end to means
I have been mostly not on Tumblr for almost six months.
There were numerous attempts to come back until I realized they would never work until the one thing that held me back had ended.
And now it has.
My grandmother died last Wednesday.
Her increasing loss of self over the past six months was why I could not quite devote my time to a blog that so much involved a devotion to the people who I follow and who follow me.
I had to save that energy for myself and my family.
I have a very close family, both metaphorically and physically. My aunt and uncle live seven houses up the street. I can expect my aunt to pop in with a plant or something random at least once a week. We get together for family dinner parties, even outside of holidays and birthdays, at least once a month.
As for my grandmother, it would be uncomfortably strange if I did not see her at least once in a whole month. She would be driving herself out to those dinner parties (easy enough because she lived 20 minutes away by car), volunteering at the local thrift shop and other places, and working in her own garden in the house she lived in by herself for fifteen years.
But she fell and broke her hip a week before her 94th birthday last July.
Everyone wanted her to just get knocked off by a random occurrence. Even she did too. But instead she resigned herself to letting this be the way she had to go out—in hospitals, rehabs, and assisted living homes.
But she always did exactly what she wanted anyway.
Especially when everyone else said they wanted the opposite thing.
But what happened for me was seeing the force of nature that was my grandmother, who had outlived five younger siblings, all of their spouses, her own husband, and all of her closest friends, fade away over the course of ten months.
It was seeing this 93-year-old powerhouse:
Die as a 94-year-old shell in bed on hospice care.
But her end means I can begin to be at my full-fledged self again.
—
If you choose to send me condolences, know that I appreciate the sentiment, but I am really sick of having to reply to it by now. I have been responding to cards, emails, phone calls, and conversations about this over and over again for the past week and I am not really inclined to respond to more.
If you choose to ask me how I feel, know that I am glad you care, but I am really sick of having to respond to it by now. Every single time someone asks me What’s wrong? or Are you okay?, I start crying again. I will still just be how I am until I am not. Asking me if anything has changed so far will only make it harder for that to happen.
If you choose to just start talking to me about feels again, know that is exactly what I want, but not because I am trying to pretend that nothing has happened. I want to laugh about random things. I want to obsess over my ships. I want to fangirl. There has been a change in my life, but it has not changed my inner life.
—
I cannot promise to immediately be back at full strength again, but I think I can promise there will be no more long absences with no explanation.
Well. There might be a bit of that until June 29th. But I think having the service and writing and delivering the eulogy with my brother will really give this the closure I need. And probably a lot of the condolence calls and such will have slowed down.
But conveniently enough, a lot of my shows have ended for the season. I only need to catch up to their finales and then have no need to worry about spoilers.
I will be back to obsessing about shows and ships and so forth soon enough.
Thank you for reading, thank you for waiting, and thank you for caring.
So much love,
Helen
Anonymous asked: "If you think suicide is selfish, you should take a step back and look at yourself and realize that you're the selfish one. Telling other people to endure whatever horrendous things they're facing when they can't because it'll get better isn't helping, it just makes things worse and all you're doing (regardless of your intent) is telling people who are hurting and on the brink that they're failures and that they don't care enough about other people. Stop."
I think what I think because I know what I know.
I have been medicated for a mood disorder for eight years and I will have to take medication for the rest of my life.
I have been suicidal.
I have faced horrendous things.
I have felt beyond help.
I have known there was no hope.
Yet here I am.
Feeling suicidal does not make you a failure.
It just makes you lose your perspective of reality.
And I will not stop talking about this because if I had stopped myself from talking about my own thoughts I would be dead today.
My intent is to stop someone else from ending their own life.
And I do not think that is selfish.
The fact is I know “it gets better” because I myself got better.
And I know that realizing then how much it would hurt everyone else is why I am here now.
That is why I am here. Because I fortunately had enough perspective to realize how selfish I was.
And while that hurt, it also helped.
And I am stronger for it.
Anonymous asked: "You're absolutely BEAUTIFUL in every single way, INSIDE and OUT <3 :)"
Thank you so very much.
But I hope you think that about yourself too.
The Selfishness of Suicide
Suicide.
It is a tremendously tenuous topic.
It has so many implications and so many interpretations.
But this is my own:
Suicide is selfish.
It is not brave. It is not strong. It is not admirable.
It is cowardly. It is weak. It is shameful.
Someone who is suicidal can easily not be able to see the truth.
Someone who is suicidal might think that they are a burden to others. That others should not have to deal with the pain of knowing someone who is suicidal. That others would be happier if there were no need to worry about someone who they know is suicidal.
Then what is the truth?
There is no greater burden for others than knowing someone who takes their own life. There is no greater pain for others than dealing with the death of someone who should still be alive. There is no greater unhappiness for others than feeling like their worry was not enough to stop death.
But the real truth of it all?
Any person who takes their own life has no idea how much and how many cared about them.
They are dead.
They are gone.
They are nothing.
They cannot know the hurt they have done to the people they thought they would be relieving from hurt.
Sunil Tripathi, the missing Brown University student, the wrongly accused Boston Bombing suspect, the publicly recognized victim of social media, was my classmate. His first saxophone was once my brother’s saxophone. My mother taught him Spanish in high school. He was the only person I have ever known who did not like The Beatles.
Now?
He is dead.
He is gone.
He is nothing.
Because?
He committed suicide.
He never saw how many people searched for him, how thousands of people followed the “Help Us Find Sunil Tripathi” Facebook page, how he was wrongly accused of being a Boston bomber, how his brother and sister appeared on CNN, and how people all over the world wrote messages on their hands to support him and his family.
He will never know how many people cared or how millions of people knew his name.
Committing suicide only shows concern for yourself.
Committing suicide means you will never know how much and how many held concern for you.
Committing suicide ends your pain but leaves a pain that will never go away for the people you had thought you would save from pain.
That is the truth.
Suicide is selfish.
If you are suicidal and are reading this, please do not misunderstand me.
When I call suicide cowardly, I do not call you cowardly.
When I call suicide weak, I do not call you weak.
When I call suicide shameful, I do not call you shameful.
When I call suicide selfish, I do not call you selfish.
Because if you are reading this you have not committed suicide.
You are brave because you are still alive.
You are strong because you are still alive.
You are admirable because you are still alive.
You are brave, strong, and admirable because you have made the choice to fight for yourself.
It is not selfish to stay alive when you want to die.
It is selfless.
And that is what matters.
If you feel like no one cares, you are wrong.
If you have read this and think I do not care, you are even more wrong.
I have already watched three people I have known end their lives without having been able to do anything to stop them from doing so.
Let me help you when you cannot help yourself.
Let me care about you when you cannot care about yourself.
Let me be there for you when you cannot be there for yourself.
Because I would feel selfish if I did not.
Email me at missdivinethedivine@gmail.com and let me be what you cannot.
