Frantic Tamed Navigating Life After Suicide Part 3

Frantic Tamed

Navigating Life After Suicide

A Survivor's Journal

Part 3

Missy Palrang, MS

with Jill McMahon, LPC Grief Specialist

Frantic Tamed

© 2020 by Missy Palrang, MS

Published by Sphere4 Publishing at Smashwords

Arizona USA

Cover Photo by: Wendy Voss

Cover by: Sweet N Spicy

Editor: Eileen Troemel

The author of this book acknowledges the perceptions and memories in this book are her own and may not be the same for others who are familiar with the circumstances. All care has been taken to protect those mentioned within the books, and some names have been changed. This book contains actual accounts of surviving a suicide. If anyone is struggling with the contents, a list of references where you can get help and support are listed in the back under Resources.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.

Acknowledgement

Thank you to other survivors for the support, encouragement, and for sharing your stories with me. We’re forever in this together.

In Loving Memory of

Scott E. McComb

Husband, son, brother, veterinarian, and veteran

March 26, 1966 - March 27, 2015

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Appendix A

Suicide Prevention and Support Resource Center

Accepting Change

Sarah Blondin

Guided Meditation on Insite Timer

"What you once knew changes shape and flies away. You watch as your world morphs in front of your eyes, you try to run after the fragments of what once was, grasping onto the pieces as if they’re your world, and the very things that defines you. You shake in fear as the ground beneath your feet cracks and opens. The canyons so deep you can feel a cold air coming up from its depths. There you stand looking around desperately for a glimpse of the reality you once knew, silence sits all around you. It calls for you to hang your tired feet at the canyons edge and feel the air of new life rising from its darkness.

The stillness sweetly whispers in your ear, gently urging you to step out of your wild mind and see the fertile ground you are standing on. It hopes you will begin to see the beauty in this unfamiliar place. Often new life can catch us off guard. It comes like a gust of strong wind and blows away the ideas and structures we have worked so hard at building. Sitting in the rubble we tend to forget the part of us that had been crying out for this very thing. We wish we could take back our secret prayers and scramble to put back the pieces of the comfortable existence we once had. When faced with great change we must trust what comes budding forth. We must quickly release our grasp on the old and familiar in order to plant our new garden. Resisting change is futile. The longer we fight our current, and therefore only reality, the longer we remain in limbo, trapped somewhere between the past and the future, far from the present. All change has been called forth from our soul.

Our lesson is to learn to honor the knowledge of our divine being. Know that there is no need to fear this new world. Embrace a childlike sense of awe and exploration. Remember we cannot see the gift in what we resist. Those moments while sitting in what feels like a cavern of despair, realize you have been given time and space to realign with all you desire for your life. You can choose to see the cavern as terrifying and an unknown darkness, or you can choose to pour sweet honey into its cracks.

When you are in a place where there feels to be a black hole staring you in the face, stop in front of it. Look not into its abyss with fear but with creativity and a renewed outlook for your life. This is the moment where you become the creator, where you become responsible for what appears, where you become the giver of life. Align with the source within you that knows of your magnificence and all that you are capable of. Now is the time to create in the name of all you long for. Don’t hold back dear one, don’t stop yourself from creating the most vivid and wildly beautiful existence you can imagine. For we are all given a powerful choice when change comes and transforms our landscape. Choose to love joyfully in your abundance, in this place that will not always be yours before the tides change again."

Introduction

Life begins at the end

of your comfort zone.

Unknown

Five years ago my sky went black. It was one o’clock on a sunny Friday afternoon when it happened…when I learned my husband of nearly twenty-four years died. Suicide. I was eating tater tots at Sonic Burger when it happened.

Five. Years.

I vividly recall the following days and weeks when nothing was as it had been before the darkness came. It seemed as though everything I believed about Scott, and me, and our life together was wrong. How could I have not understood the situation? How did I so tragically misinterpret what must have been right in front of me? How did my vibrant, full-of-life husband become a victim of suicide? How did I become labeled a Survivor of Suicide? At that time, my situation was beyond comprehension. And by my calculations, beyond recoverable.

I recall meeting others who lost someone to suicide, other Survivors. I wondered how they had survived for so long? How did he make it through a month? A year?!? How did she do this for five years??? One of my memories of the early times is when I stood in the shower one morning, praying God would help me make it through one quick shower. Minutes felt like an eternity. Five years felt impossible. Other survivors may not have my exact experience, but I know they can relate to this feeling.

In the beginning, writing in a journal was a way for me to say what I might not have had the opportunity or courage to say out loud. I didn’t realize it at the time, but journaling was tremendously healing. It was a safe place to cry and scream. A place to feel disappointed, overwhelmed, even completely buried to the point of having no hope. It was a place to do so in the middle of the night, or at times I was worried I’d been too much of a burden on friends who so gently listened to the same words over and over. I came to learn that putting feelings on paper, instead of keeping them locked inside, took away some of the emotion and pain. It took the power out of them.

