My Definition of a "Crisis"

       My definition of a crisis is very simple:  something which occurs and your life is forever changed, defining your whole life as "before___the incident" or "after___the incident".

       I had already gone through this once before,
as after my 31 year marriage ended, many of my sentences or thoughts began with..."before I was divorced", or..."after I was divorced".

       It was only a few years later that I lost Erik, so my primary dividing line of my life rather quickly changed to "before Erik died", or..."after Erik died".

       My whole life had been defined as sort of the standard wife and mother, although I had always worked at my career as well.  Ironically, my career also took a dive between that three year period of divorce to loss of a child.  There is a scale that assigns levels of stress to life events - 0 to 100, one hundred being the highest,   If you include losing my family home and an additional move after that, I think I went through at least five of those events which were close to 100 in pretty rapid succession.  Sometimes, looking back, I myself wonder how I even made it through!

       One thing about my definition of a crisis, is that it does apply to anything.  Many people consoled me when Erik died, and spoke of the loss of one's child as the most heartbreaking event that anyone can endure.  In some ways I agree that it is certainly one of the worst, but if there is some sort of Richter scale for pain and sadness, I am respectful of the other tragedies people have to endure.

        I went to several meetings of a suicide survivors group.  At first, I was struck by how many people there had lost a son as well.  (Different ages, but we are losing too many young men to suicide.)

        But, as the meeting wore on, I noticed many other things.  Losing a child does not give us a "one up" on grief.  My heart went out to those who had lost a parent, a sibling, or a spouse.  I was struck by the differences in how the loss impacts our lives, but certainly the pain level is the same to a degree, for any loss of anyone we love dearly.  I also noticed there were people there who had experienced a loss in a recent few months, or had been struggling for a number of years.

       Everyone's story was often very different, but everyone's pain was the same.  Each person was in a different part of their journey, and each person was taking many different roads to stay on track for their own survival.  It is a common thought that support groups provide a forum to interact and realize that you are not alone in a particular situation, and it certainly was evident here.

      I think that is another defining premise of a crisis.  It somehow leaves you feeling so detached or different from the whole rest of the world around you.  The people who are close to you are viewing you as a very different person, and treating you differently than before.  When you are around people who don't know you well, you place that label on yourself.  When I am around someone new or who doesn't know me well enough to know about Erik, I often have this feeling that they don't know the "real me".

      I remember that at one point after Erik died, I was walking down the hall of one of the buildings where I work.  As I made my way through the building, I was overwhelmed with this thought:  "I am a freak.  I have a son who committed suicide.  No one else here has a son who committed suicide.  I don't fit in with anyone anymore."  Granted, this was a pretty low moment for me, but looking back, I realize that I had to go through a whole process of redefining who I was.  I had to get comfortable with the new me, because as I spend the rest of my life interacting with other people, I cannot backtrack and explain all that has happened to the old me. 

     So I suppose that this is the challenge and the last part of the defintion of a crisis:  Something that changes our lives, but more importantly, something that changes who we are forever.  It is up to us then, to embrace that new person, and steer our existence toward something fulfilling and good, not in spite of having endured the suicide of a loved one, but because of it.  And then we can think of them, smile to ourselves, nod our heads, and say, "this is for you!".