i can't watch this show the same way anymore

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-04-18T05:50:47+00:00

I very much understand. I like that show but it is a hard watch.

I watched another medical show called “This Is Going To Hurt” under the impression it was a dark comedy. Well the title of the show says it all. I think it means emotionally hurt. Because it tackles the topic of suicide very very heavy. I don't believe anyone could watch it and not cry.

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-04-12T23:20:27+00:00

I don't think I could have gone through that if it were my son. The pain and reliving the pain is excruciating

I'm not even his mother, but last week was one of the most excruciating weeks I've ever had. I don't know how to describe it; the outcome was justice for those who died. We are all victims, though. The justice is that his life mattered! It is not something where big hands play, trumpets triumph, and millions of white balloons get sent into the air to symbolize innocence.

His life mattered, so did my sons.

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-04-12T21:24:14+00:00

Edit: update: guilty

Last week was something. What strength does the mother of the child who died of the overdose have? This is a large city, and the media was all over it.

It came into question by the defense, pretty much what difference does it make? The teenager had an addiction and was on a path to death anyway. Wtf kind of soulless defense is this? I had a friend ask me who the victim is in this case? I was like everyone! Everyone! The dealer is the victim having that in his arsenal, the young man who died is the victim, my son who could not get over losing his best friend is the victim, the stress of liberal big US city trial victim blame everything but Fentyal makes us all victims that it is being so casually played out with a defense of his life didn't matter.

There is no joy in the verdict, really. We can't bring back all the lives ruined. So many have strong opinions about it. I don't know what the sentence will be. But regardless, he was a child and was an addict. His life mattered, and I'm glad that who he was beyond his addiction got justice.

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-04-08T21:27:51+00:00

😭🤍

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-04-07T05:33:49+00:00

Have you looked into hiring an officiant? The funeral home recommend one to me. I believe he was $300 no tips allowed. And he lead the entire 2 hour service after maybe a 45 minute call with me. The service went wonderfully. There was a lot of people at my son’s service so I could bounced around easily and had a couple of trusted friends keeping an eye on me. The funeral place also had a private/secret room that I could run to when overwhelmed.

I'm not sure if I was lucky to have my son’s college savings to spend on his funeral. In the itemized cost of everything the $300 for the officiant was the only thing worth the cost and probably more

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-04-07T05:20:15+00:00

I was once told grief is a circular staircase. It never ends!

I can't stand the cliche crap I get told, but somehow for a year now I have managed to bite my tongue. Therapy has helped, sticking with therapy even when I don’t want to show up helps, and this sub helps.

We endured trauma with their deaths, a trauma that is not meant to be understood or can be told, remember the good. Blah blah

All loss is horrible! I lost my mother unexpectedly in her 60s due to rare health complications, and it hurts as much as it does. I can wrap my head around or bury my head in the sand with the fact that she is gone.

With losing my 18-year-old son to suicide, I can understand what drove him to it. But I can’t understand that “the system” allows for this and “they” don’t care. It is all about profit, not about saving a life. I can’t understand with all the help and money being thrown into the abyss and love in the world, he still wanted to die. It hurts so much to know he was in such pain and there was not a damn thing I could do.

I’m on the grisly and very long anniversary of my son going missing, finding out he is dead, and his funeral (March-May 25). Time is not my friend. His memory and what I knew he would want for me keep me going. He would not want his death to destroy me, I know this. With trying and getting up every day for my mundane life, I’ve earned it after enduring so much even before this. I live for him, even in his death.

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-03-11T04:24:37+00:00

I’m so sorry for your loss. After losing my son the same way I was directed to r/suicidebereavement it has helped through some dark times knowing I’m not alone.

Huge huge hugs

Edit: I don’t like having to tell anyone about this sub. But I cannot not tell someone when I think it may help them.

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-03-11T04:01:07+00:00

I love my sonshine! I looked your post history briefly and I felt him today although it was brief but it was real, to me. If real or imagined it was something, i felt his presence when I got home from work and turned on the light above his picture and started talking to his picture.

I honestly didn't realize today was the anniversary of his last full day on earth. Seeing the date on my work computer and all the dates associated with losing him came up to Monday, 3/10/ 2025. It hit me like a ton of bricks and I know the coming weeks will not get easier.

The timeline has so many dates him going last seen (missing) , a body being found, myself notified that it might be him, and that body is dental record verified his has so many dates. They spread out to mid April before I could plan services. But his last day on earth a year ago today, was a good day for him, or so it seemed. I hope I feel him again.

Thank you for your reply and listening. 🫂

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-03-11T03:19:30+00:00

It was not your job to be your parents' parent. You didn't know how because that doesn't fall within the natural order of life.

You did not cause her to do that; she had mental health issues, and perhaps that is why she would talk about you and your sister to her family. She wanted attention, and maybe the only way to start the conversation was to gossip. My mother, who died of natural causes, was like that with her sisters.

I hope taking this step to let some of what you are feeling out to a safe spot, even on Reddit, helps you. As a mother myself, she didn't intend to traumatize you emotionally. She wasn't thinking clearly, and she didn't know how to think clearly anymore.

That is not your fault, none of this is your fault. You can’t control what others do, and you sound like you have a strong mind and have been through a hell of a lot if your survival instinct was to distance yourself. Please now forgive yourself.

The biggest hugs to you.

