After Caleb died and the people left after the memorial, the house may have seemed quiet, but my head was screaming. Yelling at God, Caleb, the world. If I went to the store I either froze with anxiety, raised my voice at a cashier who did not deserve it, or left crying without what I came for. I needed help.
I asked around and called a Christian counselor who encouraged my wife and I to attend together. I should have known from the beginning something was off. Plastered on his business cards and wall were several Bible verses. Each one more platitude than the previous. It led off with Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
So two grieving parents sit on the couch, and this counselor starts talking about how he knows grief. While we cremated our 21-year-old boy, he is going through a divorce and that is somehow almost the same thing. He then advises we do marriage counseling instead of grief counseling.
“Well, our marriage is going quite well, thanks, but I am struggling with my grief.”
No luck. He continues with marriage counseling and talking about his divorce during this session and the next. We did not return for a third visit. At least he did not tell us to get over it. Another counselor told a friend exactly that. Her daughter was dead one year and a professional told her to move on.
I somehow talked my wife into going to a Survivors Of Suicide meeting our pastor suggested. We were reluctant, partly from the counselor. The meeting was in the local hospital’s conference room. It sounded cold and clinical, not helping the jitters of meeting strangers. We were welcomed, asked to sign in, and sat in a circle of chairs. Somehow they turned this sterile room into a cozy chat with about eight other people besides the two of us.
I barely got the words out. “Hi, I am David and I lost my son, Caleb, to suicide five months ago. He was 21.”
That is okay. Someone else could not get the words out without breaking down.
One of the facilitators said it had been five years for her. The other said fourteen. I thought I might not make another five weeks. Certainly not five more months, much less years. These people were still standing. This was my first glimmer of hope.
Then the discussions started and they talked about the crazy things running in my head. One person cried in the store when they saw their person’s favorite food. I had done the same thing when I saw Caleb’s gum. I had told no one, not even Donna. Another talked about how they could not think. Work was impossible. Yes. I had the hardest time putting two sentences together, much less thinking or remembering anything. Another talked about their panic when their child did not answer the phone. I was freaking out every time Donna or Madi left the house, or did not answer a call or text, and other times too.
I walked out of that SOS meeting with two things. “I am not crazy for thinking ______!” and maybe, just maybe, there is a way to keep going.
I have attended every monthly meeting except one for over seven years. I am now one of the co-facilitators. I did not graduate. You do not graduate from this. The grief does not leave. But every month, someone new walks in with that look I remember on my own face, and I get to be the one who says, “Seven years. I am still here.”
While SOS helped in so many ways, I still struggled with anxiety and depression. After talking to a psychologist, I began taking an SSRI. It helped enough to be manageable, but the side effects were harsh. I felt disassociated from my inner self. My vision seemed to come from over my head. I looked down at myself and felt like I was remotely controlling my own body. Adjusting the dose did not help. Worse, it impaired my thinking. I have a deeply demanding job requiring intense logical reasoning. The medication was threatening my ability to remain employed. I weaned off the SSRI and began managing with a very low carb diet. It does not work for everyone. It worked for me. I have managed without medication for four years.
It took me a few years to try to find a counselor again. I fully expected to spend a while searching. It is common to not find the right one immediately. Do not be afraid to say it is not a good fit. It is normal. So I decided to start with the closest office, less than a mile from home. If I am going to try four or more, might as well start close. Rip the band-aid off, check a box, find the next one.
I have continued to see him for about two years. I got lucky.
He has not lost a child to suicide, but he does not need to have lived it to sit with it. What matters is he hears it. He does not flinch. He does not redirect to his own problems. He lets me say the hard things out loud and helps me sort through the wreckage without pretending there is a fix.
Some days the only self-care I had was breathing. Breathe in for five, breathe out for ten. Some days I counted breaths through hours. Some days a long walk kept me alive until the next day. These are not small things. When the world has collapsed, drawing one more breath on purpose is an act of defiance.
If someone tells you that therapy is weakness or medication is a lack of faith, they have never sat in that circle. They have never choked on their own child’s name in a hospital conference room. They do not get a vote.
I am not going to wrap this up with a nice line about healing. I do not believe in healing the way most people mean it. But I believe in surviving. I watched people in that SOS room who were five years, ten years, fourteen years past the worst day of their life, and they were breathing. They were sitting in chairs. They were telling me it was survivable, not because they read it somewhere, but because they were the proof.
If you are early in this, I need you to hear me. You are not crazy. The things in your head are not crazy. And this, whatever this is right now, the part where you cannot think and you cannot sleep and you cannot walk through a store without falling apart, it is survivable. I know because I am still here. And I am not the strongest person in that room.
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