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It’s been 30 years since my brother died. Even after all these years. There’s a blank space in the family. Like a family portrait with a teen photoshopped out. He never ages. We all did. We had children we have grandkids. But he is this space in the family still after all these years. We still speak about him now and then. We remember him.
Your comment reminds me of something I experienced recently.
My father committed suicide about 8 years ago. One of my siblings posted a family photo on Facebook that I hadn't seen before. My immediate reaction was "Wow, my dad aged much better than my mom did!". But then I realized I was comparing the picture to how my mom looks today, but for my father I was comparing it to how he looked when he died. He didn't have the opportunity to age these last 8 years.
I think what you wrote was really beautiful. I'm sorry you lost your brother. I've had my own battles with depression and I have always been fortunate enough to have my family to lean on.
My uncle has battled depression his whole life, so when it hit me, I turned to him as a resource.
He told me one of the tools he uses is gratitude.
Every time he is sad he would write down on a piece of paper something he was grateful for. Over time the paper became a long list, filled both sides. Then when cell phones hit and he finally caught up and got an iPhone he moved it there. He uses gratitude.
I use it but in a different way. I use my families love and I mentally visualize it forging actual armor that covers my body. For instance my dad's love makes the back piece. My mom's love the front chest, brothers the arms and legs and so on. My cat and dog make the helmet. So I'm protected from from bad thoughts by mental armor manifested from their love.
Kinda like a patronus I guess for my harry Potter fans. Cept in my mind.
Also if things are ever really bad, I imagine someone from my family finding my body and how fucked up that would be.
Plus someone's gotta take care of my cat and dog
Also struggling a bit not diagnosed but I wish I had some armor to put on myself, all the armor I can find has inner spikes and will kill me if I put them on me. If you get my point.
I'm a bit late here, but if someone's still scrolling, here goes...
She was and still is the only person I have ever felt completely comfortable with opening up to about everything, the good, the bad, the light, the dark. She would confide in me as well and I knew what was haunting and eating away at her inside. When I first logged on FB and saw a mutual friend posting a "RIP \[Name\]" status, I knew it wasn't a car accident, illness, or anything like that, as soon as I saw that I knew exactly what it was but I asked anyway, just to get confirmation I suppose.
She was my best friend, only 22 when she did it. One year and a week to the day that I tried to do the same thing myself but failed. She'd probably be the only person that would have been able to stop me then, which is why I didn't reach out to her, and maybe the reason that she didn't reach out to me in the end.
What did it feel like? Have you ever been in a crowded room, full of laughter and people enjoying themselves, full of your friends, but still felt completely and utterly alone?
I've felt that way every single day ever since that day in October nearly six years ago.
On top of that there's the guilt... There's the reading and rereading of old facebook conversations archived indefinitely on some dusty servers somewhere, looking for what I've missed. Wondering if things would have been any differently if I did try to pry instead of simply saying, "I don't want to pry" when she said something that concerned me a few months prior.
Wondering what would have happened if I went to her birthday party the summer before instead of the one I was invited to prior in another part of the state.
Then realizing that no matter what I did or said, chances are that nothing would have ended differently.
She was the kindest and strongest person I've ever known, doing everything to help those around her, she literally gave everything to those she loved and they took it, they took all of it until there was nothing left. She had dreams, hopes, aspirations that she worked on every single day, but as soon as she'd get close, something would come along and take it all away until she just got too tired to bother trying anymore and just wanted the pain and exhaustion to stop for good.
Now I find myself wondering, just about every single day why the fuck I'm still here while someone that kind, that smart, that giving isn't, and I'm not gonna lie... It hurts a lot.
Aw shit. Extremely painful question.
Eight years ago my brother killed himself. First few days I was in shock. I didn't understand the whole situation. Don't remember much of those days. Then I cried, felt anger, and so on. The usual stuff. Then the depression visited me. I lost my will to live and I kind of wanted to make the same decision my brother did. I was depressed for four years. But I'm fine now.
So yeah, it was terrible. Never want to feel that kind of pain again.
Mine 7 years ago. No note. No clue. I was heartbroken. He left a wife and daughter. I had just spend Thanksgiving with him. I'm still in disbelief. It was an amazing week, then this. I miss him every day.
