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Wednesday: Baby Olive van der Lingen

What you may or may not read below is something that you should be warned about. While not particularly graphic, the post contains strong themes such as child loss, stillbirth, baby loss, and suicide. If you feel that you cannot handle any of those triggers, please click here to be taken away to a world of glittery whimsy. Don’t feel as though you should read this if you’re not ready or if you’re never ready. Part of being healthy is being able to stop yourself if you’re uncomfortable with the following post. 

I need you to know that this is a first for our site and that I left it alone for a long time because I didn’t want to do more harm than good. Finally, it dawned on me that this anonymous poster (who I simply cannot locate – I tried) gave us her deepest feelings and fears. Even if I am uncomfortable (and I am), these are her sacred words, and they deserve to see the light of day. You’re very welcome to reach out to me via email: becky@bandbacktogether.com

This site has a motto, a simple one: we are none of us alone, we are all connected. 

We take stories here – all of them – and this is no different. 

These are her sacred words that she wanted me to share with you. 

And so I am.

If you are feeling alone, scared, helpless, and suicidal, please contact the National (US) Suicide Lifeline, which provides free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, across the United States. Call 1-800-273-8255.

AT THIS TIME, THE SUICIDE HOTLINE CODE 988 IS NOT ACTIVE. 

If you are not in the US, I have created a list of international suicide lifelines, which can be found here.

Baby Olive ✝️ July 2016

I was around 7 months pregnant when I lost my baby girl.

…I do not know how to cope with her loss anymore, i never really opened up about the pain and grief and the more time goes on the worse it gets.

I feel guilty and out of line when i speak about her on any other day except for her birthday… this year I could not even speak to anyone about her.

I don’t even understand what I must feel and what the normal grieving process is. Some nights even feel worse than the nights I lost her.

I had this idea that i would be over it by now or that I would not think about her so much.

I thought time would make it all better…..

tonight is one of the worse nights I’ve had. I just started missing her more than ever and then I felt like my heart is shattered all over again.

i can barely breathe from the crying, I feel the pain in my throat. My heart feels like it is being ripped out right now.

The image of her little lifeless body in front of me is stuck inside my head. She just looked like she was sleeping.

I just needed her her to breathe.

I just needed her to breathe.

Why did she die???

Why did she have to die?

I can’t explain this pain.

I don’t think anyone will understand what I feel right now. If I ever had to talk to anyone about this pain, what would they think? I just can’t talk to anyone! I will just be a burden or they will think I am seeking attention; that is mostly the case when i bring her name up to my ex-husband. I didn’t mean to blame him for not being able to save her, all the build up hurt just got the best of me. The grief turned into hate, hate towards people that do not deserve it, it made me push them away.

i just feel like screaming now!

Sometimes I wonder if I will feel better if I could talk about her, sometimes I wonder if it will ever get better….

Will I ever get closure?

i do not think i will male it through this pain…

i smile the whole day so no one even notices how broken I am. Once I am alone, I break down.

It is like a black hole that just gets bigger…

The pain consumes more of me each day.

Suicide is no longer just a thought, it is a pat of my plan, it is a matter of fact.

I am not scared anymore to go

I am so sorry for what i leave behind; the people I love that I leave behind. They don’t deserve it, my kids, my family, and my friends don’t deserve it… they have done nothing wrong.

i Just cannot go on , i have died inside a long time ago. Who i am now is just a body that is on repeat and that is not life. Feeling so numb and hurting this much is unbearable.

I hope the ones i leave behind will try and understand. On the brighter side at least my ex-husband will be happy.

I just want to go home, I want to be in heaven , I want to rest with my baby Olive.

I don’t belong here anymore.

After her loss, I tried my best to be happy, but I’ve never been happy again since she has died. I mastered the art of pretending to be happy at least , but I just can’t feel it. Funny how i even have the nickname “Smiley”… lol

If there was a person i’d have been able to open up about her, it would have been her father, but because of the ways in which i brought her up in our fights, he doesn’t want to hear anything about her.

I guess I cant blame him; it is my own fault … I never had a guideline or a manual on how to deal with the mixed emotions and thoughts her death caused.

I kept quiet about so many feelings that I should have shared and I lashed out about so many thoughts I should have kept to myself.

Anyway, it is to late late for the “should have’s” and “what if’s” and “if only i hads.”