I spent the majority of the first year simply struggling to survive. It was like watching from the sidelines as my life flipped out of control. Much like a dog sled would tumble if the driver fell off and the dogs kept running. During the second year, I managed to climb back on the sled and meekly mumble commands to the dogs. Most of the time the dogs were in control of the sled but at least I was moving. I quickly learned that things which worked for me in the past, were no longer effective. By the third year I had a pretty good idea of where I wanted to go and had figured out how to drive the sled. Now, five years later, I think I’ve gotten this sled thing figured out. My path has wiggles in it and my sled gets tipsy sometimes when I turn too sharp or run over a rock. But at least I’m driving.

The crater blasted into my existence five years ago has, for the most part, been filled in with other things. I don’t journal anymore but that doesn’t mean my healing and growth process has stopped. On the contrary, the last few years have been full of amazing opportunities to grow beyond my comfort zone.

Very early in the first year, I remember boldly proclaiming to a survivor group, I’m not going to let this define me. I said it with my chin held high, shoulders back, and a whole lot more bravado than I actually felt. Truth was, I really didn’t believe those words when I said them. But oddly, I was wrong, it did define me. It made me step out on limbs I would have never approached. It put me in situations to meet people I would have never met. It taught me things about myself I would have never learned had this not happened. So I guess in a way, his choice to die has defined me, but not in the way I so boldly vowed to avoid. His death did not change me fundamentally or curse me to a grim existence. On the contrary, it pushed me to grow into a place I really like.

This three-part series shares my personal journal in the year following Scott’s death. Except for minor grammar and spelling corrections, it is unedited from the day it was written. In addition to my daily journal, you’ll find my personal observations and comments as I reflected on that time years later. Each chapter also includes contributions from my therapist, Jill McMahon. The journey was ours, not just mine. Counselor and Pilot, as we affectionately call each other.

When I look back through the writing in each of the books, I see clear themes. Part One, Frantic Unleashed, covers the first three months. It is filled with anger and confusion. In Part Two, Frantic Caged, months four through six, I’m still very angry but the fog and confusion has begun to lift. Complaining and blaming begins to surface. This book, the final one in the series, is the remainder of the year, months seven through twelve. The themes from the first six months are still in the background and they are joined by attempts to move forward, and essentially rebuild my life. As you’ll see, some of those attempts were very botched.

I lost all focus on what others were experiencing. I’ve since learned that being in the middle of grieving narrows one’s vision to the point where we can only see our own pain, our own experience. Much like catching your little toe on a corner of the dresser in the middle of the night, the pain this causes puts all your focus on your little toe until the pain begins to fade. In the case of losing someone to suicide, the pain is all encompassing and goes on for a long time. It’s all you can pay attention to until it begins to subside.

Now, five years later, it’s difficult for me to read my writing during that first year. Scott’s suicide brought out the worst in me. I said and did things I’m not proud of and don’t agree with. I understand how trauma and loss can do that to someone, but it doesn’t make it easier to read. However, it does give me more compassion for, and patience with, others. You never know what someone might be struggling with in their own life.

During the last five years, I learned a valuable life lesson. Grief cannot be side-stepped. You cannot ignore it, you cannot minimize it, and you cannot fool it. My plan in the beginning was to outthink, out plan, and out maneuver grief. Grief won that round, I lost. In the end, like anyone who comes out on the other side, I simply had to embrace the grief, feel it, sit with it, and eventually do the work to move through it. I learned to play. Grief won the first round, I won the game.

Chapter 1

The Seventh Month

It’s not a matter of holding good cards,

but of playing a poor hand well.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Looking back:

The eggy puddle tarnishing the ground has, in some spots, become dried and flakey. Some of the flakes have blown away over time. The woman watched and allowed them go. Other flakes, she gathered up with some of the shattered pieces of shell. Those she has carefully tucked into a safe container. A few areas remain as wet and raw as the day the eggs broke. As time goes on, the woman find herself becoming more protective of the one she blames for breaking her eggs. Oddly, she’s embarrassed to tell others what happened, and how it happened. She avoids telling them. Her anger towards the one who dumped her basket remains, but is quieter now. She recognizes this person has become an easy target for her to blame anytime she stumbles. In a strange twist, the woman finds herself deeply involved with another who is also dealing with an upset basket. The situation is different than hers but being drawn into it has caused an interesting dynamic. It has mercifully pulled her attention away from her own.

September 28, 2015

Ghosts and brain function. These are the two things I want to write about tonight. Ghosts: I’m not sure if I believe in them, but in the last five days there have been four times I found a door either open or closed and I’m pretty sure I didn’t do it. The first was when I came home for lunch on Thursday. The hallway closet door was open. I don’t think it was open when I left for work because I would have run into it when I walked down the hall. I thought to myself, maybe a cat stuck her paw under and pulled it open. I closed it and went into the kitchen. When I walked back to the hall about five minutes later, it was open again – this time I know a cat didn’t do it. It’s the closet where we kept our winter coats, Scott’s favorite one is in there. I was kind of freaked out. I wondered if, even though I didn’t hear it, maybe the air conditioning kicked on and somehow opened the door. I don’t recall this ever happening before.

Three days later, I went into the garage and the door leading to the backyard was open. My brother wasn’t home, he was in Tucson with our parents at the time, and I don’t remember leaving it