Wake Me from the Nightmare: Hope, Healing, and Empowerment After Suicide Loss

By R. Jade McAuliffe and Peter Jackel

Wake Me from the Nightmare helps people awaken from the nightmare of suicide loss.

Survivors of suicide loss are left to live in a chronic state of shock, horror, and devastation. Broken and raw, they forge on, while plagued with pain, disruptive thoughts, and unanswered questions. The terrain of traumatic grief is complicated at best and precarious at worst. R. Jade McAuliffe understands this balance. After losing her sister in 2015, what kept her alive was her refusal to stay quiet and her willingness to stay connected, and on the other side of her personal wreckage, she found brand-new life. McAuliffe shares her discoveries, including how acknowledging pain will help to heal it, why protecting energy is vital for maintaining health and sanity, why people don’t have to “get over” their loss in order to heal it, and so much more. Wake Me from the Nightmare guides readers to a safe place where they can move through their own emotional wreckage—and save their own life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9781642794144

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Welcome

Iwant to thank you for choosing this book and for finding the courage to acknowledge your heartbreak. This isn’t easy when living within a society that teaches people to disconnect from themselves and others. A society which focuses on appearance, productivity, and status (none of which matter in the long run at all). We’re trained early to hide our pain and post only stories of success and smiling faces instead. We’re given pills to relieve discomforts when we’re sick (but rarely do we ever find or resolve the issues which brought the illness on in the first place). We’ve unintentionally become an unconscious society of dodgers and pretenders, and we have a low tolerance for anything that gets in the way of our comforts and conveniences. We have a curious need for everything and everyone to look okay on the outside, so we can feel okay on the inside because on some level, we’re all running around freaking scared.

As a society, we’ve forgotten who we are. But you haven’t forgotten, and that’s why you’re here.

You are a survivor of suicide loss and a warrior of love.

You’re here because your life, and the life of your lost loved one, matters. You’re here because you know you need to find a way to deal with this devastation to be okay again. You’re here to honor the longings of your broken heart. You’re here because you’re lost in a fog which you know can only be lifted with the help of others who’ve been there. You’re here to learn how to live again because when your beloved took their life, they took yours along too. You’re here because you’re brave, and this doesn’t mean you have to be strong. Let go, my friend. You don’t always have to be strong. Here, you can show up any way you like. Please know always, that you, and your wide range of desperate, mixed-up, volatile, and beautiful feelings, will be accepted and honored too, without conditions. You and everything in you has a place here, and it all matters.

The world will try to tell you to move on before you’re ready, but don’t worry. This is your journey and you will determine your own timelines. The grieving process won’t be rushed, and it won’t be ignored either. It will prompt you. All you need to do is follow its lead and I promise you, you will be just fine. Yes, it will hurt, and yes, you will have to feel the feelings and do the actual work of grieving. I can’t do that for you, but I can walk beside you. I can tell you it’s going to be okay. I can understand you, validate you, reassure you, and honor you. I’m here for you, and I respect your journey. You can do this, and you will find hope and joy again.

Maybe sooner than you think.

In this book, I’ll walk you through the process that honored me and my suicide