A Survivor's Story

Christine

Survivor

November 12, 2002,  9:00 pm.  My safe and happy life slipped away from me within minutes as I was being told about how my husband had died only one hour earlier.  An atom bomb fell on me.  I immediately began scrambling for answers.  I needed so badly to go and be with him.

I was told it would be in my best interest if I didn't see him.  I was never to see him again.  Cut off, without a goodbye, and above all, crying out my God WHY!   Enduring the shock and trying to process this sudden and unwanted event was more than I could bare.  And, on top of this I was rapidly replaying in my mind all the days events leading up to this tragedy.  What role must I have had in this?  What did I not see?

The weight began mounting.  My God, he stood in front of a train!!!

During the next months ahead I would spend hours on end at the library finding all I could on suicide and the after life for the survivor. The information became as food for my persistent questions.  I learned how prevalent suicide is in our society.  I began to realize how many survivors are out there and seemingly on their own.  Grief to suicide is very complicated because we have to live with the question, could I have done something that would have prevented this?  We live with painful burdens beyond a non survivors imagination.  A risk of suicide for a survivor is automatically heightened after a loved one has taken their own life.

I eventually attended a suicide support group in Toronto.  I found sanctuary there.  I found out that I was not going crazy.  For the first time I felt I was not alone in this.  It was through them I heard that Distress Centre Durham was going to start up a suicide support group in 2004.  This would be wonderful for survivors living so far away .  I decided without effort that I wanted to give support and hope to a fellow survivor.  I knew first  hand what this kind of grief and painful desperation was like.  That is why we are called survivors.  That year through Distress Centre Durham, I was given the opportunity to share my story and become a co-facilitator to their groups.

On behalf of other survivors and from the bottom of my heart, I want to say thank you to Distress Centre Durham for allowing this opportunity to unfold.  A support group of this kind can be a lifeline for a survivor of suicide.