Trigger/Content Warning: In this post, I discuss death, suicidal ideation, survivor’s guilt, and more heavy, complicated emotions. If you or a loved one is struggling with depression or suicidal ideation, please know how loved you are and reach out to a professional skilled in dealing with these difficult circumstances. It saved my life. If you need to speak with somebody immediately, call The National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.

The world is better with you in it.

My sister’s life is a thing of the past. She was born, she learned things about living for the first time, she grew up, she made people laugh and mad and sad and feel good, she got sick, she got sick some more, she impacted lives, and then, tragically, she died way too fucking young.

And less than three years later, I find myself generally happier than I ever was before she died. I don’t know how that’s possible. I am grateful and I am sad.

I avoid talking about her anymore. There are people in my life that have only known me since after her death. I find it best to avoid talking about her so as to not make them uncomfortable and because the responsibility is too large; How can I possibly distill her life into bits and pieces if they never knew her. I can talk about her casually without getting too sad, but I can tell the expressions of others show a feeling of discomfort whenever I speak about her.

That discomfort likely comes from a good place; it’s a tragic topic so I think people just don’t know how to respond to me discussing her so they don’t know what to say or do. I would never judge anybody for not knowing how to navigate these conversations.

American society glorifies and denormalizes death. Death is but an end of our lives and avoiding discussion of it only makes the topic that much more taboo. I have found that talking about my sister, as well as being honest about my emotions — which are entirely valid and it has taken me a long, long time to provide myself that grace and compassion — is the main way I have found to allow myself to experience joy.

For the first year after her death, I took the self-loathing route. I wished to be dead instead of her. I figured my life had been so much easier than hers so I deserved to be the one who no longer existed. I figured that if I had died, maybe my good health would transfer to her. The most fun part about depression is that the thoughts seem rational but never are, and yet the feelings are valid. We do not do ourselves any favors when we tell ourselves that our feelings are not valid. All feelings are valid; all reactions to those feelings are not. We have to be sure not to hurt others in our wake since we ourselves are hurt. I coated my wounds with lies I told myself; through partying, drinking, and socializing; through working myself to the bone; through losing sight of what I loved about life including others and the world around me; and I definitely acted against my dearly held principles which meant inevitably hurting others. Through it all, every single day, I hated myself from the moment I woke up until the moment I could fall asleep after hating myself the entire time I tried to fall asleep. There were few moments of peace and the ones that spent the most time with me may not have even known how much I was struggling internally. It was hell.

This was the only way I knew how to grieve. Whenever I felt joy, I existed on a precipice. Right as I began to experience joy and some love for myself, I tumbled off the end of the cliff right back into the desperate self-loathing. If I could’ve spoken to God in those moments, immediately after asking for my sister back, I would’ve asked to be re-educated so I could stop hating myself for another moment so that I could find some joy once again. I know for a fact that I couldn’t have handled it much longer. It took some very dark nights and moments for me to recognize that CF was no longer the biggest threat to my existence; it was my own mind.

I have not beaten depression but I have some comfort and solace. I have learned not to exist in definites — there is nuance to everything — but one thing I draw a strong, strong line on it how I talk to myself, and how others talk to themselves in front of me. I refuse to berate myself, and whenever I slip up, I immediately apologize to myself and recognize that I have the ability to love myself even when I fuck up. Others can perceive me how they so choose — there’s a limit to how much of that is my business, anyway. I have significantly reduced the language of self-loathing; I don’t call myself a piece of shit for eating a bit too much anymore. It doesn’t mean I don’t have moments where I’m still unfairly critical, but it means I try to counteract those thoughts with positive, self-affirming thoughts. And when others talk negatively about themselves in my presence, I try my best to remind them that that language is not necessary and oftentimes horribly unfair to themselves. We deserve to be as compassionate to ourselves as we often are to others.

Since my sister’s death, I have found that guilt and shame and even depression and anxiety to an extent are often rooted in how we perceive how we should feel rather than how we actually feel. We convince ourselves, either due to past trauma, society, or whatever else, that we shouldn’t eat whatever we want because we may get fat (as if fat is inherently bad [our health standards are hardly real and almost exclusively based on what society deems "attractive”]); we convince ourselves that we shouldn’t feel happy because we still miss a loved one. Almost without question, feeling sad because we think we shouldn’t feel happy would go against the wishes of our departed loved one. My sister would be pissed if I stopped feeling joy because I didn’t think I deserved it! She’d kick my ass!

Today, I am very happy and my anxiety is a fraction of what it used to be. A part of moving on is that our loved one becomes a bit more of a faded memory. Our memories of them begin to carry a sepia hue in the picture and a bit of crackling in the audio. We learn how to handle the thoughts and memories of them in a way that doesn’t upend our day or what we’re working on in the moment. We learn how to talk about them 2-dimensionally instead of the wholly 3-dimensional person who had memories, a life, dreams, insecurities, and so much more. We learn how to try to encapsulate their spirit with few words and no tears. We learn how to compartmentalize their existence.

I fucking hate that it has to be this way. The days I hate it most are the days where I am inconvenienced with the inconsolable feeling of grief. I turn on Bon Iver or The Funeral by Band of Horses and sob as I recall memories and just how much my life has changed over the last seven years. I allow myself the most human expression I can possibly imagine: The expression of pure sorrow as I remind myself that I will never create another memory with my sister ever again, and the unfairness that my parents have to think about her and then worry about me all the same.

I know she’d be proud of me and I’m doing better than I have ever been. I am happy and healthy.

But it’s been a few weeks since I really thought about my sister and I miss her so goddamn much.

tré