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Welcome everyone to another new year and fresh beginnings.

Much has happened since I last blogged here. I returned to work, have begun to make some new friends in the local area and managed to complete the building of our new family home.

It has been a tough gig. Since Jaie’s death by suicide, I deal with things very differently to how I did before. Life is too short to stay where you are not valued and I will not hesitate to walk if I am shown this.

I have 3 precious grandchildren now, so am over the moon with this situation. Never too many grand babies ❤️

Christmas Day was super quiet and restful. New Year’s Eve and day is much the same. Yes, I miss being around my children and grandchildren, but sometimes it simply is how it is. We raise our children to be independent and grow wings. We do not have the right to try and clip them, once they are soaring.

New Year’s Eve I spent making homemade spaghetti bolognaise for dinner. If ever I’m home on New Year’s Eve again, I will continue to cook as my new tradition. That will ensure there is home cooked meals in my freezer for any visitors and the simple rituals involved with cooking is a process in grounding and healing. Afterwards, I had a robust glass of red with my delicious meal, while I spoke with my father on the phone.

We are entering the 8th year of grief for Jaie’s death. somethings seem so far away, but others feel so recent. The grief is still ebbing and flowing. And will continue to do so, until the end of our own lives. The continued fatigue remains, since Jaie’s death. I simply cannot shake it.

I am now returning to my gardening (make that landscaping of almost 3/4 an acre), which I am really enjoying. I’m slowly gaining hold of the land, even over the continued battle against the weeds. But it’s a battle I can and will win! This home gives me something to focus on and rebuild my world around, when I cannot be with my family.

Small rituals help to create new beginnings. Prior to moving into this house, I had hardly left my room anywhere I had lived (for the past 7 years I would sit in my room when I wasn’t working). No one else knew until the first week I moved in here. Now I am slowly setting up MY own routines. Routines of regular cleaning, gardening, washing the dogs, washing, cooking, resting and whatever else I need to do. And I can see improvements from my first few months in here. However, we are still unable to find the bolts and spacers for the glass dining table, so this is still leaning against the dining room wall, surrounded by the chairs 🤷🏼‍♀️. Yes it makes the place look messy, but I make myself focus on something else to do. Next week I go looking for the bits I need to set my table up!

My dad was here for Jaie’s birthday and anniversary in 2021. He had never seen how badly I struggle at that time of the year. Dad is the one who told me to pace myself. He still tells me to pace myself. The house and land aren’t going anywhere, so I can do it all over time.

Covid has added a new level of social anxiety to life. Online shopping and click and collect are now my absolute go to options most of the time. I’m not scared about me getting sick, but I am concerned about my loved ones catching it from me.

For anyone just starting this journey of grief, be very gentle with yourself. Give yourself grace to be human and feel the pain. Grief is our love with nowhere else to go, so please do not play it down or ignore it. We must learn to express and embrace the grief, so that we can find a way through to continue to live. It isn’t easy. It’s exhausting and hurts and many days will see us curled up in a foetal position in our bed or on the floor. It takes strength, courage and determination to work through, but it’s possible.

Keep it simple.

‘Love Sometimes Comes Like a Dream & Leaves Like a Nightmare’

Purgatory is Real …

I struggle at times to explain how the loss of my child has impacted me, until this week.

I was looking recently into signing a contract for something which spread over several years and in the back of my mind, all I could think was this;

“Oh no! I cannot live that much longer without one of my children!”

This threw me for several days, however I do know that other mothers, sisters, brothers, fathers and partners totally comprehend what I am saying/thinking.

Purgatory is what every parent lives through once they have lost a child. Every single day requires a conscious choice to not only survive, but to thrive. No easy task when a portion of your soul is no longer with you physically.

Purgatory is when you simply wish to sleep (so long as there are no nightmares) to escape the nightmare that your life has become.

Almost 3 years since Jaie died and I still say to people, “I just do not understand how we got here? How it all came to this?”

