Month: May 2017

One of the frequent thoughts I wrestle with is how my son who by every indication was a sweet, loving, friendly, cheerful boy chose to end his life.  I didn’t know the person who took this action and struggle to understand him or to know where he came from or how long he had replaced Adam.

I have mentioned before that I have received training to recognize the symptoms of suicide and in hindsight I suppose there were symptoms from Adam that we had been told to look for.  He was having some difficulty sleeping and his grades had dropped a bit.  Both of these signs were written off to the new school year and him getting adjusted to the pace of his sophomore year.  His personality had changed a little but again this was easily explained by his age since it was expected as a 15 year old he would start to mature some.  The point of all this review is that we really had no warning at all.  Granted, as I have mentioned previously he was being treated for depression and anxiety but he had not shown any drastic changes in his behavior that would lead us to conclude he was considering ending his life.

I guess on some level mental illness is almost a form of possession where a person is taken over and says and acts in ways that are not consistent with their normal personality.  Unfortunately for us Adam did not really act in a way that set off alarms in us or anyone else who interacted with him on a daily basis.  I wish he had done something extremely out of character but even then the thought of him ending his life was so far beyond us considering it.

Recently, a high profile rock star took his life and his wife wrote an open letter where she said that she knew it was not him that ended his life.  I can relate to this.  I do not believe Adam did this and whatever took over his mind and led him to his final decision came up so quickly we had no chance to respond.  Hindsight is merciless in this situation but in order to survive mentally you have to understand that the sweet boy we knew was not the one that went down this dark path.

I know it is a little scary to consider how quickly things can turn but unfortunately that is how life in the “world” works.  I am comforted by the fact he is with our Savior and I pray to Adam and for Adam every day. When my time comes I look forward to our reunion because I know the Adam that I knew will be waiting for me.

Back in November I was searching for some appropriate way to memorialize Adam and I came up with idea to commission a statue. I had no idea how involved the process is and how long it takes but last week it finally arrived.  Anne and Ashley had already departed for a birthday/Mother’s Day trip to Napa Valley so my plan was to give it to her Sunday when they got back.  As with most plans this one went awry due to a miscommunication around the plane’s arrival time back.  It was so late when they got home it didn’t seem right to show it to her at midnight after a long day of travel.  I suspect this statue will evoke a lot of emotion in Anne and I am concerned about how she will react.  I am left in a potential lose lose situation.  As I have wrestled with this I am struck by how many other situations mirror this one in which it seems no matter what I choose I can lose.

While we are struggling as a family with Adam’s loss Anne in particular has been hit the hardest.  Her devotion to Adam was complete and she cannot even begin to deal with the reality of his loss.  Images of him can trigger intense bouts of sadness.  This was not something I took into account back in November.  It is possible this gesture on my part could not have it’s intended effect.  But what is the alternative?  To obliterate Adam’s memory from our minds and space?  I know this is not the right thing to do,  We need him in our lives and cannot  exist without him with us.  So I am stuck. If I move forward with the statue I could trigger intense sadness in my wife.  If I don’t act on my convictions I am not honoring Adam or keeping his memory alive which is essential. So like the title of the article says it seems I am damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

Life seems to present a lot of these dilemmas.  Listening to the radio or watching TV is a way to distract my mind from dwelling on the enormity of Adam’s loss but inevitably there will be a commercial or some subject that come up that causes me pain. Silence and stillness is bad because eventually my mind will wander to thoughts that cause me pain but the distraction can be as bad or worse.  Again it appears I am damned either way.

Beyond my loss I reflect back on all the choices I had as a parent or as a husband where I found myself in no win situations.  Situations where regardless of my choice there were negative consequences.  Sometime even not choosing an action would have negative consequences.  How do we maneuver through these experiences? If I am strict I jeopardize the relationship with my child. If I am lax my child will not learn how to become a mature adult.  If I am honest with my wife about her actions our relationship will sour.  If I keep quiet our relationship will still sour.  It seems to never end and it impacts our joy and quality of our life.

What do you do in a lose lose situation?  I think the answer is you do what is right no matter the consequences.  You reflect and pray and follow the path that seems correct no matter the outcome.  If we allow ourselves to become paralyzed by the potential of negative outcomes we lose anyway.  Damned if you do or damned if you don’t is an illusion from the devil.  Don’t let your fear of the future prevent you from taking the steps in your life you know you need to take. “For we walk by faith, not by sight” 2 Corinthians 5:7.  If we live by the convictions of our heart and act on them in faith we overcome the negative outcomes we fear.  My choice is to proceed.  I know God is with me and that it will go well.

Who am I?  I struggle with this question daily now.  My identity was so wrapped up in being Adam’s dad that now that he is gone I am not sure what to do with myself.  So much of what I did and why I did it was centered around him and with his departure from this world I am left with a giant void in my life. I have read comparisons to what people experience when they lose a limb.  There is a phantom pain from the lost limb that they still feel as if it were still there. This feeling I have isn’t quite that but an “amputation of part of my soul” might be an apt description for my loss.

