Suicidal After The Loss Of My Child: And I Survived

Content Warning: This post discusses suicide desire and ideation. We believe it is such an important issue to share because of the frequency these feelings/actions happen in child loss and infertility, and it’s not spoken of enough of in our community. If you’re feeling unsafe or considering suicide, please reach out for help: see the bottom of this post or this page for resources. You matter to so many.

May 5th, 2019.

I survived suicide.

Woke up this morning and thought of suicide. Nothing to see here, I’ve been thinking of it for years.

Sometimes the thought lingers as I put my feet on the floor.

But soon, I’m making my morning tea and feeding the dog breakfast, and I ask myself, is it normal to think suicide first thing in the morning?

I was a single mom in 1991 when Jacob passed away. I was 23, and he was 2.

My husband and I were divorced about a year before Jake died and although we grieved together, we were separated in our day to day navigating our new world.

Back then, I thought about suicide all the time: morning, noon, and night.

I was just so tired and too distraught to figure out how.

When my ex-husband passed away in a car accident in 1996 I thought, you lucky #$%^&!

Seemed unfair, really. I wanted to be dead!

I thought: he got off easy!

Seemed about right. He gets to go home and see Jacob, and I’m still here, waiting for my turn.

I thought about suicide. I thought about it so much that it just became a normal thought.

Not normal enough to talk about it. I was afraid my friends and family would have me put away, or they would put me in therapy for weeks, months, years.

If they only knew how much it crossed my mind.

But I survived.

Surviving the death of your child is more challenging than most realize.

Empathy, compassion, and understanding from others fall short on what’s being hidden from folks on the outside.

I spent more time making others feel comfortable in my loss. It was like I had something they didn’t want to catch.

I had to make them comfortable by assuring them they wouldn’t catch it from me.

Funny how that works. Even all these years later. You can almost feel the person’s reaction when they are told you lost a child.

They slowly back away, the thought is too much for them to handle.

Most say: I would die if my child died. I wouldn’t be able to survive!

Great, thanks for reminding me I haven’t died by suicide… more guilt.

Believe me; I thought about suicide before you did. I’m way ahead of you!

And yet, I’m still here. So I must be weak; I must not have loved my son the way you love your child.

If you would succumb to suicide, and I haven’t, that must be the reason.

But, I’m still here. I’m still standing.

I’m still on the brink of a suicide survivor, 28 years later.

It takes more guts to be here still than I even give myself credit for. Grieving is exhausting!

Even on a good day, I’m still sad.

The good and bad do co-exist, together in disharmony.

When my second Son, Dallas, was born four years after the death of Jacob, I thought about suicide a little less.

Of course, until I over thought and panicked about his death!

What if something happened to him?

Well, then it would be easy. I’d succumb to suicide, right away.

I thought this would be the easy way out, and I would never survive the death of my two children!

And yet, I have met parents who have lost more than one child… and they are still standing.

They survived, could I?

Dallas, my Son, is now 25, and I survived the desire to die by suicide. That doesn’t make me weak, and it surely doesn’t make me strong.

It just makes me still here navigating through this life, good days, bad days, days, and nights that seem the same as yesterday and the days before.

I honor my children, both of them. With my love and my life!

Now when I think of suicide, I think about how I survived.

———

Samantha Jane St. Raymond is a 52-year-old mother of two. Sam’s first son Jacob passed away in 1991 at two years old. Since then, Sam has made her life’s mission to help others. She founded a not for profit that provides musical instruments to underfunded music programs in schools called Play It Forward. Sam is also an inventor and product developer. Her second child is Dallas, a 25-year-old DJ in St. Louis Mo.

*If you’re feeling unsafe or considering suicide, please reach out for help. The number for the US-based National Suicide Hotline is 1-800-273-8255 or text the Crisis Text Line with HOME to 741741, UK text HOME to 85258, Canada text HOME to 686868.

Please see our page Worldwide Mental Health Hotlines/Resources for additional resources.