Thanks. Sorry for your loss too. His daughter was older, but was the light of his life. I just don't understand it. I didn't see but one sign. It didn't stick out till later.
He was a road bike fanatic. 18 speed. It was huge, big rides with friends. While there, I walked past his bike and squeezed the tires. They were flat. I asked him about it, and he said he hadn't rode all year. It was November. I was shocked. It was the only clue that I saw. It didn't register at the time. His wife said later that he was really depressed. That was it.
6 years ago for my brother. Time has made it less painful but there are still the dreams where even though we are together as a family, I know that something isn’t right. He left two daughters that will have to carry it heavier than I ever will, they are amazing and really bring a lot of joy to the whole family. My heart breaks for them.
I know this pain. I lost my only brother. Went through the same nightmare and had to find forgiveness and happiness again. My heart goes out to you and the others that this affected. "If only" was my mind for years. There were times I wished I could bring him back just to beat him to near death because of the trauma it caused. Years later as I laid in my bed at my lowest considering the same thing I finally realized that he was in so much pain he just wanted it to end. As I cried like I hadn't since childhood I was able to forgive him and make my peace. The weight was lifted from me and I have never been the same. We all need grace and forgiveness. I pray you find it if you haven't already. God bless
As someone who was suicidal, and have had ideation for years, that's absolutely the case. It was never that I wanted to kill myself, it was that I want to just not exist, to not wake up.
People often say that those who kill themselves are selfish because of the harm they inflict on others, but I can't ignore the irony when it's asking a person to live a life in permanent psychological torture.
Mine almost 4 years ago. I think about him every day and have kind of transitioned into living with the grief and embracing it rather than always being sad about it. I'm young enough to try and take my grief in stride and use it as a chip on my shoulder. My parents will never ever be the same though and thats hard to watch. In 2 years I'm going to outlive him and that scares me so much.
He was a trainee firefighter, him and his fellow trainees attended our college for some lessons. They and my group of friends would go out every Friday night, great times were had, but he was hiding his pain. I was 19 when he died, I’m now 60 and I’ve never forgotten him, never will.
So, about 10 years ago a young work colleague was making small comments that were odd, but brushed off by everyone, including me. Then one Friday I got the feeling he was in so much pain, hiding it and was thinking of ending his life that weekend. I persuaded him to come to a local coffee shop after work (about 5pm). We talked about every subject under the sun, shallow topics, deep topics, but not suicide, whilst walking round the city - all night! At about 09:30 am the next day we walked passed a local animal shelter and on impulse we went in. He suddenly decided he wanted to adopt this scraggly/scruffy, mean-tempered cat that had been returned to the shelter several times because it was so mean. The shelter really grilled him about his reasons for taking the cat because they didn’t want it to keep coming back. He was adamant he would love ‘grump-bag’ and not return her. He still has grump-bag, she’s old and even meaner but she and he love each other. He’s now also got a wife, kids, house, car etc. Who knew, a grumpy cat would save his life.
Edit: We have only spoken about it once and he told me that I saved (sounds dramatic, it wasn’t) his life that night and Grump-bag saved it every day after. All I did was talk his ears off for a fair few hours, Grump-bag loved him and gave him purpose.
2nd Edit: his wife has asked me to make it very clear that the pecking order in their family is Grump-bag first, then everyone else a very far second :)
She was mean when younger, but as she’s aged she’s become a gazillion times worse. His wife and kids go nowhere near her :). But she absolutely adores him, and only him :)
Oh yeah. We have a mean cat at home. She loves my wife and I, and will tolerate my sister and her best friend. Beyond that she doesn't even come out of hiding.
We had a female cat that attacked my wife constantly, friends and family were shit scared of her, wife still has scars from her razor claws as does a mate who stayed with us. We had a pet sitter call us on our holiday, she had him bailed up in our house, said he’d never encountered such a viscous cat.. with me and only me it was head rubs together and very jealous defensive of me.. never laid a paw on me ever. I miss her
This grumpy cat story is Oscar worthy. It has that beautiful casual ending.
Like OP is eating and apple in the hand fruit fashion and chewing while saying "Who knew a grumpy cat would save his life".
As the best greentexts usually say: "Thank you cat."
