In my borderline experience, death of someone has been handled in two different extremes. In the past when a friend or family member has died my natural reaction is, "I can't deal with this", and then I don't. I know that looks cold, but I feel overwhelmed just thinking about it, and I don't like my big feelings. I feel like I must turn those feelings off, because I don't have the mental capacity to deal with it. So how do I process it? I guess how i've always dealt with a death, Is to mentally put my feelings in a box and put them up on the top shelf to deal with later when I can handle it, but then I never do. It's clearly, looking back, an avoidance. It is how I have got through all the deaths I can remember, until my twenty three year old son died. That one hit me completely different, I guess it was way too heavy to put on the back shelf.

It's kind of Crazy that almost every really traumatic thing that has happened in my life, my memory erased it. Then the very most traumatic event of my life, I easily recall every minute until the funeral, because I did lose that memory completely. I'm going to put a Huge TRIGGER WARNING: I am about to recall feelings and memories of my child's death.

I remember I had a feeling when I answered the phone that morning. It was 9:00 AM and I answered my phone, It was my sons stepmother, she was crying and I started putting on my shoes before she even told me anything. She said they just woke up, and one of their kids woke them up , saying , Avery was on the living room floor and they couldn't wake him up. The paramedics were there, they hit him with some narcan and were doing CPR. I heard them defibrillating him. My mom was with me and we jumped in the car to go there. I remember on the way out of desperation. I reached out to a Messenger group of ladies, I went to church with and told them they were defibrillating him and to pray.

I hadn't been to his dad's house before, but I knew the general area, and when we got close , I could see an ambuance. I couldn't breathe, but I flew inside. I walked right into the living room, saw him on the floor, he was purple. OMG! I bean to scream a sound that anyone who heard it would immediately know exactly what had happened. I think I secretly hoped that he could hear my pain, and maybe if he knew how bad I was hurting he would come back. The paramedics made me get out of the house. So, I stood on the porch screaming until there was no sound left.

When they brought him out of the house, they were no longer doing CPR. My mom was an emergency room charge nurse my whole life, so I knew, they had called it (over). We followed them to the hospital. I didn't want to listen to what the doctors had to say and I definitely didn't want to leave my son there at the hospital alone. I got home around one or two and after that , it's a bit of a blur. I do remember that I was having auditory hallucinations that started that day. The next event I remember was at the funeral home, I'm sure I disassociated most of it, but remember feeling like even though I already had CPTSD, I am positive I got PTSD the day I had to sign the papers giving them permission to cremate my baby. How could I ok that? I don't remember the funeral at all.

I know I have dealt with deaths in extreme manners. I either don't deal at all, or I'm unable to move forward. It has been 14 months now, and I still haven't got out of bed or anything but an appointment. My brain just checked out that day and now I struggle to function at all. I don't think I have the skills or the ability to deal with death in a healthy or normal manner. I just feel too much and it kind of feels like I just can't deal with death at all. For somebody with abandonment issues, it is the ultimate abandonment.