Suicide: Hope and Healing

For those who may have had a family member or close friend commit suicide, I asked her to write this testimony, I asked her because two members of my community had taken their own lives within a month of each other, a young man who was 14 and an older man over 50. The young man I did not know personally, he did attend my son’s school. The older man I had spoken with a few days prior to the incident. He was my Veterinarian. He had given me bad news about my dog. I didn’t blow up or anything, but he clearly knew I was upset. I wondered if I could have said something that had or would have influenced his decision. I mentioned how upset I was about these two incidents to my friend, and then she shared with me that her first husband had taken his life. I asked her to write this because there are a lot of questions. I asked her before I knew she was the one who found him, I asked her to write it to help other people who might be going through this same situation. Her testimony is graphic; it was hard for me to read. There are warning signs; there are things you may not want to read. I just want to warn you in advance that this is a real account, this really happened, she has lived through this. She wants to share this with you, to help you. Both She and I will be praying for you. She wanted to make herself available to speak to you, to answer any questions you might have. For a private conversation click on the Contact button. If you make a comment it could be posted for all to see. If you would like to, contact her and she will answer you back as soon as she can. PN

It was such a weird week…well it really had been a weird few months. Mike dad died August 2006, and he was just not able to handle his dad’s death. You couldn’t even mention his dad without him exploding and having a come apart. He would get so angry and say he didn’t want to talk about it. I don’t know if he just couldn’t deal with it or what. He had completely quit going to church because he didn’t want to talk to anyone about his dad. If he even saw a picture of his dad he would get angry. I called Behavioral Health, which is a counseling service provided through my employer for employees and their family, and set Mike up an appointment to talk with someone. He went one time and said he didn’t need to talk to someone that wouldn’t help. He would come home so late…after I’d gone to bed, and he would stay in his room downstairs. Sometimes I would tell him I was going to do my Bible Study. He got to where he would come to the bedroom before I would start reading my Bible. I remember one night he got mad at me because I decided to read my Bible early. I was really tired, and we had been arguing. I just wanted to go to bed. Then he was mad because I did my study without him. You just never knew what would set him off or how he was going to react.

Anyway, back to that week. My dad had been dead a little over a year and Father’s Day was going to be Sunday so I wanted to get a card for my grandfather. I spend time crying in the card section of CVS and couldn’t pick out anything because they all made me cry. I missed my dad so much and I still do. I knew what Mike was going through but he wouldn’t talk to me. That Monday, Beau (my Rottweiler) went missing. I saw her that morning and gave her some food and loved on her a minute as I was leaving to go to work. We put her in the garage during the day because she could, and would sometimes, step over the low part of the fence in the back yard. Mike was in bed. He was into something. I didn’t know if it was drugs, drinking, gambling or what. By the time I got up to go to work, he was usually going to bed or had just gone to bed. I quit trying to make him get up and find work. He told me there was not any work for him to do. Later, I would find out this wasn’t true.

I went to work and came home at the end of my day. Beau wasn’t in the garage. I thought maybe she had to go out before Mike left and he just forgot to bring her in. Mike was leaving sometime during the day and not coming home until after I went to bed. I looked in the back yard and Beau was nowhere to be found. I checked the pool because it had been a really hot day. The pump didn’t work and we had drained the pool to ankle deep and I thought she might have fallen in trying to get some water. She wasn’t there so I walked the neighborhood behind our house. I had been calling Mike, but he got to where he kept his cell phone off (of course he told me it wouldn’t keep a charge), and finally, after a couple of hours, I got him. I told him I couldn’t find Beau. He came home and by then it was well after dark. I know how people are about Rottweilers so we were really trying hard to find her. Mike drove and we went all over the area looking for her. We even asked people that were out in their yards if they had seen her. Nothing….so we went home.