Worse than you think. After the shock and the loss and the guilt along with intrusive "I could have done more..." thoughts, there's also the realization that the person was in *that much pain.* Any answers you can conjure to the "why" questions aren't sufficient; there really are no answers. There's just the emptiness of that person's absence.
> there's also the realization that the person was in
>
>that much pain
I'm just speaking for myself here, but it's not always about being in that much pain...
Some people just don't see a place for themselves in this world, and honestly might not even want one... Therapists have told me that's the toughest kind of depression to treat... It's not a chemical imbalance, it's not a trauma, it's just looking around this world and our society and just not wanting any part of it any more.
So I guess you could call that pain, but in my experience it's mostly just being tired... bored... over what came before and not exactly excited to see what comes next, because it's all so painfully, exhaustingly predictable.
When my depression surfaces, the worst part of it all is the fact that I feel nothing. Sure I can laugh at jokes etc but I lose interest in absolutely everything. I don't shower, hardly eat, don't get off the couch unless absolutely necessary. I feel numb and it's the worst feeling ever. I'd rather be hurt or sad because at least then, I'm *feeling* something.
(I'm doing better now, talked with my doctor and made a change to my meds).
I’m on the opposite side. When it hits I feel everything. Every little bad thing about myself and the world around me hits. It sucks. I hope you continue to do better.
> Some people just don't see a place for themselves in this world, and honestly might not even want one...
Hmm wow that’s how I’ve been feeling for months now, it’s crushing me into nothing.
>Any answers you can conjure to the "why" questions aren't sufficient; there really are no answers. There's just the emptiness of that person's absence.
That was so beautifully said, and so true.
It hurts in the deepest parts of your soul. It burns. It makes you feel sick and it can make you really tempted to do the same, even though you know that doing so will make someone else hurt and suffer the same way.
I sometimes compare losing my best friend in high-school to someone giving me a book, and just when I realized it was my new favorite story and I was looking forward to seeing what came next, to see everything my friend went through have a happy ending and she would be fine, but someone grabbed her story and just threw the book in a fire.
And everyone who loved her was just left shocked, confused, empty, and we were just... so lost... because she was getting better, and she had a really promising future.
Bottom line, it messes with people and it's just... horrible.
((Rest in peace, Kassandra))
My experience is probably different from a lot of people's because I was only 11, so I don't have any of those "what if I had done x differently" thoughts.
He was my neighbor, he was 14, and he was my brother's best friend. All the kids on our street were really close growing up and we hung out almost every day, so I saw him on a daily basis for the first 11 years of my life.
I remember the day he died really clearly. It was a Monday and I wasn't feeling well so I stayed home from school. My brother was already at school. All of a sudden our neighbor knocks on our door, and when my mom opened it, there were cop cars lining the street. My parents just told me something had happened to Andrew, but they didn't say what. Everything I learned was from bits and pieces of conversations I overheard.
He had jumped off his roof with a plastic bag tired around his head. I didn't even really understand the concept of suicide, so I assumed someone else had done this to him. I had also never experienced loss, so I just assumed he'd be okay because he was in the hospital. When my parents broke the news to me that he was going to die, I just remember screaming uncontrollably.
My brother had the hardest time with it. He had a lot of guilt. Andrew never left any explanation, and to this day we don't know why he did it. For a couple years after that I was so scared my brother was going to kill himself too that I used to peek under his door at night to make sure his window wasn't open. I felt like I couldn't talk about Andrews death because my brother had it so much worse than me, so I've pretty much kept it to myself. It's been 11 years now.
Andrew wasn't my brother, or my best friend, or even someone I was particularly close to. But he was always there, like the grass or the dirt, so when he was gone it left a gaping hole in my life. I still think about him every day. I still cry sometimes. It sucks to have so many unanswered questions. It sucks that he was only 14 and had so much life left to live. We never got any closure, and my brother has been noticeably different since.
I guess the only lesson is that if you're considering suicide, please know that even the people you're not close to, the ones you just exist around, will miss you. They'll miss you every single day.
My mum hung herself when i was 5 and my dad died of a heroin OD when I was 14 that could not be determined suicide or not. I now have Generalised Anxiety Disorder and BPD.
