Failure to Heed the Warning Signs
Trigger warning: This section contains a mention of suicide
After exercise class one night not long after Noah had been admitted to the hospital, I told my friends that he seemed to be in a good mood. One of them, a physician, pointed out that often when suicidal people seemed happy, it was because they’d decided to kill themselves.
She was trying to be helpful. I didn’t appreciate it. After that, every time Noah seemed remotely happy, I wondered if it was because he had decided (again) to kill himself. But when he finally did get out of the hospital, I thought back to that warning and dismissed it. He didn’t seem happy at all, ergo, by my friend’s metric, he wasn’t planning to kill himself. I conveniently dismissed John and Ian’s concerns, too. Instead, I dwelled on the cup half full: they’d said Noah needed to come home. That’s what I thought, too.
Countless studies have shown that suicide attempts and death by suicide are more common among recently released psychiatric patients than among the general population.1 Did I know that on April 20, 2018? Would I have acted any differently if I had?
Note to readers: I am so grateful for your support, to know you are here every week, reading this story. And I would love to hear more from you. Among the many themes in this memoir, one that looms large is regret. When I think about the period before and during Noah’s hospitalization, I often find myself wondering what I could and should have done differently. And then I remind myself that ultimately the outcome was a positive one, and part of that was because eventually I (and others) did do things differently. I’m interested in hearing about your experiences with regret, what you’ve learned from experiences that went sideways, and what you did to right your ship, as it were.
Regrets are tricky. The line between holding yourself accountable for your behavior (which may or may not have contributed to another person's decision to end their life) and blaming yourself as though you were in control of another person's behavior is so so tricky. Perhaps even trickier for mothers.
My Regret is that when during Covid I was unable to Travel ,it was impossible ! My Mother was in St.Louis where my brother lives , she had fallen so was geting help , where she was they failed to sperate people who had Covid so of course she got it and died ! I was unable to see her hold her hand or do anything the most importent person in my life I couldn’t even say good by now I can only go on it’s not easy i try and fight the good fight we all find our selfs in never giveing up because you can’t and it’s the right thing to do ❤️