The year I didn't survive

I asked that question so many times (for reference, see my comment on Jake's thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41163619 ). I asked it of my late wife. I asked it of my therapist. I asked it of my daughter, when she was sleeping.

"Is this my life now?"

The first few months were terrible. Then things started to get better. Before anyone jumps and says "a few months?! That's nothing!", there's a thing called "anticipatory grief". Look it up. (Besides, each grief journey is individual. Besides, who are you to criticize me?).

Then things stopped getting worse. For a while life was flat. Colorless. Dark. I moved through the motions. Dropped my daughter at preschool, worked from home, picked her up, went to the playground, went home, dinner, bedtime story, lie in bed doing nothing. Rinse and repeat. Go to sleep early to avoid feeling.

Then it started getting better. And better. And even better than that. Therapy, meds, pushing (omg so much pushing), friends, a new love. Things got continuously better. I'll never forget that year, but I also now know that I can survive what I think is the 2nd worst thing that can happen to a person. I know it cannot break me.

And I think Bess found that out too. Parts of us died with them, but new parts are growing. Parenthood parts. Discovery parts.

I remember watching my wife to make sure she was breathing. Then at the hospital. Then she wasn't. And it was terrible. A loss I cannot even describe, a part of your own soul that is torn out of you. Yet, that part was painful. Not just that, also in pain. In some sense, I was relieved she was no longer in pain. Even more relived she didn't have to witness her mom passing away. The world turning darker and more despair filling in. She missed on milestones, but also on sadness. And, at the end, I miss her but that part, slowly, became more bearable.

To Bess - I can't promise it'll be ok. No one can. But it'll get easier to bare.

It think the term "good old days" is not some delusion of the aging mind as the media keeps trying to convince us. As I've watched things getting worse during my own life, I've been getting increasingly confident that things really were better in those old days. I mean, even the kinds of people who existed; they were simpler people, happier people. They lived lives of mystery and serendipity.

Now you basically have to be rich to be happy and you usually have to do bad things to be rich... So it's difficult to find happiness nowadays. IMO, success in life is being both rich and also having a clean conscience; then you can have everything you need, yet still have the ability to look people in the eyes and mean what you say when you speak.

After reading a hand full of the comments, I am scrolling over the rest, thinking "wow", it's HN, which I read it almost daily to scrutinize nerdy blogs, startup gossip and API critiques. In a way, it feels good that these same people are indeed "real" people with "real" problems, not robots or perfect beings of sorts who only IPO their tech and end up billionairs, flesh-and-bone humans.

Reading this I wished I could just give a big HUG to everyone out there suffering for whatever reason; we all just have one life, let's live it in meaningful ways, let's help each other and be good to one another because anything else is really not worth it.

Worn out, grief-struck after enountering death or other loss, sad, traumatized - it is all horrible but I believe anything can be overcome. No, you won't be the same, but the other version of you can heal, can still live a good - perhaps more aware, humble, slower and more thankful - life, taking it one day at a time.

I'll be throwing in a "prayer for anon." - for everyone who posted here and the OP tonight: may their (your!) suffering cease, wounds heal, and meaning become clear in the end.

This is how I've felt every time a friend has tried and failed to commit suicide. I'm so sorry.