Soraya Bakhbakhi, this post is on my Facebook wall. Please read it. The people who are responding to me are mostly friends that I only know from Facebook and have not met in person — the same as the way you and I know each other, through posts and responses. These people care about me, and now they care about you. We are all feeling your pain, and through your pain, we have even deeper pain.

“Share this with her, Danna Georgia Colman and tell her that I am available to speak with her directly if she would like. I am one of those left behind that she doesn’t want to know about. One of the MANY people either directly or indirectly affected so badly by someone’s suicide that it has literally destroyed my life and everyone else’s around me. We don’t “get over it”. Ever. It has been many years. Life is beyond repair and so am I due to the suicide of others. I am here trudging on through each day because I am so acutely aware of the destruction left in the wake of another’s death that I couldn’t bear to do it to another, no matter how dead I feel inside. If I have to be here, so does she. If I can do it, so can she. SOMEONE needs her more than she realizes. SOMEONE, at least one will be shattered and it may not be who she expects. Suicide is the most difficult death to grieve because it leaves the element of guilt. The what-if’s and the if-onlys. And no matter how silly it may seem EVERYONE will blame themselves to some degree. Even the stranger that sold her her last drink will find it somehow to be their fault for not seeing the signs. People are stuck like this FOREVER. Not fair. Not fair at all. And I am always the first to come to mind when suicides come to the surface because I have been through it. So everyone comes to me whether they want to do it or know someone that wants to do it. So now I am responsible for everyone considering it. Please, I beg her not to do it to me again. It is too much to bear. If she is going to force us to be those poor bastards left behind yet again that HAVE to bounce through the wake she leaves behind then she should HAVE to know what she is doing to the others. I will tell her what my life is after suicide. If my loved ones only knew maybe they would still be here. Speaking of the Golden Gate Bridge, I saw a special on the suicides committed there and the only thing survivor of the jump had to say was that there was much regret immediately after stepping off. It is always that way but then too late. It haunts me to know that as my loved ones hung gasping for air for minutes that must have seemed like an eternity just how much regret they had while the life was choked out of them. UGH! NOT FAIR! And furthermore, I am in the nursing profession and take care of more than one person that has survived shooting their own faces off and had to live like that for many, many years. It is NOT pretty. It happens. STOP BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE! OH, And you tell her that she read it right when I said loved ONES as in PLURAL because THAT’S how bad it is for those left behind. They fall like dominoes. One after another, feeling so bad about what happened that they take their own lives. There were 4 in my own string, not to mention friends. DOES SHE WANT TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR SOMETHING LIKE THAT? Because that is how it goes. Tell her to ask anyone that runs a suicide survivors group. Maybe she ought to attend a meeting! Oh, she’s got me fired up and I am in another country. Tell her to get on a plane and come stay with me and I will tell and show her enough to change her mind. I am sure she is a beautiful person but just in pain. Well, so am I. It is possible to reclaim her life. If I can, so can she.”