Our son Kyle has left us, he was killed today in an accident in our home. He was 24 years old.
While Kyle suffered terribly at times, he also lived life to the fullest, and loved more deeply than words could describe. My wife used to say, "he was a unicorn in a stable of thoroughbreds."
I'm going to miss you kid.
8/15/08
Hello GJ,
Oh my God, GJ! I am so terribly, incredibly, sorry to hear of Kyle's passing today. I have never lost a child, but I can only imagine the pain and emptiness that you and your wife must be experiencing. My mom's mom used to tell her that a parent should never precede his children in death. This unexpected tragedy must surely have rocked your world. I will keep you and your family in my prayers and ask that He be present with you and your family.
God and Peace Be with You!
Char
A reader sent me an e-mail from a friend of hers, that touched my heart. Please don't isolate yourselves in your home. Try to stay as active as you can, so you don't get bogged down by all the pain and despair.
I have admired you for quite some time, now, and I have seen a strength in you that I don't feel in most other people. I am hoping these things will help you as you ease yourselves down into the ground.
Please let me know if there is ANYTHING I can do to assist
There is nothing I can say or do that will make it any better. Honestly I don't know or even want to know how it feels to have my child go before me no matter their age.
So here is something to give thought too...it now even more important that you take care of your mental health and take the love and support given to you by friends and family.
I guess there is a positive in that you were able to enjoy the 24 years that god was willing to give you and your wife. You two have a special place in my heart and prayers at this time. I would give you a big hug if you were standing in front of me.
Stay well GJ and were here for you bud.
G.J.
I am so sorry for your loss. I am struggling to find words adequate to understand the pain your family is feeling. I have 3 sons and I am not sure how I could handle losing one. It is such a bittersweet time - you state he suffered at times but also lived fully - it is so unfair that one should have to suffer so. I think of what could have been, what should have been and I hope the memories of your son will comfort you and your family in the days and weeks ahead. Sincerly, Dolle
I just ran across your blogs this evening. I finally am getting out of a severe depression and spending time on the computer again. I struggle with the illness myself, have an alcoholic son with DUIs, ADD and perhaps bipolar as well. My daughter has also been diagnosed. Life is difficult. I am so sorry for your loss.
Through tears I write this to you my dear friend. I am so so sorry to hear about your loss and know that you are hurting so deeply. If there is anything to say at a time like this I am totally at a loss.....I am reaching out a hand that i know you can't see but hope you can feel and embracing you and your family at this very very difficult time in your lives. Please know that I am sending prayers up for you and your family and that I am sure Kyle was a child of light and is in the warm arms of a angel watching from heaven's realm. He will ALWAYS be with you my dear GJ, and if there is ANYTHING whatsoever that i can do for you from this distant proximity, please let me know. Know this my HEART, Mind, Soul, and Empathy are with you and your family and that we love you so much here. Please let me know if there is anything i can do besides a virtual hug and embrace .......as one who has lost a very very close member of my family within the last 2 years i want you to know that I understand LITERALLY the pain and that I have no words to ease the pain, except that I am praying for you an your family.
We love you GJ and hope you will find some sembelance of peace in your faith and in the support i know you will be found here on this site, you and your family are so loved and cared for here.....please know....we love you and again, ANYTHING i can do....ANYTHING although the miles separate us, please let me know..
I care so much for you GJ, love and my deepest sympathies and thoughts and prayers are with you and your family....please hug your wife and let her know we love her too and are thinking and sending prayers up for her also.....
with love and prayers
ctrygirl
There are no words in the world to make the loss of a child better. I am sorry for this loss in your life and hope you are able to help each other during this time. I wish that there was something that I could say to make it better. I also realize that if it was me there are no words that anyone could say that would make me shake the loss and feel better. May God give you the strength to carry on and forward. May he give you grace to feel his love. May he give you the serenity to accept your loss. Above all else, May you know that HE loves you and has not left you behind. He is and always will be beside you.
