’s so much more complicated than that. 

Sadness is an emotion. We are sad because something has happened to us to make us feel bad. 

Depression is a brain illness. We are depressed because something is wrong with the way our brain functions. When we are depressed, it doesn’t matter what is happening to us. We still feel hopeless. There have been so many comments from people who talk about how successful Chesly was, how beautiful she was, how she had everything, and how could she possibly have completed suicide considering how amazing her life was. It doesn’t make any sense.

EXACTLY. It shouldn’t make sense, because that’s not how a healthy brain works. Her brain was ill. She was not sad. She was sick. 

Back when I was growing up, you could still drop in on people unannounced, and my dad would stop at someone’s house to bring them something or give them a bit of news he would say, “Don’t put your shoes on. We ain’t stayin’.”

That’s where I am right now. I’m just visiting with anger again. I have overstayed my welcome at this point though, and I’m getting ready to leave. It’s time.

“Don’t put your shoes on, Anger. I ain’t stayin’.”

Be gentle with yourselves.

Last Wednesday I had my first public speaking engagement with the Student Focused Teacher Led Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas. I’ve been trying to process the event ever since. I keep sitting down to write, but I can’t find the words. Please bear with me as I try to find them now.

Before I began speaking, I was terrified. I have been in front of audiences many times. I began doing theatre in high school, and continued throughout college and after. Then I discovered improv several years ago, and performed and taught for several years. I always get nervous when I’m on stage performing, but this was different. When I do a play, it’s scripted. I’m not speaking my own words, and the character is most certainly not me. I know exactly what words to say and when to say them. I know the motivation for my character, and that leads me to express the proper emotion I need to tell the story. I even know where I’m supposed to stand or sit on the stage and say them.

Improv is a little different, because it involves making up scenes in the moment, based on an audience suggestion, so I get a little more nervous, because I am responsible for coming up with the words, stage movements, and emotion, but I’m still pretending to be someone else. I’m still making up a story. I’ve always told someone else’s story.

I’ve never stood up and told mine.

Sitting behind a keyboard and writing about Trevor’s suicide is not easy, but it’s definitely easier than saying it out loud in front of a group of strangers, but folks… lemme tell ya… when I finished, people began coming up to talk to me, and they were no longer strangers. We were more connected than I would have ever thought.

They didn’t come up to me there in the room that I spoke in, though. They didn’t do it in front of everyone else. They would find me later when I was alone. They would come to me one at a time over the course of the next couple of days of the conference, and it would always go the same way.

They would speak almost in a whisper.

They would thank me for sharing.

They would start to get emotional.

They would apologize for their emotion.

“I lost my sister to suicide.”

“I live in constant fear of getting that phone call.”

“My best friend is bipolar.”

“I struggle with depression and anxiety.”

“I’m sitting at a table full of people I work with every day, and none of them know.”

Before I put on the microphone and walked up to the stage, I thought, “I’m going to do this, and if it’s too hard, I won’t have to do it again.” And it was hard. So hard. And I don’t want to do it again, but I’m going to, because so many people are struggling and keeping it to themselves. Too many. I’m going to talk about it, because it’s necessary.

Struggling with mental illness, or seeing someone you love struggle with it, can be incredibly isolating. It feels better to know you’re not alone, and my friends, you are NEVER alone. You are surrounded by people who are touched in some way by it, but they’re walking around struggling with it, and hiding it, and they feel alone too.

When Trevor died, his best friend told us that they had no idea that he had depression and anxiety. They had no idea that he was in intensive therapy. They had no idea that he was thinking of taking his own life. They were the last person Trevor texted, and that text was sent while he stood on the roof of the building he had climbed in order to jump to his death.

The text read, “I’m sorry but I have to do this.”

He was in so much pain that the only way out for him was to take his own life, but he didn’t tell anyone. Not even a whisper.

We need to learn to talk about mental health.

Say it out loud.

September is National Suicide Prevention & Awareness Month, and the 10th is World Suicide Prevention Day. 

September 10 is also my birthday.

It feels wrong to celebrate another year of life, when my son celebrated his last birthday in July of 2017. How do you celebrate when your child was in so much pain that they chose to leave this world? How do you celebrate when you keep aging, but your child will forever be the age they were when they died? How do you celebrate 51 years on this planet, when you are not the same person you were before that terrible day? How do you celebrate when the part of you that doesn’t feel deserving of a celebration is so much larger than the part of you that does?

I Googled “how do I celebrate my birthday after the loss of a child” out of curiosity, and while there are lists of ways to honor a child’s memory on their birthday, I couldn’t find any information about what to do on your own birthday. I wasn’t necessarily surprised, but I was disappointed. It’s frustrating to reach out for answers when none are available.

So… what am I going to do?

I suppose I’ll be making it up as I go, but I do plan on doing some little things for myself. I will be accepting birthday wishes from my friends and family, and let me tell you, folks, I love them. I do. Each and every “Happy Birthday” I receive feels like a little hug. I will go to one of my favorite restaurants with my husband. I will open cards and a couple of gifts, and I will allow myself to feel like even in the midst of grief, I’m still pretty blessed.

I will also share my feelings about this mixed emotion day, because I know I’m not alone. I know so many of us are trying to celebrate milestones while feeling like one of the big reasons we have for celebrating is gone.

Too many of us. 

It’s so much easier to accept the negative aspects of our grief journeys. It’s much more difficult to accept the good. On my birthday, I will accept the love I am given, and I will also be grateful for the love that I am privileged to give.

Oh… and cake. I’m also super grateful for cake.