I force myself to not cry because it is almost impossible to stop once I start. I just wish to find a dark hole to crawl into, curl up and never come out.

Medication can only do so much and the rest is on ourselves. Therapy helps as well, but I am certain that if I ever let anyone into my mind, they would run screaming from me and never see me again.

I would no longer be allowed to walk within the community. But then again I see what our so called justice system allows to remain around our communities so maybe I would still be  able to remain mainstream?

‘Love Sometimes Comes Like a Dream & Leaves Like a Nightmare’

 

Jaie’s Journey Inc… IA55787 …. We did it!!!

Well friends, we have finally gained official Not For Profit status. Took some time but better late than never. 

Loose ends are being tied up and slowly but surely, the momentum is gathering to create something which will truly help those at risk of suicide and to provide postvention support for families impacted by suicide.

We have several large corporations/businesses coming on board supporting us for our future journey and the only way is up from here … positive vibes and positive ripples. With the communities being the people who benefit from it, which is the desire from ALL involved.

As I have previously discussed, I have attended a 2.5 day training program ‘Train the Trainer’ – Lived Experience with Suicide Prevention Australia and Roses in the Ocean (November 2015). Recently I completed event training with the Queensland Mental Health Commission & Roses In The Ocean in Brisbane (April 26th, 2016). On April the 27th, 2016, I also attended training in Postvention support with Standby Response (United Synergies) in Maryborough and a networking / renewing the partnership session. After meeting the Queensland Mental Health Commissioner (Lesley) on April the 26th, it was encouraging to see and hear how much dedication for a better mental health system, Queenslands own Commissioner has. Bronwen from Roses in the Ocean is still another amazing and inspiring person involved with this battle on suicide.

Olwen, our suicide support group Coordinator, has been carrying this banner for suicide prevention and awareness for 25 years (this year). Owen lost her youngest son Chris in 1991 to suicide and has been battling the systems and the stigma around suicide. Owen is inspirational and does not mince words. She is genuinely kind, generous and empathetic. I am so very grateful, Standby Response forwarded my contact details to Olwen. Between them all, they quite literally saved my life and have supported me (and my family) through this horrific journey. Owen is a wealth of experience, ideas and information and will be involved with planning certain areas of Jaie’s journey (I must advise Olwen is not a fan of my bike, so I just do not speak about it with her lol). However  the wealth of knowledge Olwen can contribute toward the prevention of suicide, is immeasurable.

Anyway, thank you to all of our dedicated followers and all who have helped us reach this pinnacle moment and I hope that you are able to stick with us for the rest of the journey to help others ❤ … For those who are new to our journey, welcome and we hope that Jaie’s Journey can help to make a positive influence in your own life ❤ …

 

‘Love Sometimes Comes Like a Dream & Leaves Like a Nightmare’

 

The Australian Male. An Endangered Gender (2019)

I can’t…

I’m struggling more with each passing day, week, month and year without having all of my children still here. Alive.

My strength is waning a little more, each morning I awaken (that’s if I even sleep). How do people survive this grief?

Please come home now baby boy

Breathing Life Back Into Ourselves

Coming to a point of realising and then fully comprehending that the ‘before’ suicide loss you, is now MIA, is not an easy task.

When we look in the mirror, there is a total stranger looking back at us and we have no idea how things got to be this way and feel as if there will never be another stable moment in our life as we carry on.

So we struggle to find out how this ‘after’ suicide loss us, can survive.

Some days are near impossible to manage and we fully withdraw, to allow us to just focus on breathing and to not be pulled under by this new darkness in our life.

I live with some new mantra’s now and the first one to come through was,

“It is what it is”.

We cannot change what has happened, so there has to be a way found through this grief and devastation and messed up thing called life.

The next was,

“There was no malice”.

No one wanted Jaie to die. Not then, not now, not ever. We all would have put our own lives on the line to protect and save Jaie, no question about this.

Do these mantra’s help me to survive this traumatic loss?

