DH committed suicide on Saturday, rang Samaritans, not helped.

[RubbishMantra]

Anyone there? I 'm a bit done in. We'd been married less than 2 years. I got him a dollar bill folded into an origami carp for our 1st anniversary. He hanged himself. We didn't have DCs, but we have 2 beautiful cats. Sister flying in tomorrow. I don't know how he could leave me and our 2 little lads (cats)

Ah well - at least you know where you are with the toilet seats. (Which is nowhere really - they're so completely self-absorbed that you just don't signify it seems. Just not there.)

Your rational brain is absolutely right but I suppose that that doesn't help those gut feelings when you're pacing in the wee small hours. That 'Why wasn't I enough to help him through this etc ?' I don't know how to ease those feelings, I'm afraid. Just keep on talking to people about it, maybe?

M if people could cure psychosis, cancer, epilepsy, stroke etc by talking about it and offering emotional support then the planet would be very different.

They can't - no one can. You can do a lot with talking therapy, but you can't do that. DLH didn't want to leave you - of course he didn't, but he didn't get the choice. That's your tragedy.

Thinking of you this evening.

You and DLH have shared many lives, Mantra. There are many more to come and you're currently living another with him in a parallel universe. They're all dreams interspersed with times when we wake up and find ourselves in our true home with those we love.

He didn't want to leave you, but the die was cast and he had no choice. He knows, and you know, that it's only a temporary parting and that nothing can stop you being reunited time and again because your mutual affinity is eternal.

Well said corygal.

Rubbish - I think sometimes people on the verge of suicide think in odd ways. I'm going to talk about another case, and leave it up to you to see if you think there are similarities.

So speaking to the wife of my friend who committed suicide, it seems clear that he thought of his death as a way of being with her forever. Sort of preserving the happiness they had, if you like, without the need for continuing struggle. I think he also felt that he was making her life miserable (which wasn't true), and that this would be a way of holding on to the happiness.

Of course, that is the illness talking. It is all this horrendous, twisted logic that comes with the illness.

What I'm trying to say is that whereas we might think of death as a way of 'getting away' from someone, mental illness (in its awful way of conceptualising things) can picture it as a way of staying together in spite of the world. My friend didn't want to get away from his wife - he wanted to hold on to the relationship and for the pain of the world to stop.

Still can't believe your parents. My God - they are not just toilet seats, they are public toilet seats in a much-abused block that hasn't been cleaned for decades!!

Do you really thinks so Goddess? That was the last thing I said to him at the funeral home, "see you in the next life." But then I think how will we find each other, or recognise each other.

And thanks C and Holly, what you're saying makes sense, and is helping me to understand his thought process a bit more... but still that niggling doubt, I should have pressed him to talk more about how he was feeling. He didn't tell me he was having suicidal thoughts, I had no clue.

There you go with that 'rational' thinking again. When you were with him it was HIM - it was the illness that took him. Not the same at all.

Have you managed any calories today?

Not yet Cozie. I'm working up to it. Stomach had an unpleasant reaction to the food I ate yesterday, (just soup and a sandwich). Both ends unfortunately

Thank you for the reassurance, there's so much swirling around in my head, all the "what ifs". I've made contact with a counsellor though, to start working through all this stuff. I once had a very physically abusive ex, difficult to leave him because he was living in my house, which belonged to me outright. I would wish he'd crash his car and die when he was on his way home. And I'll tell you what, he would have been no great loss to humanity.

If you get an unpleasant reaction, just try to go on through it. (The system will adjust sooner or later.) Cold milk is always good - with some milk shake in it if you find it boring by itself.

Absolutely Holly - people commit suicide to preserve themselves and the people they love - madness at its ultimate. The hallucinationst just encourage it.

M Amazon claim they sent you an email. But they are shit, so check if you ever get 5 min.

As Cozie says, have you had a go on the breakfast juice yet -sorry my tyoing is awful, Mr C is 'loving' the PC with his startlingly hard head.

Little Monsieur just got a bit slappy with a pint glass, hurling it on to the floor. After giving me a most comforting cuddle though. Cuddles with MCat are a bit like blood sports. He gets to a certain state of relaxed-ness, then he goes for you.

Regarding food, I ordered in a Most Excellent selection of bacon, so I reckon a bacon sarnie with black pepper and mayo may be the way forward. Bollocks, think I'm out of pepper though.

At what point do i start sorting his clothes out? He did some washing, the day before he dies, and I haven't been able to move it off the clothes horse. We hadn't been together very long, and I'd ordered this lilac coloured clothes horse, and asked him if he wouldn't mind collecting it for me. From then on we had this thing, "You're my knight on a lilac clothes horse."

Pint glases of milk sitting on the floor were how I discovered that Seniorboy was lactose-tolerant. (He would thieve from them without effect - and to be fair, they were on the floor which is fair game in our household.)