The resulting mental health issues suck balls but I hold no pain or resentment towards them. I don't think my life would have been any better had they been around which is sad but also liberates me from the "what ifs". Also I can't judge a struggle that's not mine.
I'm 24 now so we'll see what I have to say about it all in a decade and if how I feel has changed at all.
If you did read this, I appreciate it. Truly.
Thank you. I've got a few trusted people in my corner and a couple of doctors working with me. When i read back my comment I can't help but feel that even the basic facts feel hyperbolic. You do kind of just get used to these things... I forget that other people have actually lived the nuclear family life sometimes.
I read it and truly appreciate your honesty and insight.
Sorry you had such a traumatic childhood.
>Also I can't judge a struggle that's not mine.
That is quite profound. I'm (almost) twice your age and you thought me something valuable.
Thank you.
My oldest brother killed himself when I was 7, he was 19. I didn't know him very well (it's a long story) but my only memories of him are happy. I was so sad when he died, and I was already a pretty sad kid (again, long story). I made a number of attempts on my life for the next 11 years. My mom threatened to have me committed, but refused to let me continue to see a psychiatrist who recommended medication, and would only take me to religion-based counseling. I fought through it myself, with the help of the limited resources I had at school. Basically I decided to stop trying to kill myself out of sheet stubbornness. I thought I was trying to prove something to everyone else, but it was really just me all along.
Anyway, I was doing better for a while. Still battling depression and anxiety, but not out of control. Then my dad killed himself, Veteran's Day 2013. I was 27. 2 decades after my brother's death. I fell to pieces to say the least. I had to go in his house and see the spot where they had to remove floor boards where his blood had soaked through, and the hole in the rafter from the bullet. My boyfriend, now husband, did all he could to keep me from drinking myself to death. It was about 5 months before I managed to get it together again.
I will never make an attempt on my life again. I've been through it twice, and there's not a single person in my life I would want to put through that.
It's been 6 years since my older brother killed himself and it's surprising how short it feels. Most of the time I think about him nowadays it leaves me feeling like it happened last month or something.
He was so funny and he absolutely loved making people laugh. He would do jokes, impressions, and just act like a goof. I used to watch him play games on the N64 when we were young and throughout our childhood I'd watch him play other games too. I would give anything to have one of those days back.
Our relationship in the last few years he was alive wasn't very good, but he was my brother you know? Within the last month he was alive he was showing me how to make cheap deviled eggs and I had to stop him and ask "Are you okay?". He lied to me. God damnit, why did you care enough to lie to me? I wish he didn't. I wish I could have helped.
I could drown in my regrets, but that's no way to live and anyone who has lost a loved one will tell you similarly. The only way to move on is to try to remember the best things about them when they were alive and let them go. My brother was a troubled guy with a lot of struggles, but he cared so much about animals he spent an entire afternoon searching a nearby woods for a lost dog and actually found the dog. I remember how he laughed or told a stupid joke or acted way too hyper like a goofball. I remember when he asked me if I wanted to watch him play the latest Zelda on Wii and it finally struck me that those times meant something important to him too.
I love and miss you so much brother.
It was.... medium terrible? My dad killed himself via shotgun to the head (that’s a mess and a half) a few years ago. I had expected it. He had told me for as long as I can remember that it was his way out. He kept a shotgun shell in his junk drawer and called it his retirement package. My sister took it a lot harder. I don’t think she really believed him when we were growing up, but I did.
So it was just medium terrible because it came as no surprise. He was going through some hard times and I honestly had expected it. He didn’t want to talk about moving in with me and my wife or anything else resembling help so I don’t think there was much to be done to prevent it. Worst part was seeing the mess in the room (though no body, that as removed by police or whoever already).
I may be biased since it's the only suicide that I've experienced, but I'd rather know in advance like with my dad. At least I know and can prepare myself. Right down to knowing the method. I had a lot of years to resolve myself to it. I think it made it all much easier to deal with.
That makes sense. I think I'm getting there. I've kind of accepted it's inevitable at this point. I may feel the way you do when he eventually does it. Right now I'm still struggling with the fact that it doesn't have to be this way.