Tuesday morning started the same as all mornings. Mike wouldn’t get up because he had been up all night and I didn’t want to deal with him so I left him in bed. I checked outside to see if Beau maybe showed up during the night sometime. I was really upset not knowing where she was and she had been acting strange for several days before that…like she didn’t feel good. She was 10 or 11 and she was a big dog; I just figured she was dealing with old age. Big dogs don’t usually live as long as small dogs so I was really worried she was dead somewhere and we wouldn’t find her. I didn’t know just how right I was about her being dead. Later that morning, while I was at work, Mike called me and said the neighbor saw something in our pool. He was out loading his truck with supplies, supposedly to go find work, and she hollered at him from her porch and said there was something in the pool. When Mike walked up there, it was Beau. I thought, “how could that be…I checked the pool Monday when I got home and she wasn’t in it. Surely, I didn’t miss a 110 pound dog in ankle deep water”. Mike pulled her out of the water and wrapped her in a sheet. When I got home from work, he had Beau loaded on the back of the truck and we went to Mother’s house to bury her in the woods. It took a long time to dig the hole, and get her covered up. Mike cried and cried while he dug that hole. He wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, and he wouldn’t let me look at Beau. Any time I tried to go to the back of the truck to look, he would jump on me. I often wonder if he killed her or if he knew who killed her. I had never seen him act like this when burying an animal, but I could see that he knew more than he was telling.

The rest of the week seemed pretty uneventful. He stayed in his room and I stayed in the bedroom and we ignored each other just like always. I was praying and studying my Bible more than usual looking for answers of what to do. I knew Mike was doing something, but when I would ask him what was going on, he would get so violently angry, and I just didn’t want to deal with him. I just wanted to get out, but I didn’t want to be a failure at marriage. I was lonely, scared, angry, hurt, and wanted out so bad. I was searching and praying for an answer to my situation.

Thursday night, I went by mother’s house and picked up Trouble, her cat. I was going to drop him off at Dr. Harts so that he could be shaved Friday. Friday morning I got up early and tookTrouble to the vet on my way in to work. I picked him up that evening, and went by the house to pick up Mike. We were going to eat supper at mother’s house. She was going to pick up Hardees’s for us to eat. They were advertising a Philly Cheese steak special, and she wanted to try it. Mike came out and said for me to go on to mother’s, that he had to go bid a job. He found some side work to do. I was excited because we hadn’t been able to pay bills on time and he kept taking money out of my checking account. He said it was for gas so he could look for work. Finally, maybe we would have some money to pay a few bills. I said “ok” and Trouble and I went on to Mother’s house. There was also an opening with Jefferson County for a maintenance worker and Mike was going to fill out an application for that while we were at mother’s house.

He got to mothers shortly after I did and we ate our sandwiches. I remember he talked about how good supper was. He just really loved the sandwich and was going to get another one next time he was at Hardees. Then I helped him fill out the job application with the County. He was so sweet and friendly. He hadn’t been that way in a very long time. He said he got the side job that he went and bid and was going to start it soon.It would be a good bit of money to help us start catching up. I just couldn’t believe how happy he was. I guess I should have known something was up but I was just caught up in the moment, because Mike was NEVER happy. Everyone and everything was out to get him by then. He was just a miserable person, and it felt like he wanted to make everyone around him just as miserable. I was just enjoying the fact that he seemed happy. By the way, that is one of the signs that someone is suicidal; especially after they have made the decision of how and when they are going to go through with it. I knew that then, but I didn’t put it together.

We stayed at Mom’s until sometime after 10:00 that Friday night. We had so much fun working on his job application and cutting up with mother. Mike never took jokes very well, but I remember he was so laid back and relaxed…fun to be around. Anyway, we left Mom’s, and I got home first. I saw that the side door into the garage had been kicked in. Mike got home within 5 minutes of me. I was glad because I didn’t want to walk in the house alone. Mike went in first and his room was turned completely upside down. My boxes of books had been opened and all his junk was scattered out into the den. I never went into his room because he would get so mad at me for going in there. I figured he had something hidden in the room since I wasn’t allowed to go inside. It was disgusting in there any way…trash and junk everywhere and the smell was atrocious.

