June 26, 2020

If you’ve found yourself to this post you probably just had your world crash and burn to the ground. And to that I say, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you had to experience this traumatic loss. I would NEVER wish this upon someone. Losing the love of your life is hard in and of itself. But losing the love of your life to suicide is even worse. 

If you’ve googled “grieving” you’ve most definitely been bombarded by hundreds of articles or blog posts mentioning things like “5 steps of grieving” and “coping loss”. 

The thing with some of these articles is that they’re all academic evaluations and theory. They’ve quantified loss into steps and organized it into something digestible to the masses. 

But the thing with loss, especially that of your soulmate, is that it’s immeasurable.

The only way to relate and find comfort in an article or blog post is if the author has experienced the same type of loss as you.

So this post isn’t the loss/death of your pet or acquaintance. This is the loss of a soulmate. The person you were meant to be with. The one you fought with and argued but always managed to come back together and compromise. The type of unconditional love that you can’t imitate with a friend or family.

 

A connection that transcends your past knowledge of love, because you’ve never experienced this level before.

Also, I’m not saying those versions of loss aren’t significant. They are! But They’re not the same. And I’m sure you’ve had friends tell you about their pet dying or something along those lines to try and connect with you. 

Let me reassure you that if your friend cares about you, they’ll be open to hearing from you that what they’re doing isn’t helpful. Their version of loss isn’t the same as the one you’re going through. And while their intentions are sure to be good the effect they’re causing aren’t helpful. 

From my experience, before I got the call from his dad telling me he had died, I knew something was wrong. Like I mentioned before there is this connection between you and your soulmate that’s unmatched. 

The night before I got the call my body felt like it was in pain. I had a horrible headache and I just felt an urge to message him and try to get in touch with him. I didn’t hear from him all night and the following morning. 

At this point, I was worried because we needed some space from one another. I was extremely emotionally drained and needed space for myself. 

I knew something was wrong with him. I made him see a therapist a year before diagnosing him with bipolar. I tried my best to be there for him but it got to a point where I couldn’t do it alone. 

So I contacted his parents and let them know EVERYTHING. At that point I let them do more of the hard work like keeping an eye on him. Before they knew about this I had to visit him every night to make sure he could sleep. 

When I got the call my heart felt like it imploded into itself. As if a black hole had formed in me and was pulling me apart

One thing I realized when I lost my boyfriend was how cold my body had become. It’s true when they say your emotions affect your body physically. Normally I’m a very warm person who needs the AC on blast at every moment. But after this, my body wasn’t the same. I felt cold and heartless. I couldn’t stand the AC anymore. 

For the next couple of days and weeks, I found myself crying every morning and night. I had friends tell me all the clichés about him being in a better place, and how he would want me to be safe. Blah blah blah. None of that mattered. 

Following the crying was the need to get rid of everything that reminded me of him. All the gifts he gave me and all the clothes he left in my house I had to get rid of. 

I HATED HIM. I hated the fact that he had left me alone. I thought, how selfish of him to leave me here heartbroken and forgotten. You’re probably surprised to read this. Not a lot of people acknowledge the differences of experience between people. 

But it’s true. I hated being without him. We had plans for our future.

We talked about all the cute stuff couples talk about. Where our wedding would be. How many kids we wanted. And even little stuff like which brand of diapers we’d use!! (I think it would be cool to use reusable clothes which he was opposed to 🤷‍♂️). 

After the hatred, I had a period where I wanted my body to forget. So I went on dating apps and answered DMs on Instagram to flirt with literally anyone who gave me an ounce of attention. 

I figured this is what everyone wanted from me. To see me moving on. Right? This is normal? It’s been a few months and I’m still sad? Get over it. My friends are probably bored of hearing me talk about the same thing over and over again. 

I made plans with other guys to hook up and just forget about all the pain. But it never truly happened. I’m not gonna say I didn’t meet up with a couple of guys, because I did. But they never escalated to sex.

I just couldn’t put myself in that situation. It felt like I was cheating. We hadn’t broken up!!! We were still a couple!!

Almost a year had passed when I started to realize how stupid I was. How could I throw away everything I had from him?! WHO DOES THAT?! Fortunately, I had saved some photos in an external hard drive. And some friends shared photos they had of us too. 

During this time I was still crying. Dealing with stuff like “what else could I have done?”   Some articles would call this bargaining. Where we doubt our prior actions. Or what if you tried harder. 

This is probably one of the harder parts of my grieving process because I couldn’t find myself out of it. I analyzed every possible situation. Wondering where in time I could have said something or done something that would have kept him here on earth with me. 

Almost two years passed and I still ALWAYS thought of him. Every morning I’d check my phone for a text. Every time something exciting happened in my life I wanted to call him. I just wanted to continue sharing my life with him… but I couldn’t. 

Now it’s been over 2 1/2 years and I’m always thinking of him.

So, this pain you feel is okay. It’s okay to hate them or resent them. It’s okay to cry every night. It’s okay to talk about this with your friends. There is no timeline to this type of grief. 

One of the hardest things I’ve had to learn is that his suicide was not my fault. I tried my best to be there for him. I gave him all my love and then some. Unfortunately no matter how much you try, at the end of the day, they’re the ones in charge of their bodies. 

I hope you found some comfort in this post. It was very cathartic for me to write it. 

[note: If you think your friends are tired of hearing you talk about this you can try recording yourself. Before this blog existed I made videos of myself talking about all of this. Then I would watch the clips the next day. It helped me understand how *I* would react if someone was telling me my story.]

L0ve, 

Not Bobby