I would have to say yes and I share these thoughts with other survivors. Entering into our 6th year after losing Jaie soon and I am humbled by the amount of courageous, beautifully broken and inspirational people I have met. And I shall continue to meet.

I am sharing now the video montage I created, with the kind and loving support of many Australian families. I used this video as the opening to my presentation at the 2019 National Suicide Prevention Conference in Melbourne last week.

The Australian Male. An Endangered Gender

STRENGTH…

We all have different views on what strength is. Everyone has a back story, but not everyone knows another persons trials and tribulations.

Many of my newer friends know I lost my youngest son Jaie, to Suicide. But the back story before all this happened, is in many ways, out of a horror book for my children and myself.

‘Strength through Adversity’ I keep telling myself.

Do you want to know what strength is?

• Strength is having someone you love, threaten to kill you and their unborn baby, yet you stand tall in the face of this.
• Strength is having this person stalk you for years afterwards and 20 years later, you can stand up to them without blinking.
• Strength is admitting when you are struggling and need help. Any help. From family, friends, workmates… literally anyone.
• Strength is, after finding out a person you literally trusted with your life (children), has betrayed you all in the worst possible way, you do what is right. Even though, in that moment, it is the most difficult path.
• Strength is having to teach your children that life is unfair and cruel and sometimes, bad people either fail to get any punishment or they receive minimum punishment. (Though I’m a firm believer that karma will catch them).
• Strength is having your daughter disclose sexual abuse at 15 years of age and keeping your shit together, long enough to get her and her brothers to safety, while still being in the presence of evil.
• Strength is doing things in a way that keeps everyone close to you safe from harm, until it can all be spoken about with them.
• Strength is being judged for doing things in a way no one else can comprehend, but you still do it because you know it protects those you love.
• Strength is talking your little brother out of suicide.
• Strength is the very next night, realising immediately that your little brother is literally fighting for his life and calling the emergency services to try and help him.
• Strength is calling your mother at 4.20am in the morning to let her know the police had found your little brothers body and that we had lost him.
• Strength is living alone with the demons in your head, for over 10 years and telling no one just how horrifying they truly are.
• Strength is convincing yourself that your family and friends are better off without you (this is not true. We love you and will always want you with us.) Suicide is not selfish or cowardly.
• Strength is having to lie to your daughters about the death being confirmed, until you can be with them to break the news face to face.
• Strength is wanting to help your mother cover the costs of your little brothers funeral.
• Strength is mothering the child of your deceased fiancé, while feeling like you want to die too.
• Strength is being able to wake up every single day and to choose life.
• Strength is being able to comprehend that your life is never going to be what you thought it would be, but still making the most of it anyway.
• Strength is knowing that by helping others, it is helping yourself.
• Strength is finding a reason to smile everyday.
• Strength is sometimes simply getting out of bed and taking a shower.
• Strength is recognising what worked for you in the ‘Before’, no longer works for you in the ‘After’.
• Strength is practicing self care and leading your children by example.
• Strength is withdrawing when everything is too much.
• Strength is telling people you have major depressive disorder (or bipolar or schizophrenia or any form of mental illness).
• Strength is sometimes simply waking up, taking a deep breath, then rolling back over to return to sleep.
• Surviving IS strength.

If you’re not walking in another persons shoes, how would you know what burdens they are carrying?

‘Love Sometimes Comes Like a Dream & Leaves Like a Nightmare’

Kate Spades Sister – Making Sense of ‘That’ Email

As a Suicide attempt and loss survivor, I understand the sisters words.  And in many ways her action of emailing the media.

Since losing my youngest son and child to Suicide in 2014, I have done nothing but research mental illness, health and Suicide as my second job.

I do recall telling my eldest son when the police were searching for Jaie, that if his little brother was serious about taking his own life, then until or unless Jaie accepted professional help, it was not an ‘if’ that he would kill him self. It was a when.

This is after working with various clients suffering from mental illness and having the opportunity to observe the difference between a client accepting help and one who refuses to and just thinks they can cope alone.