So I went upstairs and my jewelry armoire was turned over. His dresser was turned over, and all his clothes scattered. Except for dumping my armoire, none of my stuff was touched. So whoever broke in only wanted whatever Mike had. They were looking for something…or Mike staged it to look like someone broke in. I say this becausewhen I called the police, he got really angry with me. He got really belligerent, and I told him to leave if that was what he wanted to do. It was sometime around 11:00 pm when I called the police to have someone come out to file a report. I remember being really scared after Mike left, so I grabbed a baseball bat. I didn’t understand why he didn’t want to wait there with me on the police. He told me that all of his rifles were missing from the gun cabinet. I found out later that he pawned most, if not all, of his rifles, and anything else he could. This is another reason why I believe he staged the house to look like someone broke in. It could have been a legitimate break in but why would he not want to let the police know his rifles were gone?

A County Sheriff got to the house sometime after midnight. I was actually surprised, being a Friday night, they got there that early. The Deputy walked thru the house while I told him what was out of place. Then we went downstairs and he saw where Mike’s room had been strewn out into the den and saw that the side door on the garage was kicked in. I told the deputy that some of Mike’s rifles were gone but I couldn’t remember what all he had. I told him that Mike left because I was filing a police report on the break in. The deputy thought it was strange that Mike left…I told him then I thought my husband was up to something, but I didn’t have any proof of what and that he had been acting strange ever since his dad died.

It was after 1 am when the deputy finally left. I tried to call Mike, but couldn’t get him…his cell phone was off. Well, needless to say, I couldn’t get comfortable enough to sleep because I didn’t know where Mike had gone, he wouldn’t answer his phone, and the door in the garage wouldn’t lock so I was scared. Finally, Mike called the house about 2:30 am and said he was at his mom’s. I asked him to come home so that I could sleep. I had to go to work that Saturday morning, and had to be there at 7:00am. We rarely worked on Saturdays, but we had been pulling delinquent sewer bills for the County Attorney. Because we needed to file them all back, we decided to come in that Saturday. We were not getting very much filed during the week while waiting on customers. I don’t know when Mike finally got home. I heard him come in but he never came to the bedroom. I only got a couple hours sleep, and got up at 5:30 to get ready to go into the office. Mike came up to the bedroom about the time I was getting ready to walk out the door. I told him that we had to talk…I was tired of everything that was going on and I couldn’t take it anymore. He needed to be at the house when I got home from work.

Let me stop here and explain what was going on in my heart. I had searched the Bible and been praying for several months over what to do. I remember asking God to just help me understand. I was so unhappy and scared and I never knew what Mike was going to do. I cannot stress enough the change in him after his dad died. He was so angry and hateful. He had always had a chip on his shoulder, but he was so much worse. I was so scared because I didn’t know if he was going to hurt me or what. I remember praying that God would show me the way out. I don’t believe divorce is the answer for every problem, but I do believe that it is an option when everything else has been exhausted. Mike refused to get help dealing with his dad’s death, he refused to get marital counseling (because he felt it was all my fault, apparently I needed the counseling, not him) and he refused to go to church, or even hear about church. I was so hurt and angry that I asked the Lord to just let Mike die. I had to deal with these feelings later, but at the time I was desperate for a way out of a marriage that had gone horribly wrong. I felt like there was a weight the size of the world on my shoulder. Along with taking my paycheck every time my deposit came thru the bank, Mike had taken my state quarters and gold dollars that I was collecting and anything else that was of value. I asked him about it and he said it was his stuff and he could take it and sale it. When I mentioned that it was mine too and that taking it without telling me was the same as stealing, he became irate. I was in a constant state of prayer asking the Lord to protect me and help me. I was always reading 1 Corinthians 13 searching for any love that might be left in my heart for this man. Finally I came to the conclusion there was none and talked to an attorney to have divorce papers drawn up. That’s why I needed Mike to be home when I got home from work on Saturday, June 16, 2007. I was going to tell him the divorce papers were drawn up and that I was moving out. I was completely done with him, completely heartbroken, and exhausted. My heart was so heavy from the decision that when I got to work, the others knew there was something wrong. I was also exhausted from lack of sleep…it had been a really long night.