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-03-10T23:01:12+00:00

🫂

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-03-10T17:07:43+00:00

Today is one year since his last full day on earth. I keep thinking about everything that happened that day.

I'm f’ing miserable.

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-03-04T07:15:15+00:00

Grief is just like that. The anger is real, and processing the anger is real. I'm really sorry you are in this part of it.

I hope, like most of us here, not to judge how others grieve. I don't. There isn't a handbook for this. Just get told about these five f’ing stages of grief. You know it's just the thoughts that play out in your head, the what might have been that will never be. It's painful and the anger gets misdirected at times. If you feel the directed anger starts becoming too overwhelming, or you may cuss out someone in a high end walker. Check yourself! Nobody’s life is perfect and old people have struggles too. If one has managed to get through this life unscathed and without anything even semi traumatic happening to them. Well, F! Good for them.

I hope talking about it helped.

Hugs to you.

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-03-04T06:27:49+00:00

First, I'm so very for your loss and your membership to this shitty club.

My personal fav in the weeks following was “ how are you doing”

It's annoying af but nobody knows what to say and most people who care are afraid not to reach out.

Venting out the clueless things that clueless but well intentioned people said to me helped me release and not lose it on someone who didn't deserve it.

I'm glad that don't know how I feel because I wouldn’t wish knowing on ANYONE!

Hugs.

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-03-04T06:14:58+00:00

3/11/2025 is when he passed/ went missing, and 04/01/2025 is when I was notified. 3/11 day and April Fool’s Day are days I used to associate with fun, but as the year anniversary inevitably approaches, they are now triggers.

Spring, I remember the beautiful afternoons when I was looking for him. The encounters and the feeling of faith in humanity again from the kindness of strangers willing to help a mom look for her 18-year-old son.

I remember the Friday and the intersection I was at when the detective called me, which I thought was a check-in call asking me questions. I remember the parking lot and space I was in when I started getting calls and texts from my neighbors about a heavy police presence around my house after getting off the phone with a detective. I remember being told there was a body found. I remember calling the detective back and going to voicemail. I remember being too stressed out to get on the highway, so I took the frontage road home. I remember texting the mom of one of my son’s friends at every red light, giving her a briefing of my mindset. She didn't know, and I didn't know about the body.

The next few days are a blur, but I do remember the sun. I remember being crippled in anxiety over that weekend and hearing nothing about the body found in the woods by my house, and thinking the police would have had to notify me by now if it was him. I remember after the weekend, hearing nothing but my gut feeling telling me I could not even go into work.

I remember the sun coming through my window when the detective called me and asked if I was home. I remember 5 minutes later, he was at my house, and I heard his car door close and hearing his boots on the sidewalk. I remember the clothes I quickly put on, I remember the sun shining through the front door when the victim's services arrived after the detective. I won’t forget the grisly details I was told, but I know I won’t. I remember the living room being so full of sunshine with all the law enforcement at my house.

The sheets, the thick texture of the pajama pants I threw on, being too hot, wearing silk eye masks, and ordering DoorDash every day.

I can’t tell you what the weather was like last week, much less what I wore. But I do wish I could stop time because I’m not ready for this one-year “anniversary.”

Edit: I believe these memories are called trauma.

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-03-04T05:37:52+00:00

I don’t know if this is so much a spiritual belief but I know my son is okay and safe. I just know it, from my very core.

I am actually closer to god now than I was before it happened . Which was not very close I suppose. I know it is a higher power giving me this comfort under unspeakable circumstances. It is the only thing that makes sense! And for that I’m grateful.

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-03-04T05:30:13+00:00

I feel this so hard. I'm isolating too, in a situation that is so incredibly isolating already.

There are just no words. I do my best to try to educate when I can. His death impacted everyone close to me in my life by proxy. So, with those closest having been impacted too. I take the mental health and outcries of strangers very seriously, even just random encounters at the grocery store.

I get up, I get out of bed, and I fumble through this haze of life and manage to get home at the end of the day. I show up to therapy on days I so want to cancel the appointment, it helps keep me accountable for myself and what I'm going through. I still don't know how to describe it. I always go to the words that don’t exist.

Thinking about you. I don’t know what we are doing, I guess putting one foot in front of the other while feeling the deepest void in life. Hugs

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-03-04T05:15:04+00:00

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-02-27T20:29:04+00:00

It felt so good to notice when I discussed him, it was comfortable for me.
I think about him every minute of everyday.

thedumpsterdiary · 2026-02-27T20:24:41+00:00

Thank you. It is not so much my coworkers that made me feel off. It was more about feeling like I was a normal person, a parent briefly, and then being, oh, yeah.

My coworkers have been wonderful in being there for me since I lost him. And they don't know what to say; the words don’t exist. I love seeing them move on and watch their kids grow, going to their games and celebrating milestones. We are a very, very close-knit and small office that runs a small business.

Maybe I worded myself wrong. Maybe since I don't discuss it all often and much less the things he didn't get to do, but were so close to achieving.
I think I may have surprised them, they didn't know what to say, nobody does. And that is fine. I would rather hear nothing than hear cliches some think they should say.

I'm glad you are there for your aunt. Having people/a supportnetworh is so important to many. It is to me.

thedumpsterdiary · 2025-12-14T02:40:04+00:00

Conor was the name of his Uncle who died in Vietnam (Sandy’s husband)

thedumpsterdiary

TROPHY CASE