Nothing will bring her back and nothing will change this pain. All this hurt killed me inside.

I didn’t die that long after she died; now it’s just my body that is left behind wondering around, longing to go, waiting impatiently to go.

Yes, I do think my death will be a shock to everyone in my life including my boyfriend ( which is the most amazing guy on earth). Some people don’t even know about Baby Olive, so most people that are the closest to me wont even link my death with hers.

The truth is i that just want to go. I feel so numb to their opinion about why I left – it won’t even matter. There won’t be a note it a sign before if I go, I will just go.

i guess the only reason i am still here is to finalize a few things before I go. I want my departure to be easy for those I leave behind, I want to be quickly forgotten. I don’t want anyone to hurt or feel guilty. My wish is to make it seem like an accident.

I am not even sure whyIi wrote this. If i ever had to say i am sorry, i will say sorry to her father for the anger and the blame and the hurt. I would have apologized for the person i was, I am sorry for my actions and how they affected you. I am sorry for being so controlling and crazy over you. I just never loved the way  I loved my husband and I’ve never hurt like the day i lost her.

I am not good at handling those strong emotions –  it just comes out wrong and I am sorry. Sorry will never fix anything and even if I had the chance to say sorry now, I know it won’t matter.

It has been 3 years.

I don’t even think you will remember. I know that you are happy now, I know you love her more than me, I know she is so much better and prettier than me, and that is good.

I will not bother to disturb anyone.

Whatever is left unsaid will forever be…

i guess writing this gave me some peace before I go, even if it will never be read or understood. Even if those i leave behind will never know that I got some peace before i go.

i feel so much better to knowIi can finally go. I feel it’s so selfish, yet I am no longer living even if i stay.

I will give my family my very best to make sure they know how much i love them and how much i appreciate them.

They are the best; that’s why i want to go without them considering suicide.

While everyone starts off with a new year, I just wish to start of with my eternal life without this pain and hurt.

i guess I am hoping to meet her there too … most nights, the thought of meeting her soon helps me to fall asleep.

I don’t know what I was supposed to feel or how, how to soothe this pain, but I do know i want to end it.

and i will.

I guess that’s just where my story ends.

my book of life has been completed and i guess not every story gets that happy ending.

I leave to see you breath, my angel.

In memory of my baby girl,

Olive van der Lingen

Ask The Band: Am I Living With An Addict?

I’m not sure where to start. I just know I need to get it out.

I think I’m living with an addict.

They have stolen thousands of dollars (money I was saving for a house down payment). They keep taking money out of our account and not paying it back like promised, thus leaving me to pull from what little savings we had to help us get through winter in order to keep the bills paid.

They are slowly draining me of our money and my soul.

I am obsessing over what they are doing; where they are going. I’m searching the house for stashes.

I found a box of baking soda and a burned spoon.

I found the missing (now empty) money pouch from when my kids were fundraising.

I feel like I’m going crazy.

I went to an Al-Anon meeting tonight. It was my first time. I didn’t share, or even speak.

It hurt so much that everything that was said was so relatable. That they’ve all been through this, felt this way. I didn’t even tell them anything. They told me I wasn’t crazy.

That hit me. Hard.

I think I’m living with an addict. And I don’t know what to do.

Ask The Band: Leaving My Lover

They say it takes 21 days to change a behavior – to let go of a habit.

I’m hoping “they” are right. I am on Day Five – BRUTAL Day Five – of having zero contact with the man I was having an affair with – yes, Infidelity. I know it’s bad

I am married.

He is married – but divorcing – and “with” another woman.

He was my fuck-buddy. The sex, oh man, the sex, the sex was the kind of sex I didn’t even know I craved until it smacked me in the face. Then it became like oxygen – or, at least, crack.

More than the amazing sex, this man was someone I could talk, really talk to about the things I have no other place to share. Things that I didn’t know I really wanted to dialogue about. Dirty things, yes – yummy, dirty things. But also spiritual, political, intellectual things.

My husband simply isn’t that person for me. I won’t give you all the details. It really doesn’t matter and it’s not much different from a million other stories. For me, though, it is. This is my story.

Leaving my lover is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do; it hurts. But I know that it’s necessary to say goodbye. Goodbye to the crazy drama. Goodbye to the possibility of wrecking my marriage. Goodbye to the fear that my children would hate me if it all came crumbling down.

