What my son was thinking about those last couple hours I'll never know while alive. But I think in my worst (since I know he left the railing for several minutes toward the end and then rushed back and jumped right away) that he had been waiting for me or someone to miss and reach out to him, but we didn't. I know it's crazy to have such notions and believe I can know what he was thinking but maybe that's why my selfish thought would have been
you may never know what he was thinking even when not alive anymore
i would think that his actions were probably normal. jumping would take a huge amount of courage. sean was so brave to do what he did. i would think that the ratio of people who jump straight away or wait while contemplating for an amount of time is probably much higher with the latter option. sadly, knowing that he desperately wanted to take his life, or that he desperately wanted to be saved will almost certainly not change your level of devastation. once something is done, we tend to go through every possible scenario in our heads, and try like crazy to find some comfort in our grief, but when your grief is already well above 100%, neither of those options will probably help you. there are pluses, but more importantly so many negatives with both options
Then again I'm quite sure he made his decision at least two days prior because he didn't make his usual plans for that night and claimed his best friend had other plans. But when I asked him afterwards, his best friend said that on Wednesday Sean told him that he wouldn't be able to make it (other plans). I guess he just needed to leave for a minute and do it quickly...
to me it seems that way. probably even more than two days prior, but once again, that information is probably going to give you grief in another way than what you are feeling. there is no way to win when the human mind replays tragedies looking to find answers. just like, i, and others here are trying so hard to choose our words carefully, because there is almost nothing at all that we can say to make you feel better, but if we do post the wrong thing, it could somehow make everything worse, which is something none of us want to do
But it's been 10 months and I think we should be getting access to his phone sometime soon. I'm hopeful to find some answers from it. I have a clue in that before Sean was even buried my brother called and suggested I don't look at Sean's phone because "guys say things their Mom's wouldn't like while playing games" and I don't believe for ONE SECOND that is the reason he didn't/doesn't want me to look at his phone.
Sean was very tech savvy so he probably would have deleted all messages but maybe not. I still think that if it doesn't hold the answers I'm looking for that I'll at least find some clues
i hope that if you do get some answers soon, that it helps, but it may not. perhaps the way your brother acted, gives a very good idea that there might be something to find, but he might just be playing games too. i hope if there is something definitive on his phone, that you can see it in the best way to help you, and not over think it too much. there are many things in life, and sadly your situation is one of them, where we try and make sense of something when there is no sense to be found. we can over think too many things, which allows us to come up with scenarios in our minds, that even if partly true, do not really help in the way we would like them too. our minds when in your situation will always stray to the negative side, over the positive side. it is just natural, if nothing else, because we subconsciously feel that we should have some guilt, when in reality no guilt should be felt. it is almost like survivor's guilt in a way. we can only ever see things from our own point of view at any given time, but when tragedy or other negative things strike, we torture ourselves over analyzing every little piece of information, when in reality, those things probably never crossed the minds of those involved
hopefully the people looking through the phone do know what they are doing, because nothing is every fully removed from a device. it can be very difficult, but cops and every one who knows what they are doing can retrieve information that the user thought they had deleted. it seems that pictures, and i believe texts, once deleted are not whole items anymore, but broken down into pixels (for want of a better word) that can be painstakingly pieced back together
In one of our many lil chats about this. This is what makes it so complicated for me. Why I was screaming how I was going to kill my brother when the detectives came and told me what happened. Because they are so awful.... Of course when I told him I didn't know the secret, he refused to tell me. So he was basically tormenting me by letting me know that he knew and I didn't. And it wasn't something he figured out, it was something Sean told him. Then which was classic brother and his wife, they tag teamed me
you seem to be fixated on your brother and his wife - i understand that because of the tragedy you have been dealt, and also because i myself never let anything go. my own personal belief is you cannot be 100% loyal, if you cannot hold a 100% grudge, so i do understand why this topic is so important to you. but; both of them are arseholes. they do not deserve one second of your time. perhaps they are laughing at you because they feel they are living rent free in your head. please try to not give them any reason for satisfaction, even if they are unaware of what they are still doing to you. we need to pick our fights carefully, and only the ones we can win. much easier said than done, especially in your situation, but any thoughts you have of them are not going to help you at all. they will just continue to torture you
