I’m sorry for your loss.

To answer your question: guilt, mostly. That’s what kept me going at first. When my brother died I was a wreck and didn’t want to live anymore. I felt like the wrong sibling died and it should have been me (I still feel that way, but it doesn’t hurt the way that it used to). But I knew if I killed myself then that would leave my mom with NO children (my brother and I are her only kids), and I knew she wouldn’t survive that. A parent should never have to bury even one child, and certainly not both of them. So I stuck around for her, and then over the years I guess I adopted this “decorating your prison cell” approach to life. It’s like, well okay, I guess since I have to be here I might as well make the best of it. In the beginning that looked like a bunch of self-soothing. Buying whatever I wanted, blowing off things like school deadlines or social functions, and spending a lot of time in my imagination engineering these elaborate daydreams about a better life.

Now, I’m 4 years out and there are still times when my existence feels compulsory but I try to focus on all the great things I have in my new prison. It’s not so bad here. Admittedly, though, sometimes when it all gets a bit too heavy to handle alone I do think, “Hey, you just have to outlive Mom and then you’re free to end it all if you want to.” I know that that’s bleak, but it feels like a relief. I also figure that by the time she does pass on, I’ll have another “reason” for being here. Like my husband and the life we’ll build together.

That’s the thing: all you really need is one reason to get you to hang on in the beginning. One thing to carry you out of the darkest part of the grief. For me it was my mom. For you, it might be a thing that you really have to do 3 months from now. Or it might be a pet. Or it might even be YOUR mom. It doesn’t really matter what it is, as long as it’s not like crystal meth or something.

Guilt can be a powerful tool for survival if you let it be.