Inner Darkness

"The thought of suicide is a powerful solace: my means of it one gets through many a bad night." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

This year I've been having more difficulty than usual getting through the anniversary of my father's suicide. I've been having flashbacks of anguish which never really goes away. It just lurks in the recesses of my brain, ready to manifest spontaneously.

Nuclear winter. For months after his death, that internal voice we all have that chatters away about everything went suddenly silent. "What was it that I used to think about," I wondered. Even if I could find something to think about, my brain refused to hold onto it. I learned to live with the silence. It distorted my sense of time. We'd go out to eat and, before the food got there, it already felt like we'd been there for hours. Absence of inner commentary didn't make me bored; I was too traumatized for that. The pain was so intense that sometimes it was all I could do to get through the next 60 seconds.

My therapist and I think that the anniversary is particularly difficult this year because of my own inner darkness. I've known since I was a child my emotional nightfall that calls me to give up the fight . I understand the black hole my father was drawn into because I've been stranded in that vortex myself. I'm there now and have been for months.

The only good thing that came from my father's death is the certainty that I will never check out while there are still people around who care for me. Nonetheless, I find myself using the same coping mechanism: "All I have to do is get through the next five minutes or the next hour or the next day." It's not a productive way to manage one's life. This moment is the only moment I have. Counting down the time until my interior despondency lifts causes me to miss this moment.

I only just started noticing I'd returned to emotional countdown methods. Feeling is absent. Nothing is worth doing. I go home every night and read "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" so that I can remember there's meaning in my suffering, that everything is illusory--even my pain. We all suffer. It's in the nature of being on this earth. And who better to endure it than I? I've had lots and lots of practice.

I can empathize with my father. I just have to find a different outcome. On the anniversary of his death, I'd wish him to know that I'm sorry. I'm sorry he had such a dreadful life that resulted in him inflicting enormous damage to the people in his life, especially his daughter. I'm sorry I wasn't able to save him, even though I know the only person who can save you is yourself. I'd wish my father to know that I'm using his gift to make me stronger and more capable of enduring these dark hours. I'd wish my father to know that I thank him for that gift, that I love him and that I forgive him.