And it wasn't something he figured out, it was something Sean told him
it may have been something that his uncle had gone close to figuring out, and sean then finished the story
they may have had a drink or two, and it came out as effectively drunk talk
they may have been playing truth or dare
he may have gone to see a hooker and boasted about it
he may have had a date with rosy palm behind your shed and the cat saw him - who knows
probably, whatever the secret was, it was just talk between two guys. i am sure you (like everyone has at some time) told a secret to a girlfriend that you have not ever told to peter, sean or nick. the secret may not be that sinister, just something of mild embarrassment
obviously, our mums are girls, and some things we only say amongst our own gender, which means boys will have some things they do not share with their mums, but they are so insignificant, they aren't really even secrets - but a malicious person like your brother can then play games with you to build it into something it wasn't
another very important part, is that boys especially, but pretty much everyone, have one rule in life - do not disappoint your mum. if sean thought it might disappoint you, he was not going to tell you - that is just a fact. the only person in our lives we need to impress outside of ourselves, is our mum, and boys take that very seriously - please believe that, because it is 100% true
But I believe the answer will be on his phone
if it can bring you solace, then i hope it is, but you will probably find that this big secret is not really anything at all. you have probably made a mountain out of a molehill, which is totally understandable, but once again, fixating on it, can only bring you pain
Gosh I feel like I totally botched this explanation
i think i got what you were saying. not the first time i read it, but this morning it was clearer - but i have adhd and once i have got passed the first two lines, i am suddenly thinking about an imaginary dog with a lampshade on it's head, that is chasing a polar bear, three towns over, all while making up answers to questions you never asked
I just wish that I never allowed them to get to me (before and after) or that I told Sean everything they did. I just know how much I loathe them and wanted Sean to see that regardless of what they said, deep down they'd betray anyone and use them for their own amusement or whatever
they have already got to you, but now you can start to try and make sure they do not get to you again. like everything, it might take some time, but hopefully you will be able to remove them from your thoughts. thinking about them seems to be very toxic for you, so without blocking them from your mind, you will not have a chance to heal the way you truly deserve to
you told sean what you did, because you believed it was the right thing to do at the time. that is what parents do. i do not know even you, let alone sean but i honestly believe that nothing that was said in the two weeks leading up to august 8th, had anything to do with his decision. i do not know how your attempts came about all of those years ago, but if it was on a whim, and 100% on the spur of the moment (obviously, the second one wasn't), then you would be one of the tiny percentage of people who did. there is no way for you to win in this situation, but please believe me when i say there was almost certainly nothing you could have done to stop it and you would not have been responsible in any way for it
the reason i keep harping on about it, is because i truly believe that if your's and my roles were reversed, almost the exact same things would still be getting said - just by the other person. i do not know if i could take my own advice if i was in your situation, and you would probably be telling me the stuff you know is true but sadly, cannot accept in your situation
i cannot find it at the moment - that pesky adhd thing again - but you did mention a shrine to sean and going the cemetery in a post. i thought it was in this one or the last one i replied to in your original thread, but today i cannot find it
i understand the idea of a shrine and going to visit him daily and probably would myself, but if your entire house is a total reminder to him, then you cannot heal
may i suggest something please - i am not in the mental health field in any way, so this is not professional advice
this will be very difficult, i know, but maybe start small and hopefully it can grow
perhaps try (and it will probably take all of your strength to do it) to set aside an hour or so each day to do something you liked to do before august last year, or just anything to give yourself a bit of enjoyment, and hopefully a smile or two at some point
try to keep your mind 100% occupied in what you are doing in that time, so you do not think of sean
once that hour (or maybe just 5 or 10 minutes at first) is over, then let your thoughts go back to sean as they normally would
my idea is that maybe, you could end up spending, let's say 23 hours of each day in a less devasted state, and then dedicate the other hour to sean and let all of the pent up stress out in that hour - you could possibly cry 24 hours worth of tears in 1 hour. if this is even possible to do, then you could still have a way to enjoy your life to some extent, while still having him right inside your heart. every single second you can smile is a bonus. you deserve to have joy in your life, so perhaps if you could organise your day in this type of way, you might be able to smile again, while still holding sean so close to your heart. i am positive that sean would want you, as well as peter and nick too to be happy. it may seem impossible, but the 3 of you deserve it - you truly do