Leslie
Charmed by a bipolar (step 1), married him. A month later, all changed. (Step 2). 10 months later , my daughter was born with bipolar. Went through expensive diagnoses, telling me that it is "genetic" and she is indeed bipolar.
After 22 years of living with bipolar, I know all the clues and signs.
Divorced, but still dealing with one bipolar, wishing this will be the last I deal with.
It is so painful to acknowledge that your child is bipolar, but it is even more painful to live with her/him. Divorce did not exactly a divorce as I still have to deal with him over children.
I will cry for others who deal with this as a mother.
I feel so sorry for you. You need to get a gun and shoot that person who passed him/herself off as a normal human being. I have been struggling to be the best person I can be and now I'm getting my son help and teaching him the coping skills needed and never to be made to feel guilty for being bipolar and to try to educate people about it. Those who are open-minded forgets that I am also bipolar. My wife (who considered herself sane) left me for someone she met on the internet, got involved in S and M. She supported me, helped me but was looking for a dangerous man to make her feel alive. We parted peacefully and I moved to my families farm 500 miles away. 8 months later she was found dead. He boyfriend found her dead in her living room. Appearant ashima attack. I won't speculate on what he was doing there. I went and got my son and started proper treatment for his problems and his social skills and well being. Because, I was a kind, loving, devoted and worked 2 jobs for my wife; til my spine gave out and my heart because weak; I got labeled the bad guy. I didn't know I was bipolar til I was 48 yrs old. I suddenly changed in my wifes eyes to someone she didn't know. Who was the nut in this case. I do feel for you because of your child, but if she is to have a life in this world you have to stop believing the lies and myth out there and she into her heart for the real child of yours. But, don't go the opposite way and deny any problems. You and you alone will be the true observer in her life. Get you mind and wits and see the real answers to the problem. If you see a drop in her intelligence then get her meds changed. Like I said only you can give her a fair shake at a future and a normal life AND DON'T MAKE HER FEEL GUILTY ABOUT BEING BIPOLAR!!!!!!!!!!!! Remember, she must learn that bipolar is the reason she thinks the way she does, but, it can not be an excuse to do wrong things. Teach her to thinks before she acts in all things. Bipolar get easily hurt so you need to help her laugh at the worlds. In a few words "harden her shell".
My prayers go with you.
I know how you feel. I am also bipolar (for 26 yrs) and my 29 year old daughter is also bipolar. Although I have been married for 33 years (I have a very supportive man) my daughter was not quite that lucky. She was married only 1.5 years when her husband left her (they had an 8 months old baby girl at the time) because he couldn't deal with the mood swings and the manic episode. She is doing well now - she is on Seroquel and Lithium and has 2 part-time jobs to support herself and her daughter (the daughter is shared half and half between her and her ex-husband). I blamed myself for the longest time in regards to my daughter being bipolar, but now realize I had no control in regards to having this illness. I think my daughter blames me in anyway - it's one of those things in life that is "thrown" to you and have to deal with. Don't lose hope. There are a lot of people out there that understand what you are going through. You are not alone.
Monique
Dear Gregory,
I know the pain of losing a child, I lose my daughter 31 yrs ago due to accidental drowning. You get use to it. You never forget but you do get use to it. You will want some time to grieve in private. Then you'll be able to handle the condolences of other's. I can only say that without God I wouldn't have made it very well. I am reading the things you are writing here in your blog cause I need someone who has been there and done that. Since my wife died I have been the champion of my sons and my bipolar conditions. I wasn't diagnosed for bipolar til I was 48 and figured it out trying to help my son with his behavior problems. I am 55 now and fear I only have a few years left due to poor arteries and a quad-bypass heart. I have to teach my son how to cope and behave in this world, inspite of the bipolar. I never took drugs only aspirins for headaches, didn't smoke, didn't drinks till I was 21 and didn't like it, always been a christian. But, I fought with deep depression on occassions and had to learn not to give in to impulses without deep thought first. I tried to play safe than sorry. Not always successful, but, I learned. I learned that lying made things worse and honesty can make enemies. But, I still prefer honesty, hard work and fair pay for a days work. I'm sorry I digressed here. What I mean to say is that you may be a God send to my plight. Thanks you for being here and showing me that I am not an exception to the rule and that my son can have a good life too. He is 13 this year.
