how to process
Yesterday I found out that an author whom I'd gotten to know over the years has died. Then I found out he took his own life. This is a man who was very passionate about educating people, mostly kids, about mental illness and suicide prevention. He was 32. He has a wife and a two-year old. That he died had me in shock. That he took his own life... just added to that shock.Today I found out that he took his own life by jumping off the roof of his parents' building.I can't even process this. I can't.Losing someone you respected and connected with is one thing. Losing someone through suicide is a completely different thing.Adding this incident on top of what I am already dealing with is just brain overload.I am home from work until the end of January because I am still trying to heal from the trauma of having a man jump off a 50-floor building and land in front of me back in March. I already can't seem to process THAT day. I thought I'd been doing ok, but obviously the break down in November was a clear sign that I wasn't as ok as I thought. I'm having nightmares and night sweats and anxiety attacks over anything at random times of the day. I am not hungry, I am angry, I am crying over nothing. I am lost.And I was feeling a little better. And now I have this news to process through my brain that is already confused by why someone would jump off a building and almost land on top of me (it was really that close. Distressing details in this post, if you wanted to read them and haven't already). I almost lost my life at the end of March. I didn't. I was lucky.I felt like I got this author friend. We weren't close, but I really connected with what he said at an event I was at. I bought his book immediately and went over to speak with him. He signed my book. It was a book about teen suicide and mental illness. He'd been through similar things as I had and I just connected with him. I love his writing. I thought what he had to say when he did public speaking was so heartfelt and honest. He was a gentle soul. One who was still healing and seemed to be on the right track to winning his battles.But obviously that wasn't quite the case this week. Something went wrong. I don't know what was going on in his life or his head that made him make the decisions he made. Something broke inside of him and it's just a horribly sad thing to find out.I am having trouble with how familiar the incident is. I can only think of how the people who found him must have felt. How terrifying it is to have someone fall out of the sky in front of you. And if you weren't there to see him fall, then to find him after he fell. The anger, the shock, the fear, the grief, the sadness and the complete inexplicableness of it all. The unbelieveableness.I feel like this is all too much for me right now. I don't know how to feel or react or if I'm ok but I won't be days, months, years from now. It's all too similar. Too much.Maybe I just need to take a bigger break from things. Not just from work but from the internet and my laptop. There's just too much out there. I don't want to hide forever but I think I might need to just take a vacation from all the noise social media creates.I'm so broken up over the loss of this man. I'm tired of hearing about suicide. Child or adult. It just needs to stop.