I also realised immediately, by what my eldest son was telling me, meant he was already starting to blame himself for what his little brother was about to do.

These comments are not made to remove hope. They are to create an environment of where people understand that research and education are invaluable to people helping loved ones through their struggles.

It tells survivors that their efforts to help are being recognised, but that there comes a time when the person who is unwell needs to step up and accept that they need to get professional assistance of some form.

I don’t understand why a family member speaking from a place of shock, loss and trauma would not be understood and recognised for their efforts to help their loved one.

The media are portraying this Suicide of Kate as a ‘shock’ and unexpected by everyone.

Well apologies dear media, but just because a person is famous, does not automatically give you rights to all of their personal issues and private struggles.

Kate’s sister is in shock.

She’s struggling to comprehend that her sister is deceased. She is struggling to understand why the media have to list who found Kate, where Kate was found and what method Kate used. She is trying to make some sense of an event which she had worked hard for years, to prevent.

So now, not only will Kate’s sister be overwhelmed with emotions of self-blame and guilt, the poor woman is now facing intense scrutiny from millions of strangers who will be making uneducated and judgmental statements about her immediate reaction in the face of immense shock, trauma and grief.

This poor sister is struggling to fathom that not only is her sister dead at her own hand, but the media is sharing every single detail of Kate’s death. The how, where and who found her.

The media should once again be the group being judged here, not a grieving family.

I now say to my eldest son, you did whatever was humanly possible with limited resources and experience with mental health skills.

Ask yourself, “Was there any malice in what you did? No there wasn’t because you know and I know that you would have taken a bullet to save your baby brother. There was no malice on your part.”

It appears now, that Kate’s sister is taking a rhetorical bullet for her sister, by sending out this email.

Kate Schuster from The Mighty also wrote and article on this email. The link is below.

https://themighty.com/2018/06/kate-spade-suicide-interview-sister/?utm_source=newsletter_digest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_digest_2018-06-08

‘Sometimes Love Comes Like a Dream & Leaves Like a Nightmare’

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Rising From these Ashes

“I lost myself, when my sister died.”

Words from a newly discovered friend tonight.

“I’m sure you understand what I’m trying to say. You lost your son.”

I had begun to cry at her words.

This lady actually saw it and got it. Her loss and grief has taken her to a place where now, she too is fighting to return to the land of the living.

I explained to this friend that I’ve been trying to explain for 4 years how grief has changed me. I tell people that if they’re struggling to cope with the stranger I’ve become, imagine how difficult it is for me!

I look in the mirror every. single. day. And have little to no recognition of the ‘person’ staring back at me.

And it is a terrifying thing. For ones life to go from ‘normal’ issues and woes, to a parents and family’s worst nightmare.

Then there are the people who use your loss against you for their own spiteful, immature and selfish reasons. So you wonder why you still bother trying to be that change in this messed up world.

To all those soul survivors out there, please believe that your departed loved one is still around you. They are still showering you with love.

May you find the grace in yourself to practice kindness to your own soul.

‘Love Sometimes Comes Like a Dream & Leaves Like a Nightmare’

Dedicated to A.L.

Accepting ‘tiredness’ into your life.

I used to believe i knew about tiredness in years past, but I was simply kidding myself about what tiredness actually was.

Since Jaie killed himself, genuine tiredness/weariness is now a true constant in my life.

Constant, in the sense that I never wake up after a decent nights sleep, feeling reenergised and refreshed.

Instead I fight against opening my eyes and reentering reality and the everyday struggle for survival. Now it’s as if I have to brace myself prior to becoming fully awake and aware, that the hollow pit of pain in my chest, was not a bad dream. That this nightmare is one in reverse. Where sleep is an escape from the horrors which await me.

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Our Nightmare is one that will recur everyday and night, until we too become nothing but atoms of energy around our remaining loved ones.

Being cleared of having bipolar today, was a massive relief for me. Major depressive disorder and anxiety are cruel enough to cope with. Didn’t stop me crying though.

I wonder what 2018 will bring us?