God Bless
Rick
My deepest condolences to the Gregory family. I am so sad for your loss of a beautiful son. I lost a grandson a 5 weeks ago as a result of a bipolar episode. He would have been 20 on Oct 2009. After 3 arguments in two days with the people he loved most, he decided to do what he talked about frequently. He ended his earth journey with a .44 magnum handgun. I won't go into the evils of handguns even though the gun was carelessly stored. He would have found another means of ending his life if he had not found the gun.
Our 31 yr old son was diagnosed with BPD at the same time that our grandson was diagnosed. Our son's bipolar disorder is much worse. His hallucinations are now non-stop. He was hospitalized yesterday after he purposely blew the engine in his truck, beating out all of the truck's windows then calling a friend with threats against us (his parents) and ever increasing hallucinations.
He once had a thriving landscape business that he lost because of injuries to his back from two MVAs. He started a lawn equipment business that too was very successful. The bipolar disorder had taken complete control of him by the time he started the mechanic business and he couldn't keep up the demands of running anything. He is so bad off now that he has since lost everything. He does not own anything but the clothes hanging in his closet and those that he is wearing today. He lives at a friend's house now because he gave away all of his furniture and can't work.
I called the hospital where he was admitted and he was able to talk to me for a short time. All he could do was tell me to be careful because of cameras mounted everywhere and the same people who have been following him will follow me to find him. He will be transferred tomorrow to a state run psych facility. The last time he was committed by Order of Protective Custody, he was discharged after 72 hours and he left them in a condition that was worse than when he entered. I was informed that he will be held for at least two weeks this time.
My problem is that he is 31 y/o and no one will tell me anything. They really won't do anything for him because there are so many like him. He can't take care of himself any longer. He simply just can't. When I spoke to the social worker at the hospital today I could hear in her voice that she was waiting for me to finish my heartbreaking story so that she could tell me that he was 31 and I was not allowed to get involved in his care. I told her that I wanted him to sign a permission form to allow me to discuss his protected health information. Her only statement to me was, "I will note that in his record". I am going to make two of my own forms and bring it to him tonight and have him sign it, then have it witnessed by a doctor or other healthcare worker. I will leave one on his chart and keep the other.
What else can I do? This latest manic episode on the tail of our grandson's suicide is more than I can handle right now.
My father has lost two sons, one twenty five years ago when my brother was only 30yrs old. We lost both brothers to drugs in one way or another. My father has never been the same after losing that first son. The second only died last year from liver disease after contracting hepatitis C from dirty needles (he was a heroin addict).
Anyway,
I was diagnosed bipolar after a dramatic experience with the police that ended up with my being taken in for 3 days to the county health facility. From there they transferred me to a great hospital in San Franciscfo where a good shrink diagnosed me. What seemed obvious to him completely escaped me. Now I'm on meds (Geodon, Lamictal, and Cymbalta for depression) and although I hate them, my mood is completely under control. I miss the mania moments. I miss feeling authentic. My mood is so even now that I have no highs and no lows. I feel like I'm a flatliner. It's really a drag, but I have to stay on the meds. My husband would probably either commit me or leave me if I went off them. What has been your experience with meds?
I am really amazed that nobody bothers to see that there is no scientific proof of a chemical imbalance in the brain. Just go to www.cchr.org the Citizens commission on Human Rights for the truth. 'Nuff said!
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OMG GJ
I am so terriably terriably sorry for your loss. I can only imagine, being a parent myself, what you and your family are going through right now. I just don't know what else to say... my breath is totally gone.
I am so utterly sorry GJ, so very sorry. :(