엄마 아빠가 읽고 나도 읽었다. 우리 가족이 이런 책을 다 읽을 줄이야…
고인과의 관계에 따라, 그 관계의 깊이에 따라 조금씩 차이가 있겠지만 떠난 사람이 돌아오지 않는다는 것을 인정하기까지 누군가에게는 몇개월, 누군가에게는 몇년의 시간이 필요하기도 합니다. 처음 저를 찾아오는 분들은 빨리 이 고통을 ‘극복’하고 싶다고 합니다 […] 저는 사별에 따라오는 마음의 아픔들은 극복의 대상이 아니라고 말씀드립니다. 한동안은 사별의 고통을 그저 온몸으로 맞을 수밖에 없다고요. 제가 하는 일은 사별자가 안전하게 그 고통을 통과하도록 곁에서 함께하는 것입니다.
There’s no way around or over it, just through.
자살 사별은 남겨진 사람의 삶의 스토리라인을 완전히 무너뜨리는 일입니다. 나와 세상과 사람들에 대해 가지고 있던 모든 생각과 믿음이 무너지는 일입니다. 사랑, 우정, 친밀감, 책임감, 희망, 꿈에 대한 생각도 완전히 바뀌게 됩니다.
자살 사별자들은 흔히 폭탄을 맞은 것 같다는 표현을 합니다.
queue ‘The Feels’ by Labyrinth* “I got hit by a truck, I got hit by a truck…”
블라인드 스팟을 인정하면 ‘만약 그랬더라면' 자살을 막을 수 있었으리라 생각되는 수천가지 가정을 조금은 내려놓을 수 있게 됩니다.
Commonly cited ‘warning signs’ of suicide need to be spread as a public health measure, but this can actually be very harmful for loved ones who feel guilty about ‘missing’ the warning signs when many cases actually didn’t have any.
상담을 하다보면 관계에 따라 고인에 대한 기억과 죽음에 느끼는 감정과 생각이 매우 다르다는 것을 알게 됩니다. 덜 아픈 사람과 더 아픈 사람이 있다는 것이 아니라, 그 죽음을 생각하면 가슴이 아파오는 영역이 다르다고나 할까요. 어떤 죽음을 둘러싸고 고인의 배우자는 애도 과정 1호선을 타고 있고, 자녀는 2호선을 타고 있기도 합니다. 때때로 만나기도 하겠지만 애도 여정에서 거쳐가는 역은 모두 다를 수 있습니다.
스스로 목숨을 끊었지만 고인의 삶에도 열렬히 살았던 순간이 분명 있었을 겁니다. 그 사람의 끝과 함께, 삶의 열렬했던 순간도 떠올릴 수 있길 바랍니다. 그리고 여러분의 삶 가운데에서 고인의 이름을 부르고 마음껏 그리워해도 괜찮다고 말씀드리고 싶습니다.
Although I’ve now read this book that addresses me as a ‘자살 사별자,’ I struggle with that idea for two main reasons. First, I don’t think that 창윤이 meant to go like that. I have a feeling that, while he did succumb(?) to the impulse to self-harm, he didn’t actually want to go that far, but once he started, he couldn’t stop, and probably by the time he realized that he couldn’t stop, it was too late. I don’t really want to vividly try to imagine what happened that day, but I have an intuition that this wasn’t the outcome he wanted. Just a couple days prior to the accident, we talked about how excited we were for my family to come to my graduation and for our trip to Canada and Japan. We talked about how we were going to go to an amusement park together. I understand (albeit extremely partially) that school/social life was very tough for him, but I struggle with the idea that he really wanted to go because we had a lot of things to look forward to as a family and he really had lots of happy moments and memories when we were hanging out and spending time together at home or travelling as a family. So that’s the biggest reason behind my hesitancy in accepting our situation as one this book addresses, but the second reason is also that he’s still technically alive — sometimes it feels like he’s basically dead, but technically he isn’t.
My parents told me that they really don’t want to provide specific details about the accident to others unless absolutely necessary and that they don’t want me to do so, either. Thankfully, I haven’t encountered any invasive questions yet but I’m sure there’ll come a time when I do, leaving me cornered and distressed. Or there might also come a time when I’m not necessarily cornered but that I feel like there’s a big secret weighing me down. I think a big part of why I feel anxious about calling my friends is because I don’t know what or how much I should tell them, and I don’t really know how to act or compose myself. If I show up ‘normal’ and somewhat high energy like I used to be, am I acting? I guess we’re all acting a little bit, tailoring our behavior to each situation and person we interact with, but these days this issue really weighs on me and makes my social battery expire much more quickly than before. I feel like I’m sort of alienating myself from my friends because of this issue, among others, and I’m doing this as a way to protect my energy but this also makes me feel more lonely and somewhat anxious that I am disappointing or losing my friends. The ones that stick will stick and the ones that won’t won’t, and that makes me really sad but that’s not really my priority right now because my priority is self-preservation and being with and taking care of my parents. I do worry about my friends and friendships, though. I’m careful about how to act and how much or what to say, because I’m acutely aware that my closest and well-intentioned friends can also accidentally say things that are really hurtful. Like when I told Julia that he’s in a medically induced coma and she said ‘at least it’s medically induced.’ Are you fucking kidding me???? Add that to the list of things you shouldn’t say to a friend whose sibling is unconscious.
Anyway. I try to let that go because I know she only meant to help and say something encouraging/positive but I can’t erase the fact that that hurt and left me honestly pretty speechless.
I’m worried that I’ve irrevocably changed into a more guarded person who is now even more afraid of vulnerability and intimacy. Not gonna get more into this now though because I need to get ready for a Bruno Major concert. I had to sell my Taylor Swift ticket and can’t go to see Beyonce but at least I’ll see him and Kings of Convenience later this year.
I like hearing about what my friends are up to but it also fucking sucks to keep hearing about their fun travels, spending time with their boyfriends, and their new exciting lives in new cities etc. While I feel like I’ve been stuck and almost rotting away in my grief. Rot feels like too strong of a word, but I think the TikToker’s ‘let’s not rot’ series kind of left an impression on me.
— — —
edit a couple days later:
The word ‘rot’ really bothered me, actually. I didn’t really want to use it, but it had temporarily become a part of my vocabulary in processing grief because of the TikToker. Using the word ‘rot’ would be unfair to the part of me that has also been healing, the part of me that has learned how to cherish my time with my parents even more than I used to before. I don’t really want to talk about silver linings because that can sometimes feel like I’m trying to shove down toxic positivity down my throat, but I do want to acknowledge the part of my glass that is full, even if it’s a lot emptier than before. I’m learning to acknowledge the loss and the shitty parts while doing my best to focus on what I still have, what I can still be grateful for.
A few days ago, though, I had a shower thought that helped me much better articulate how I’ve been feeling…
All my life — usually — my life has felt like a river. I’m not sure if I mean it like “I am a river” or like “I am floating in a river” and now that I’m writing this down I don’t even know if there is a big difference between those two sentences. But I think I mean to say that there’s always been a flowing, continuous, forward-motion-like(?) quality. But recently, my life became a pond. The water sits still — it doesn’t flow. The constant current/flow has been replaced by the occasional ripple.
