another friend gone...

I don't know if loosing Shawn stopped me from making posts, but I just happened to open this up the day I found out another friend/co-worker took his own life.

Actually found out yesterday just before lunch and it took another hour or so for it to sink in.

I'm still confused and trying to decide if it's healthy for me to sort out my feels or just trying to ignore it entirely.  I believe it's a social norm to try to get answers hoping that getting to the bottom of it will somehow justify their actions.  By for the rest of the afternoon I saw how different people were reaction, how they were working through the loss, and trying to make sense of everything.

At the same time, I saw a friend post a story about Arizona providing more training to teachers and staff to assist with suicide prevention.  I started to make my reply, but eventually deleted it. But I'll post it here.  I don't think suicide prevention training at the school level will stop a slide once it starts in an area.  Teachers and staff already have so much on their plate, then add issues around their personal life...personally I get the feeling that most of us go through the day, week, month, etc and try to have the path of least resistance.  Of course, there are those few people that are dialed into other peoples issues.  I'm not one of them.

Anyway...I was pretty emotional the rest of the day.  Had to catch myself from breaking down.  Anytime someone asked if I was okay, or how I was dealing with things, I would find myself starting to loose my emotions.  Resurfaced old feeling and issues I still haven't address in myself.

I wanted to stay busy, but was cautioned by supervisors not to get into anything.  I guess they have found out that when someone has experienced grief they tend to make mistakes and forget what they are doing.  We were ordered to have a stand down the rest of the weekend.  Not to take on any extra work and just keep things status quo.

Afterwork, I just could not stop thinking about Chuck's family.  Specifically his high school aged daughter, Kim.  They were pretty close and shared lots of memories with eachother.  When either one of them post something on social media, about 1/2 the time it was about something they did together or for them.

I could not help by think about my relationship with Castle. It made it take much more heartbreaking.

There is so much more I want to 'dump' but the pearl I think I gained over the last 36 hours is that prevention has to start within your own heart with the help of those that are in the home.  Learning and exercising habits of communication, kindness, forgiveness, and life-planning.

It's impossible to know all  the thoughts of those that have gone down this path (not sure if they know all the reasons themselves) but when I have been down in the depth of depression the strongest emotion is not knowing if I can live with the current conditions.  I have my moments where I struggle to want to move on.  I'm thankful that I have always for a reason(s) to keep going.

Chuck, I will miss you and will find it hard to come to work knowing that you will never be there.  I'm confused for you, I'm heartbroken for your family and hope that I can serve them if they ever need my help.