I remember when I walked out of the house the Lord spoke to me. It was so clear…”go back in and tell Mike you love him and that you’re willing to help him get help…whatever he is into you can get through this together.”, but I refused. I told the Lord I wasn’t going back in there, I was running late to work and I was done with him. I felt the tug in my heart and I knew while driving off that I had disobeyed the Lord… Could that have changed the outcome of that Saturday? I will never know and that’s one of the many questions that will never get answered, but I’ll mention those later.

I left work at 3:00 Saturday afternoon. I was really dreading going home…I was dreading the conversation that was going to take place. When I got home, Mike’s truck was gone and I remember being so angry. He couldn’t be here when I asked him to…why could he not do just one freaking thing I asked him!? But then I thought…I’m tired and don’t feel like dealing with him any way. I went inside and sat down on the love seat. I just wanted to rest a moment before I started packing my clothes…I was so sleepy I couldn’t hold my head up. The next thing I remember was hearing a loud noise. I had dozed off with the TV on and thought maybe the noise came from the TV. It sounded like a gun shot, but I couldn’t be sure. X-men was playing on the TV so it was possible I did hear a gun but I was sure it had come from the movie. I got up from the couch and saw Mike’s truck parked in the driveway. I then thought maybe Mike slammed the door when he came in. He smoked in his room downstairs and had a fan in the window to suck out the smoke. Sometimes the wind would catch the door and make it slam shut. I remember feeling so strange when I got up…like medicine head or something. I couldn’t focus my thoughts and all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. I really didn’t want to argue with Mike and so I went to the bedroom and lay down to get my thoughts together for when he came upstairs. Well, I don’t guess I have to say…but I fell back asleep. The next thing I remember was the telephone ringing…it was strange because we didn’t have any money so I hadn’t paid the phone bill so we shouldn’t have had a land line…but there it was ringing. I couldn’t shake the fog from my head, and I couldn’t move. When I finally got half way awake, I realized that all the cats were on the bed as close to me as they could get, and they were acting strange…they didn’t want to move so I could get up. By then the phone had quit ringing. I walked to the kitchen to check the caller ID and saw it was Mom. I still had this drugged feeling and I remember my chest was so tight…I couldn’t get my head to work…I couldn’t think straight. I called momma back and she kept asking me what was wrong…I told her that I was asleep; that because of the break in and having had to be at work so early, I didn’t get much sleep. She told me to call her back after I was more awake. I had no idea what time it was or anything and the cats were following me into the kitchen; all hollering at the same time, and getting under my feet…I remember wondering what was wrong with them…why were they acting like this, and why was my chest all tight and my head not working? Why couldn’t I think straight??