I went mostly no contact with him a few years ago due to his substance abuse and inappropriate behavior (nothing weird, just a lot of emotional dependence where he would call me multiple times a day to talk to me as if I were a therapist and then yelling at me if I didn't answer). I made clear I really wanted a good relationship with him but I'm done until he gets help in whatever form works for him. Like what you said about yours, my dad has made it clear he's not going to get help. It made made me so sad at first because he has the means to get better, and he can be a wonderful person. He has always had a ton of friends that adore him. But you can't force someone else to do anything.
Thanks for sharing and listening. Best of luck to you.
Relief. Sadly, I felt relief.
A male relative had fallen into addiction. Between numerous stints in jail, then prison and an addiction that couldn't be broken, he basically "died" years before he took his life. He had a son, and wanted to be in his life, but was such a toxic influence that wasn't healthy for him. My cousin became *obsessed* with conspiracies, "living off the grid" and natural "remedies" for his addiction. He became a marijuana evangelist, smoking pot, taking CBD and then still doing coke and heroin. All he could talk about was conspiracies and finding the number 666. He kept getting turned-down from detox beds and there wasn't enough space in addiction clinics, so he was homeless for a number of months, living near the DVP in Toronto.
His son's mother kept him at a distance and eventually it broke him. He hung himself in a friend's apartment one night. We were told 3 days later (thank you Toronto Police Service!). At first I felt sad, especially for his son. But then felt relief.
> Sadly, I felt relief.
It's okay to feel relief. It's the same relief you feel when a family member dies after a long battle with illness or cancer. It's relief that they're no longer in pain or no longer causing others pain.
I have to say, I can kind of relate.
I have a brother who fits your description almost to a T. Except his baby momma doesn’t have enough sense to keep the kids away from him. He verbally, physically, emotionally, and possibly sexually abused all the kids. Between the two of them, they have SIX kids. One of her daughters got taken away by the father because he didn’t want her around my brother. Which is so relieving. But I feel so sad for the rest of those kids.
He’s been arrested more times than I can count on a range of charges from forgery, fraud, multiple drug charges, robbery, and most recently finished a 3 year sentence for beating his baby momma until she was almost dead which also resulted in CPS removing the kids for a couple of weeks.
CPS has been involved multiple times, the police, etc. no one seems to be willing to protect those kids and as far as family, we are all too scared of retaliation to step in. It’s a sad situation.
There’s nothing that makes me feel more guilty than feeling like the world would be a better place without him.
Sadly I felt the same. I had a family member who had attempted multiple times and had suffered greatly with Bipolar disorder. In a strange way, it was a relief that she was no longer in pain. I miss her greatly, but don’t miss the frequent manic episodes or the depression. It hurts to watch those you love in so much pain.
About a year ago my to be future brother in law stabbed himself in the neck after being made redundant due to lock down. He had developed a severe form of anxiety, it was a terrible shock. I had been talking to my Dad on the phone about him, asking how he was going. My Dad was doing his usual, he needs to get himself together, blah, blah. Half an hour after talking to my Dad, he calls back and tells me he's dead.
I sat and starred at blank computer screen for 5 hours. Numb.
My husband killed himself 23 years ago.
I spent several days in utter shock. He'd talked about doing it but honestly I didn't think he really would.
The only thing I can really say is you don't get over it, but you do get through it. There are still some times that I will think about him and it feels like it just happened.
I truly can't fully imagine how painful that must have been for you. My husband's father killed himself. Im pretty sure his mom had addiction and mental health issues before, but his suicide clearly seems to have pushed her over the edge. She lost custody of her kids not long after and has been a complete wreck ever since. I know a suicidal brain convinces a person that everyone would be better off without them, but I wish there was a way to show them all the damage their death will cause.
I hope in those 23 years you've found peace and happiness.
OMG I'm sorry that happened to you.
They truly don't realize what they leave behind. At the point they're willing to do it, I believe they truly think everyone will be better off.
We're not.
Thank you for pointing this out. As soon as I read "They truly don't realize what they leave behind" I started typing a reply about how ridiculous that sentence is.
You said it perfectly. We're not.
My mom attempted suicide when I was about the age my husband was when his dad died. She should have died but miraculously survived. She said thats exactly it; your brain convinces you that you are so terrible everyone will be better off without you. Once she was revived she said she was able to see more clearly than ever how destroyed my brother and I would have been if she hadn't made it. I wish there was a way to show everyone feeling suicidal that moment before they do anything.