‘Love Sometimes Comes Like a Dream & Leaves Like a Nightmare‘

So Called ‘Recovery’.

Since this horrific journey began, so many unknown elements are being exposed to me.

Elements that seemed so acceptable and ‘normal’ (most disliked word now).

I read so many lived experience blogs and medical articles, some times, it feels as if the top of my head will lift off.

Professionals and non-professionals speak of ‘recovery’ for those of us who suffer mental illness.

I beg to differ strongly in the description of our individual experiences.

For many suffering mental illness, there will never be ‘recovery’.

It’s time society stops making these naive and, at times, patronising assumptions and statements.

We need to start treating mental illnesses as a cancer of the soul and mind. Not as if it is some mystical, untouchable, imaginary condition.

Robin Williams (may he rest in peace), is a prime example of a person with ‘soul and mind cancer’ (aka: mental illness), utilising many different methods of therapy and treatments, throughout his life. All of which most definitely contributed towards his life being extended to 63 years of age. If he tried coping without professional intervention, the educated assumption would be that his life would have ended many, many years (possibly decades) earlier.

 

I know of many friends who have been on medication for a long time and will probably be on them for the rest of their lives. I’m coming up to 3 years on my medications. They are keeping me alive, no doubt about it. If I stop taking them, my chances of dying increase greatly.

Now if we had Cancer and were taking medication or attending treatments to help us fight to remain alive, we’d be looked at as battlers and heroes.

But those of us with mental illness are looked upon as ‘weak and naive’ because we take medications which help us with our respective illnesses.

Also, just as Cancer can go into remission, so to it appears can depression and other mental illnesses. The treatments worked to give the sufferer a time of respite.

Then later something may trigger the mental illness and the fight is back on for survival.

Society needs to stop placing unrealistic expectations on people with mental illness (severe or otherwise). We already struggle with our inner demons enough, without having society expecting us to one day, ‘simply get better’.

I’m in the process now, of accepting the fact that my mental illnesses will be my lifelong companions. And as such there will be days we get along well and other days we hate each other desperately.

But recovery is a false dream for many of us, so stop shoving it down our throats.

 

‘Love Sometimes Comes Like a Dream & Leaves Like a Nightmare’

3+ Years In.

Most days our struggle is muted somewhat by work or ‘busy’ stuff. But it is never gone. 

The further away from that day our world imploded we get, the more difficult it becomes to survive. 

Our adjustment is a constant, organic thing. Our coping abilities are forever shifting, so we never reach a place of true peace. 

Or acceptance. 

This continuous need for adjustment is a huge part of why our energy is depleted so easily. And quickly. Grieving is a life long process, which takes a massive toll on the grieving individual. I feel guilty now, that I don’t wail outwardly every single day. 

But inside, I am howling like a banshee, just as I did when I first discovered Jaie had taken his own life. 

According to Gaelic lore, our family come from the Ó prefix. We originate from the insular Celtic lands. We have our own banshee. Our very own bean chaointe (keening woman).  This gives me some solace believing that she is still wailing the first death in 2 generations of Moran’s. I know I had to scream after learning of Jaie’s Suicide. It’s all I wanted to do. However I am the matriarch of our little family and had to care for those dependent upon me. So I let out my keening away from those I protect and kept/keep the lid clamped firmly closed around it. 

One thing I’ve noticed though, when I’m upset I generally begin letting this lid vent and I beg the universe for Jaie and his return. Very few people experience this level of devastation from me. Only the very trusted and true. Others may feel I’m trying to use my grief as a way to deflect from issues, but it’s not. I have to release that grief valve or I will not be able to function at ANY level. I do respond differently now, to issues with friends and family. 

This is another reason why I limit my contact with people. Not only am I aware I drain quickly, but I can also be a drain on others. 

Possibly as I progress along this grief journey I shall eventually be able to control my release valve better. But you know what? I’m human so tough luck for the rest of the world if I don’t. 

‘Love Sometimes Comes Like a Dream & Leaves Like a Nightmare’