Clothes? That's a very personal thing to you, Mantra. With my own close deaths, I've disposed of most of them within three or four weeks. (Some to the bin, many to charity shops.) I usually keep back one or two things which can be incorporated into my own wardrobe - some shirts or T shirts for example - but I've usually felt better for having the bulk of them gone.

It's what feels do-able for you, I guess.

Well I had a dream about wearing a duffle coat that I bought for DLH, so I'll definitely keep it. Duffle Coat of Protection.

Of course.

Hope you got that sarnie down.

I did Cozie, a baguette absolutely crammed with bacon.

That's a good about the sarnie, Mantra. And lovely story about the clothes horse!

I think handle everything else when/as you feel ready. There are no rules, and if you don't feel like doing it, you don't have to do it.

I am playing with my next door neighbour's cat right now. He was the runt of the litter, so even though he's 7 or 8 now, he's still the size of a teen cat. I think he might have been a bit oxygen-deprived at birth or something because he is absolutely bonkers. Right now, he's on top of my black wheelie bin, which is out in the warm autumn sunshine, and he's rolling over and over and screaming with delight as I stroke him. Any second, he's going to bite me, I can tell, and then he'll run skittering up the path as if I've done something terribly frightening! Mad little thing. My much older and fatter black cat is looking on with narrowed eyes at this intrusion, but is too lazy to get up and object.

I had a slightly special needs cat once holly. Our neighbours moved away, and just left him behind when he was 3 months old. He was the most loving, happy and sweetest natured cat.

I had a dream about DLH last night, and it tied into real life, iyswim. Like a sort of echo.

How's it going tonight M. Those dreams are part of you - terribly important. Was the waking up ok? Sometimes they stay with you to ease you into the day.

I went into the Tramp Feet Restaurant today and I am openly thrilled to report neither X nor his spiced appendages were there. I might see him tomorrow. Have you got any weekend plans? The so-called heatwave in Clapham has taken the form of me in slippaz and Mr C pointedly in bed early under 2 duvets, so I suspect it's do-gooding, lunch with mate, then more good works and then pure bliss of Dr Who & gin.

The waking was OK actually, poignant though. It was one of those dreams that rouses you from sleep, so I remember it quite clearly. I love dream work anyway, having a slight crush on old Carl Jung.

Mmm, spiced appendages... Delicious!

Plans... Well I plan to give the boys their flea treatment if that counts? Probably have a Skype with DSis. There just aren't many people I feel like being around, and I'm a bit of a loner anyway. The one friend who I can handle being around for any length of time at the moment is on holiday. Oh, I also plan to eat something other than soup and sarnies. The stomach is starting to sound like old plumbing. Alarming popping and gurgling noises.

Ha, just remembered another thing I'll order the Edward St. Aubyn books over the weekend. Thank you so much for them. x

You've asked if I really think what I wrote in my earlier response (above 02.03 24 Sep), Mantra.

I don't just think it; I know it and Carl Jung had something to say on the difference between 'knowing' and 'believing' and on the afterlife:

He also had a near death experience which you may not have read about:
carljungdepthpsychology.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/carl-jungs-near-death-experience.html

What are you lot like? Every time I come to this thread I have to raid the fridge afterwards

Popping and gurgling noises usually mean 'I need porridge'. Maybe give that a try if you can rise to it. (You can get microwave versions which you can cook with milk if you can't face (and who could blame you) the inside of a porridge saucepan.)

Otherwise, perhaps try the sort of fod that you can pick at when it's cold so that you don't feel obliged to bolt it all down right away. Indian food with rice (eg biryani) is usually good for that.

Are there any bookshops in the area that you could get out to to find something for the weekend?

Ah, Cozie, one thing we never had a shortage of in this house is books. Our shelves are practically heaving with them. Thing is, I'm finding it really hard to concentrate on the reading part at the mo. Can't even concentrate on rubbish TV. I'm in the process of reading "The Yellow Wallpaper", so maybe something a tad more mindless may be better.

The second time I met DLH I lent him a book. I was a bit taken aback by his intellect, and very much drawn to him because of it. The little bugger used to say that I was the academic one, in all seriousness. He was so delighted for me when I got my first Distinction. He'd say, "you're my wife of distinction." And he bought me this beautiful leather satchel, with my initials embossed on it. As well as the dream I had about DLH, I dreamt I was wearing his duffel coat, and another where I'd lost my satchel and was desperately trying to find it. And find it I did.

Thank you for the Jung link Goddess. I didn't have much truck with spirituality until I discovered old Carl. He seems to make sense somehow.

Ah well - just keep on playing that rubbish TV. I won't be surprised if you can't concentrate on it but at least it will keep the cats happy.