It finally dawned on me that Mike never came up from downstairs, so I looked at my watch, but I don’t recall what time it was. I never could make sense of my watch. As I stated before, the pump on the pool wasn’t working, so I looked outside to see if Mike was out there working on it. He wasn’t there so I went downstairs. His room was open and I remember looking in there thinking, “geez is he ever going to clean that garbage up”. It was dark in there and there was stuff everywhere and even stuff on the walls. There was, what I thought, a pile of clothes on the couch too. So I looked in the garage to see if maybe he was working on fixing the side door that had been kicked in the night before…nothing…he wasn’t anywhere to be found…then it registered in my head. I went back to his room and realized that wasn’t clothes piled up on the couch in there…it was Mike. I walked in and saw that there was a body, but no head…his .12 gauge was still in his hands, the butt of it on the floor, and his body sitting up. The stuff all over the walls and ceiling was blood and tissue. My brain shut down as I ran upstairs to call 9-1-1. I sat in the kitchen floor shaking, and I really don’t remember much about the phone call. I remember the man on the phone asked me if I had a family member I could call? Yes…my brother…can’t call Mom she can’t get here…”I can call my brother”. The man asked “can you call him on a cell phone because I need you to stay on the phone with me?” “…um…yes,” I answered. I swear…I don’t know how my cell phone got to be there on the kitchen floor beside me. I honestly don’t recall picking it up, or even where in the house I put it when I got home from work. I called Chris and unlocked the front door so the police could get in when they got to the house. I told him that I thought Mike had shot himself.All I remember is him saying he would be right there. The rest was really a blur..police in and out of the house, a chaplain came and got me to go sit on the porch outside the house, and I remember him using my cell phone to call people. He called my mom and asked her to call Mike’s mom and grandparents. Chris got there and police were everywhere and I remember one sitting beside me filling out paperwork and I asked him…”is it really Mike? Please tell me it’s not really him…there was no head on the body so it can’t be him right?” I don’t know what he said, but I do remember him talking to me. I remember Chris saying that the police needed me to leave so they could remove Mike’s body and they wanted me to go to the hospital. The police told Chris that in all their years, none of them had ever seen anything like this. That what I saw was a horribly gruesome site, and that he needed to take me to a hospital to get some sedatives. I remember thinking I’ve got to change clothes…put my pants back on. I can’t go anywhere in these shorts and I’ve really got to pee. The police let me in to use the bathroom and put my pants on and by then Brother Tim, a deacon from my church, was at the house. He took Chris and me to Trinity Hospital where they took me to a room and gave me something to calm my nerves. I remember people coming in and out for a while but I wanted my daddy so bad…I was crying because I needed my daddy. My daddy couldn’t be there for me because he passed away February 23, 2006…but Chris said Uncle Roy, my dad’s older brother, was on his way. Let me back up and say, even though my “earthly” father couldn’t be here my “heavenly” father already had his arms around me holding me tight.

I really don’t remember much about the days following this…the body had to be released by the coroner and funeral arrangements made…all the stuff that goes along with a suicide or any death. I requested a copy of the Toxicology Report and found out that Mike had methadoneand cocaine in his system. This explained a lot about his change in behavior and having money issues. I remember crying a lot and wondering why. There were tons of questions…well…the questions are still there, I’ve just learned to live with the fact that there will never be answers to those questions. The first question was why? Why did he do this? What could I have said to help? Remember me writing earlier about not going back into the house Saturday morning? Yes…that really bothered me…what if I had done what I knew the Lord was telling me to do and went back into the house? Would that have changed anything? I prayed and sought out guidance from the Lord, and there were numerous people praying for me. I could feel the prayers that were for me, and the Lord held me up because I couldn’t do anything on my own. Then the anger set in…I started getting bills for things Mike put in my name. I pulled a credit report and realized I was up to my eyeballs in debt. I couldn’t afford the house payment, I had his truck payment and credit cards were in my name and to top it all off he owed the IRS approximately $30,000. We had filed jointly so that meant I was now solely responsible for the taxes. Like I said, anger…well it was more like hate…hate for what he did, and the mess he left me to clean up. I know my blood pressure must have been high because all I did was blow up at everyone. My family and friends were patient with me and endured most of my ranting. But through it all, I continued to pray and seek answers from my Lord. I wanted Him to get the glory out of all this mess…somehow He was going to make this a blessing…I didn’t know how, but I had faith that He could.

It took a lot of praying and soul searching to get rid of the anger. Even now something will come up to set those flames going again. It doesn’t mean I didn’t do the wrong things or make a lot of mistakes…I’m still a sinner…I’m just saved by grace. I remember a particular song kept coming on the radio. It seemed like every time I turned the radio on that song was playing or would come on shortly after…it was Casting Crown’s “Praise you in this Storm”. That song spoke directly to me…within two years I lost my dad, a father-in-law, my husband, had gall bladder surgery (emergency surgery the Monday after I buried my husband), lost my house and found out I was over my head in unsecured debt. I kept asking the Lord how He was going to bless me. I saw no end to this and then when I was just so discouraged and was beginning to doubt my faith I heard a passage of scripture on WDJC. “⁶ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. ⁷ Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. ⁸ Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. ⁹ Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.” (1 Peter 5:6-8 NIV) Wow!! Just what I needed to hear from my Lord. That passage is now highlighted in my Bible and I read it as often as I can.