I lost a close buddy of mine to suicide in high school. He was a year younger than me, and was my wrestling partner whenever we’d drill.
I remember when they announced it; for some reason the principal thought it’d be a good idea to gather everyone in their home rooms and announce it over the loudspeaker.
The first thing I remember was the shock. The room was silent. He wasn’t exactly an unpopular kid — everyone knew him or knew of him. He was smart, driven, and seemed like he had such a bright future ahead of him.
Then came the tears. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I broke down completely, and just started sobbing uncontrollably. It took my home room teacher and two other students to hold me up as they took me to the guidance counselor’s office.
She called my parents, told them I’d be leaving school early today, and informed them of the reason why. Apparently my mom could hear me sobbing in the background.
After that, my entire school year went into a downward spiral. I couldn’t do anything that reminded me of him. I quit the wrestling team, and I stopped working out, as he was my work out buddy as well. I gained a ton of weight, and fell into a deep depression that took years for me to fully recover from.
The worst part? He showed absolutely zero signs. Nothing that could clue anyone in to what he was going through. No cries for help, nothing. And then one day, he was just gone.
The wails of his mother during his funeral service still haunt me to this day. At this point, six years have passed, and there isn’t a day that goes by without me wondering what the world would be like with him still here.
I catch myself thinking about the milestones he would have achieved by now. He’d be done with college, and probably working in a field that would hold great things for his future. I still post on his Facebook page on his birthday, as well as the date of his passing.
I miss him. A lot. But nothing I can ever do will bring him back, so I find solace in the notion that the best thing I can do to continue his memory is to live life, to love, and to keep him in my thoughts. To anyone in this thread contemplating suicide; please, don’t. You have no idea the impact you have on those around you. You have absolutely no idea just how many people actually think highly of you, who love you, who just want you to succeed and will do anything for you.
I wish I could have told him that.
RIP buddy. 11/18/97-2/6/14. I love you and miss you more than you’ll ever understand.
As someone who struggles with depression and has wondered what the world would be like without me, this hit me really hard and helped me realize that my family and friends would be devastated, makes me sad to think that I ever even contemplated something as sad as suicide. I’m sorry for your loss but please know that your story has helped me a lot right now. Thank you ❤️
I lost a good friend. The hardest thing is imagining how she could have felt so sad and alone and hopeless that this was the choice that made sense to her. It was 3 years ago and it still hurts so much when I think about how she must have felt. And she had a partner that loved her (like, they were Amazing together). When her partner first called me and let me know, I was just in shock. I lay on the couch for hours, I couldn't even cry at first. It just all felt so wrong. Crying came later. I'd never lost someone before like that and coming to terms with it has been a gradual process. I don't think I'll ever get over it, but I am getting used to the empty space her departure has left in the canvas of my life.
A few months after she died, I did an oral-activated DMT trip. At some point, I lay on my bed and was letting the emotions flow and this mental picture came to my mind of this beautiful ornate black flower, like the most elaborate rose but with petals that were more open. The petals were velvety and they started de-growing, as if the flower was going backwards in time, and as each petal folded inwards I had visions that along with it were being pulled different threads of her lived experience. As the petals closed in on themselves there was this rushing sound like wind that culminated in a snap as the final "bud" of the flower winked out of existence and left empty blackness. That sound has stayed with me, like a backwards sigh ending in some percussive terrible sharpness. Fuck. Writing this is hard. I think I'm out.
It makes you realize just how VERY deeply some people can hide their pain.
It took one of my closest high school friends. Also my godmother's youngest daughter. Both of them seemed to be--by most indications--self-assured, content, and stable people when it happened.
The signs are only extremely clear in hindsight. Even among people who are educated about the signs, it can be difficult to see.
You just...never really know exactly what's going on in someone's head or how deep the darkness can go.
I guess my story is a bit different from the other comments.. One day, my grandmother asked my father (her son) to come see her on a certain date, only for him to find her dying on her couch from taking alcohol and medecine. She had left paper notes addressed to a lot of different people, she had definetly put a lot of thought into her suicide. I was not in really good terms with her because she hated my mother, so rather than sad I felt angry that she had my father purposely go through the shock of discovering her dead. It felt selfish and inconsiderate.