And goodbye to filling that hole – the one that craves passion, excitement, and a really good fuck – in my life.

I’m on Day Five.

Please tell me it gets easier.

What Happens When You Don’t Know

I guess I’ll start with the things that bother me the most: I am an ex-crack addict, I was homeless, I have a panic disorder, I talk to people who don’t exist, my brother hanged himself, and I was nearly killed by an abusive ex-boyfriend.

I know I have a better life than a lot of people, and I try to be grateful for it.

I feel guilty when I dwell on my problems: other people have it so much worse: how can I complain? How can I mope around or be depressed?!

Oh how I wish I could talk to someone, to sit in a group and swap stories about burning the inside of our mouths, or panic attacks, or how much it sucks to have to lug all your belongings around in a garbage bag.

But I just can’t.

I have walked past the building where NA meetings are held probably a hundred times, looked at their website again and again, memorizing their schedule, but I can’t bring myself to go.

I’m afraid that people won’t like me because I’ve been clean now for four years, that because now I have a car and an apartment in a slightly decent area of the city, I’ll be told to get over it, to stop whining.

On the other hand, I think, what if I go to a regular counselor and I scare them? What if, when I admit to the time I smoked crack with my pregnant best friend, it’s too much and they kick me out?

What if I get the cops called on me when I admit to all the illegal things I’ve done?

Either way, I’ve never felt more isolated and alone then I do now.

I desperately want to be an addict again. When I was addicted, we had our own world; it was nothing good, but everyone was on the same level.

Now I’m surrounded by people that, if they knew what I used to be and what I still am, would go running in the other direction.

I even tried to become an alcoholic for a few months; I drank myself into a stupor everyday, forced it into me until my brain chemistry was so out of whack and my kidneys hurt right through my back.

I still drink – get drunk – by myself, but I have to be careful because it makes my panic disorder worse. I drink just until I feel myself going crazy, stop for a few days, then back at it.

It’s funny, when my brother hanged himself, I was kind of mad that he took that option away from me: you can’t have two kids from the same family both kill themselves!

I’m okay with his suicide, though. I understand it was a planned out thing, so things were obviously pretty bad to get to that point. My brother didn’t speak, though; I was the only one he spoke to until he was about 17, and then he even shut me out.

After a while, I started getting paranoid that he was going to kill me, so I distanced myself from him even further.

I’m pretty alone now.

I lost most of my friends when I got clean, and I’ve moved to a different city since. I hate it here a lot, and most people here are way out of my league education and status wise. I have a few friends from work that I go for drinks with on the weekends, but I can’t really connect or open up with anyone.

I’m afraid to date again; my ex is still too fresh in my mind, and the thought of having to have sex again makes me uncomfortable. I don’t like being touched sexually.

It’s a shame because I would love to have children – they would give me something to focus on, to love and be loved back, without having to be in a relationship.

But I guess as of right now, it’s me, alcohol, and my two darling cats.

How sad.

Cancer: A Love Story

His name is John; hers is Yvonne. He is 76 and she is 74. They dated all through high school. Then they broke up and married other people, had kids and grandkids, and all was well.

Then John’s wife got cancer – ovarian or cervical – either way, doesn’t matter. He took care of her, always believing he could do more. Then she died.

John got on with his life. He was sad, but dealing.

One day, John’s son looked up Yvonne and found out she lived only 30 minutes away. She was married to someone and had kids and grandkids and even a great-grandkid.

Some time later, John’s son showed him the obituaries. Yvonne’s husband had passed. Cancer. John went to pay his respects. After all, he and Yvonne had once dated. They talked a bit and promised to keep in touch.

John and Yvonne were married two years later.

They have been married about six years now.

cancer love story

Two years ago, Yvonne was diagnosed with cancer, cervical or ovarian – doesn’t matter. It was the same cancer that killed John’s first wife.

John said NO!

He wanted to fight the cancer. He wouldn’t let cancer take his wife again.

John goes to every doctor appointment. He keeps track of every medication and dosage and when and how she is supposed to take it. He sat with her while she went through chemo. He shaved her head – and his – when she started to lose her hair. He isn’t letting her go without a fight.

They don’t know what the future holds, or if the cancer has spread.

Cancer sucks…but it also made them stronger.

Cancer brought them together.