As I start to circulate in the world again I meet new people and they invariably ask me about how many kids I have.  I had mentioned in a previous article about meeting a man who had lost his son several years ago to suicide.  He brought this up to me because I guess he knew it would be an issue.  He told me he tells them he has two children but one took his own life.  While I admire his candor and courage to be so upfront about this I just don’t feel comfortable putting that on a complete stranger or even a new acquaintance.  In my view it puts a huge burden on the other person.  What are they supposed to say?  What can they say?  In my mind I had two kids but now I have one.  Adam will always be in my heart  but he is gone and it is different.  Other people who barely know me don’t need to be saddened with my loss.

I am still a dad to my daughter Ashley but it is a very different thing than being Adam’s dad.  Ashley is older and more independent.  While we share quite a bit in common and I cherish our relationship as much as Adam’s there were unique things I shared with Adam.  Whenever I see commercials for Marvel movies like “Guardians of the Galaxy 2” or for video games or I see “Lord of the Rings” on the TV it is like a thousand tiny daggers piercing my heart.  Those were things I liked and shared with him and now they are so linked to him I can hardly bear even hearing about them.  We went to Disney so many times with him I cannot see anything associated with Disney without being swept away with melancholy.

I recently took up sailing.  I had always dreamed of Adam and I sharing this activity.  I had even booked lessons once on Lake Travis but the wind never seemed to cooperate.  This summer when he went to camp in Michigan I was excited to learn one of the activities was sailing and I hope he would come back with a desire to sail. Our busy lives prevented us from following through on this so I vowed to not let this happen again and purchased a boat just to make sure.  I met with a friend recently who shared a story he heard from another person who had lost a child.  He said that when you lose a child it is like you are sailing and there is a giant hole in your sail.  The wind blows (the world continues around you) but you are stuck going nowhere.  Eventually with time this hole can be stitched.  It will never be as good as it was before but it will hold wind and you can move forward.

It is my belief and hope that God will stitch this sail and fill the hole in my heart.  Hopefully, some day I can take Adam’s friends out on the boat and we will feel his presence with us and be comforted.  You are always welcome on my boat and know that when you sail with me you are sailing with my son because I bring him in my heart everywhere I go. I have lost my identity but God willing I will find it again and I will have peace.

Many year ago I heard a speaker discuss the phenomenon of “negative target fixation”.  It occurs most often in pilots but I think the concept is fairly universal.  When you tell your brain to avoid something ; for instance a tree in a field; for some reason your brain does the exact opposite and you end up hitting the tree.  I have noticed this same thing happening when I ride mountain bikes.  You tell your brain to avoid a rock in the trail and some how you end up hitting the rock.  The reason I bring this up is that I am convinced we do the same thing with tragedy or in an effort to prevent tragedy in our lives.

We knew that Adam had issues with self esteem and confidence from a fairly early age.  He was starting to have issues with classmates in second grade.  When we moved to our new  neighborhood and Adam attended the school in our neighborhood these issues got significantly worse. It was almost if Adam lacked some sort of resistance to the naturally occurring meanness of this world.  Every day he would come home traumatized by the actions of his classmates.  Our natural instincts were to find fault with the school and their lack of response and to question what type of parents would raise children that were so cruel and hateful.  Some of those feelings were legitimate but the underlying question was why Adam was so vulnerable?

We did seek out professional help for Adam and he started working with a counselor but eventually we were forced to move Adam to a private school where we thought the children would be less cruel and raised to be more kind.  We soon learned that this was not the case and Adam continued to struggle with bullying and we continued to struggle with ineffective school administrators.  Eventually, as I mentioned before Adam was diagnosed with anxiety and mild depression and was prescribed Lexapro to deal with his symptoms.  His issues seemed to lessen and he seemed much happier at school.

After his 9th grade year we offered him the chance to attend a bigger school with better facilities and he chose to stay in his current school because of his friends.  Ironically, those relationships ended up triggering the pain that led to his decision to take his life.  To be clear no one at his school caused Adam’s death.  The meanness and hurtful things that were said to Adam were typical of any high school and we all at some time in our lives have experienced what Adam experienced and even far worse and did not choose to take our lives.

The point is in our attempts to shield Adam from harm we failed to address the true underlying issues of his mental illness and helped create the outcome we were trying to avoid.  It is all hindsight and I blame no one, even myself for missing this but it is very clear now.  By not dealing with Adam’s inability to respond effectively to other people’s criticism we left him vulnerable.  It was “negative target fixation”.  We should have spent our energy understanding what was happening with Adam instead of trying to protect him from the external behaviors contributing to his feelings about himself.

It happens to all of us and the way to avoid it is to understand that typically our first instincts in times of trauma are usually wrong.  Our emotions take over and we don’t act in a rational logical way.  I have mentioned how fear causes us to make poor decisions in a previous article and I do think that hindered us on some level in how we interacted with Adam.  We were afraid of him being hurt and wanted to protect him.  This fear is prevalent when it comes to suicide.  It is every parents worse nightmare and as parents we need to understand that our responses to our children and the things that happen to them can be affected by this fear.

Be careful not to respond to events in your child’s life with fear.  This will lead to you missing the opportunity to address the real issues.  Remember “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear” 1 John 4:18.  Do not let your natural instincts create circumstances that produce the outcome you are trying to prevent.