A life is stilled.

No matter what anyone says that someone shouldn't feel guilt, it doesn't stop the feelings of guilt when you learn someone has attempted to take their own life.

Not only attempted, but succeeded.

I recognise that someone's decision isn't my fault.  I recognise that there have been no warning signs and that just as many others didn't, I didn't have any idea either. 

But, my goodness, when I was speaking with them in the very late hours of the night and into the early depths of yesterday morning. I quite simply had no idea, there was no inkling of their feelings, their intentions.  There was no suggestion that in a matter of less than 24 hours they'd be gone.

How could I not see it?  How could I not have known?  How could I not have heard the things that they didn't say?

We spoke of so many things, and yet, it would appear that so many things were left unspoken. 

Why didn't I see it? Hear it? Feel it? Why couldn't they share?

My mind is haunted by words that were never uttered, haunted by thoughts of could I have done more.  I have a deep sense of guilt deep within my heart.  My heart aches for them, that they were left feeling in life, that nothing was actually worth staying for, and right now, I am angry at myself for the fact that I didn't see it, didn't hear those feelings and didn't see what was going to happen a few hours later.

My mind has played over the conversation over and over again, looking for clues, did I miss an outstretched hand that they wanted me to take?  And yet, no matter how many times I play it over.  There is nothing. Nothing which could have suggested that they had reached the end.

I feel as if I've let them down in some monumental way.  I feel as if I've failed them, but also, so very sad that they were left in a place where nothing else was an option. 

Did I fail in being the friend to them that they needed?  Even though I was the person they reached out to, just as they've done before.  And yet still I didn't know, I didn't see it, I didn't feel it.  They didn't show it.

We talked, we even laughed, sometimes through tears, but we laughed.  How could I not have known?  How could I fail them so very badly?

And I have. 

I know this was their choice, THEIR decision because they couldn't cope with where life is, the things that are happening.  My rational mind even tells me it's not a reflection on me.  But, it does feel that way, somehow.

Why does it feel as if I've failed them?

Because it does feel that way and more.

I've lost a lot of people from life, my Mum, my brother, my grandparents, a cousin my age, a close friend.  I've even lost an uncle to suicide, and each of those losses carry their own feelings, they bring their own types of grief and pain.

But right now . . ?  Right now guilt and sadness and pain and loss and a deep sense of failure flows through me right now.  A sense of failure but more so, the heart-breaking realisation that they couldn't reach out enough, that they couldn't find the words.  Or was it us not hearing?

Oh how I wish I knew.

I feel anger towards myself that I didn't see it. Anger and guilt and pain and loss.  And a deep sadness that a life has ended in this way, that someone was filled with so much pain, filled with so much sadness, so much heartache that for them, there was no other option.

Did they feel as if they were not cared about? 

So many people showed them this wasn't the case, maybe they couldn't see it, or maybe we failed in showing it enough. 

Did we really fail?  Did we really let them down? 

Or was it just me.

The day is dark and my heart aches right now.

To my Friend

May you find the peace within your
heart that you were

not able to find here.

I hope your anguish
will now forever cease

And that your deep anxieties
will be replaced by endless peace.

I love you. Always.
Kat

Beyond the guilt and shame

"I feel guilty and shame" he told me the other night.

"Guilt and shame for the needs that I have. For the things that I want or need to do.  I cannot leave behind the baggage that people place, that society places.  But, there is also something of feeling that guilt and shame when I do the things that I do, and I cannot imagine what it would be like to be freely ok with the needs that I have.  I am scared that if I let those feelings go, if I can get past them, of how I will feel".

Liberated?

Free?

To be free from guilt and to carry now shame about the things that you want or need?

I think a lot of us worry, about how it would be if we ever got to a place of not having that shame or guilt about the needs that we have.  I worried that things would be boring, would never be enough and that if I accepted everything that I did that it would lose its interest, lose its excitement, that it would take all of the feeling out of it all.

It hasn't.

It doesn't.

You just get to enjoy the things that you like and want and need, without feeling guilty. Without feeling shame.  I have felt liberated.  Accepted. Free.

This conversation, really reminded me of something that I had read a long time ago, by Guy New York and I pointed this person I was having the conversation with in the direction of this specific piece of writing.

"Beyond guilt and shame"

In my dreams of liberated sex without fear, guilt, or shame I find an underlying anxiety that is more troublesome.  Beneath the struggle of leaving behind my cultural baggage is the worry that if I am successful in moving past the guilt and the shame I will be left with sex that is dry, dispassionate, and uninspiring. 

It’s the same fear that comes to writers when we think we need to live the mythic life of the artist and all that it entails.  It’s the fear that comes to musicians when we hide behind drugs and alcohol. 


It’s the fear that left all alone without our worries we just may not be good enough.


I’ve seen glimpses of the other side though, and I can tell you it’s all a lie.  On the other side of shame and all the other stories we’re told and accept is something remarkable.  On the other side of guilt is sex that is wild, kinky, and powerful. On the other side of shame, and fear, there is love, honesty, and passion.   On the other side, there is sex full of mind-blowing orgasms that leave us trembling, shaking and begging for more.
—Guy New York

I am on the other side.

I don't have that guilt or shame.

I don't have the fear of what people will think.  I accept what I am, what I need. Just as I accept other people for what they need.

On the other side there is love, honesty, passion, there is that sex of mind blowing orgasms, but there's also a whole lot more beside . . .losing the guilt and the shame doesn't take away from anything.  It just allows you to enjoy it all in a different way, in a liberated way.  It allows you to be who you are, what you are, what you need to be.

But more so, it allows you to be free.