Doors began to open every where I turned. I contacted the IRS about the huge bill that was due. I negotiated with them and talked to too many people to remember. They knocked the balance of the taxes due them from $30,000 to $13,000. This was still a lot of money, but it was a start. I remember saying ok Lord…you got the balance lowered, but how am I going to pay for it? I got a promotion…not just the normal 5% promotion given…I went from being an Account Assistant II to a Senior Accountant. That was an increase in pay of $10,000 a year…I was praising my Savior because only He could have opened that door. I had moved back in with my mother and bills were being paid…yes, I was finally seeing that light at the end of the long, dark tunnel. And just when I was feeling the loneliest and most vulnerable…the Lord sent me my soul mate. He has the same name as my first husband…which almost made me not want to talk to him, but I’m so glad I did. That’s another long story in itself…so I’ll just say we married September 5, 2009.

I still have my ups and downs when I think of Mike, but I’m starting to remember more of the good times and less of the bad. That’s when I think of him at all. My life is so blessed that I really don’t think about my past other than to recall what my Lord did for me. I read books about suicide and people who lost loved ones to suicide. I prayed for answers and tried to talk to people to find out what I should have done. I learned a lot and I want to share what I learned for any one that may be walking down this path…

1. It’s not your fault. There is nothing that you could have said or done that would have changed that person’s mind. When that person gets so desperate to think that is the only way out, then they will kill themselves. Only the Lord can intervene and stop them. I asked the Lord to forgive me, not because I felt it was my fault but because I felt that I should have gone back inside the house that day and tried to be more understanding. What your loved one did is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

2. There is no way to know or understand “Why?”. The only person who can answer that is the person that died. You can read into their suicide note (if they left one…most don’t), you can question the person they talked to last, you can ask God (I did), but you will never get an answer to why. This is probably the hardest thing to get past, but you have to let it go. It will not be easy, but ask the Lord to help you get past the “whys”. He will.

3. It’s up to you whether you tell someone how your loved one died. I will be honest and say when you tell them it was suicide they will get a strange look on their face and stumble across words because they don’t know what to say. Suicide is not like cancer, sickness, or a car wreck and it’s not accidental. So people don’t know how to respond and most don’t really want to talk to you about it. I’ve had people say they were “sorry to hear” and I’ve had some just walk off and leave me standing. Some will even think you had something to do with your loved one’s suicide or that you will end up doing the same thing because it “runs in the family”. That is absolutely not true. It is true that people with severe depression commit suicide, and depression is an inherited trait within a family but it doesn’t mean that someone else will choose to kill themselves. I choose my moments for when I tell people. If feel like it will help someone or give God glory, then I tell them. If not, then I simple say he died…end of story.

4. It’s ok to get angry at your loved one. There were times I was so mad at my husband I wanted to bite nails. One day I was so angry that I wrote him a letter and then went to the gravesite and read it to him. I stomped and snorted and had a screaming fit. If there was anyone there, I’m sure they thought I had lost my mind, but I felt so much better after that fit. When I went to bed that night, it was the best night of sleep I had had in a very long time. I felt like I finally had my say.

5. Just because someone commits suicide does not mean they are going directly to Hell…assuming that person has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. You will hear that your loved one went to Hell because they could not ask for forgiveness before they committed murder. The Bible clearly states that nothing can separate you from God:

John 10:27-30 “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, andno one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one."

Romans 8:37-39 “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

6. You are a survivor. It’s a long trail and going through the grief process is hard, but you are never alone. The Lord is there with you, holding your hand, and He will never leave your side. So cry, scream, stomp, or whatever it takes to get through it. God never allows you to go through what you can’t handle and He will bless you if you let Him.

My prayer is that He uses me to help others. I want to be a light for God and show people that no matter how far down in the valley you are, He’s right there with you, helping you back up that mountain. It’s easy to praise Him when you’re on top of the mountain, but praising Him in the valley is the ultimate test of your faith.