Seeing death twice, repressed memories tormenting me..

[pl515p1]

After holding in so much, my psychologist recently unburdened something I have never told anyone. In January 2020 I witnessed a man commit suicide.

Only my father knew about what I saw, I have tried to forget that sight, but recently I have been having nightmares about it, and the worst one was last night, because his body became that of my dad.

My dad passed in September 2020, and I found him in his bed, it was unexpected, and has destroyed me, but one thing I remember is that his eyes were closed, and his face did not look in any pain, but in the nightmares dad's eyes are open and he looks so sad and hurt.

I cannot take seeing these images of him that way, I will tell her about these nightmares in my next session.

In the past few weeks I have been trying to move from the home where I found dad, and looking through his belongings, and room where I found him has torn me apart, there have been a few nights where I have asked dad to take me with him, to let me go to sleep and not wake up as he did.

But I think these nightmares are dad trying to tell me, see, I have been staying in hotels recently to avoid dad's home, and on Friday night I sat in the cold dark outside on the balcony for about half an hour, thinking of everything.

I know dad would be so sad to know how much pain I am in, I feel guilty, as if I am still a burden to him now, and he cannot find his peace, in one dream I was hiding something from dad, and he was angry and stopped talking to me, maybe he is angry at my thoughts.

I miss my dad so much, the months move on, and soon I am moving too, but the loss just grows larger, sometimes I think it won't be so bad to go and be with him, but I know how much he gave up to get me where I am in life, and how proud he is of me.

Lockdown, this, my brain cannot handle it all, when I see those images of my dad, it hurts so much, how do I stop these images of that strangers suicide from merging with my dad? I don't want to see my dad's eyes staring at me, I just want to be blank, forget everything in the world, me , my family, everything, I cannot even close my eyes for peace, dad used to visit me in my dreams, it was so beautiful.

Help me to unsee.

[Sophie_M]

Hi pl515p1,

We are so sorry to hear about your loss of your dad, as well as the tragic incident you witnessed. This sounds extremely difficult and are glad that you are working with your psychologist to help you process this traumatic event. It sounds very distressing to be having such intense nightmares about your dad and we want you to know that we don't want you to ever feel alone with this. Please feel free to share any thoughts or feelings you have with our community, and we'll try our best to provide you with some comfort and kind words.

We strongly encourage you to reach out to our support services today to talk some of this through. Our counsellors are available 24 hours a day at the Beyond Blue Support Service 1300 22 4636. We'd also recommend you get in touch our friends over at Griefline on 1300 845 745. Their telephone counsellors are available 6am-midnight AEST, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It’s free to call and you can call as many times as you need to.

What you are experiencing is really hard. Please be gentle to yourself, and continue to reach out to get the support that you need. 

It’s so brave and proactive of you to share this here, and that you plan to share it with your psychologist. Do check back in with this thread and share any other feelings, if you feel comfortable to.

Kind regards,

Sophie M

[pl515p1]

Thank you for caring, I talked with my psychologist today about this, I caused her to feel emotional so i felt bad, she also was upset that she could not be there to support me in person as telehealth protocols are in place due to lock down.

I did not want to cause her to feel bad, she is one of the best people I have ever met, and I appreciate everything she has done, and continues to do for me, I feel bad that I caused her to feel bad.

We will have to talk further over the coming time, I so wish lock down would end, because sitting with her gives me so much peace, but it is what it is.

I will just have to survive until things can move forward.