For a long time I didn’t understand why Saagar couldn’t speak to me about his suicidal thoughts. I felt terrible about myself – untrustworthy. In short, Bad Mum. I thought we were close. When he took his own life, I felt betrayed and shunned like an outsider. He must have known that I cared for him deeply even if I didn’t always know how to show it. I am sure he felt the vastness of our love as much as I did. It glued us together and carried us as one through thick and thin. It was the most solid part of my life, unwavering, undying and unfaltering.

What stopped him? Why couldn’t he? In the early months it nearly killed me, the utter and complete sense of failure as a parent. How alone must he have felt! Was he embarrassed? Ashamed? Confused? Did he feel trapped? Why couldn’t I see it? Was it out of concern for me that he didn’t share? Did he know that I would probably freak out if he did? Could he feel my pain as I watched him suffer? Could he see how lost and powerless I felt? Was his silence his way of being kind to me? Did he really believe that I would be better off without him? Did he even know the meaning of what he was doing?

All these unanswerable haunting questions coming back uninvited! But now, I can understand. 

ps: If you are concerned about anyone close to you, please call PAPYRUS for help and advice. I wish I knew of them when Saagar was ill. (https://www.papyrus-uk.org/)

Ref: http://www.speakingofsuicide.com/2013/05/29/parents-and-teens/