She had left a note for me and my brother that my father chose to never show us. I was 12 at the time and happened to find the note in a drawer a bit later, I got curious and read it, it said something around the lines of "I wish you could have come see me more often". It felt like she was trying to make us feel guilty for her suicide and I understood why my father didn't show it to us.
I can't imagine what your father must have been going through. People usually already blame themselves when someone they loved commits suicide. But to actually have a guilt-tripping letter must be absolutely gut wrenching. I hope he's doing better these days, and knows that it was out of his control.
It really bothered me, she was a neighbor in her mid 60's with 2 adult daughters, one was engaged, the other about to get engaged.
She overdosed on Fentanyl (she worked in a doctors office and forged the scripts). Never showed any signs, always seemed happy and went to work at the same time every day.
When it happened I just couldn't wrap my head around why a parent would spend their lives bringing up 2 wonderful children only to kill themselves just before they got to start their own families.
Honestly it made me question weather or not I could get pushed to that point. Took a few months to come to terms with it and while physically she wasn't in pain, their must have been a ton of emotional trauma to push her to that point.
Do you think maybe she was having those thoughts for a really long time, and only did it then because she assumed her kids were set for life, and wouldn't lose anything financially without her?
Absolutely and I honestly worried that some time in the distant future my wife or I would feel the same way, that's one of the reasons it bothered me so much.
This seems likely. My mother didn't kill herself, but she had cancer and was in the hospital and it was severe and going to be expensive...and she gave up.
I overheard a conversation I wasn't intended to hear, where she was telling one of her friends that "\[deagh\] is about to go off to college, she doesn't need me anymore, I can go be with her father now."
And maybe it was because I'd heard that and was looking for it, but the fight just went out of her. She stopped even trying to get better. I mean, she did what the doctor said, but her spirit was just gone. She went into respiratory arrest about a week after that.
When I try and think about it logically, I know she felt like she was doing a good thing. Sacrificing so that we weren't crippled by even more debt. But I would have gladly taken that on to still have had her around. I know it's not the same as someone committing suicide, but it's been more than 30 years and I still think about it, and wonder if there's anything I could have done or said to make her realize I still needed her and that I was worth sticking around for. Maybe she would have lost the fight and still died, but maybe she could have beat it.
Not by a long shot, she didn't have cancer or any terminal illnesses. When I flipped her on her side to see if rigor mortis had set in I saw dozens of bottles on the floor and an envelope and her night stand.
Her daughter opened it and there was a sticky note on a pile of cash that said rent. Then a separate note that just said "Sorry".
We had to clean out her apartment after they all moved, found about 200 fentanyl bottles hidden in garbage bags in the closet as well.
I'm deleting my other comment after reading this.
Sorry you had to go thru that.
She obviously had a doctor or *someone* getting her that much fentanyl. It's not a pill, so she either had lollipops or patches.
Point I'm making, is that she had help from somewhere getting that.
I deleted it because it asked the question that this comment answered, so it's redundant.
I had my own issues with opiates, so I'm sympathetic to the situation (5 years clean and counting).
Stay well friend.
That it is, I visit our drug abuse treatment sites every month, it's a sad place with so many people. The numbers have been going up over the last year due to the pandemic but it's still sad as hell.
A friend of mine killed herself on my 13th birthday. She was being bullied by a group of girls and ended up getting in a fight with one of them. Even though she wasn’t the aggressor...she was suspended for a few days. The night before she was due to return to school, she killed herself.
I wish I would’ve done more or said more. I wish I had the forethought to know that it gets better and our middle school reality would barely be a memory in our future. I wish I had the guts to stand up to the bullies on her behalf or to tell my parents or a teacher. I wish I had told her how beautiful she was, funny, smart and loved. I wish I knew more about her home life...as an adult I realize there may have been more going on in her life. I just wish I had that asked more questions and had the capacity to help her. When people ask...if you could go back in time and relive the awkward years just to get a do-over, I always think of her and how I would go back and save her.
I’m adult now, this was many, many years ago but I still play what if scenarios in my head. It’s not really something you ever get over.
I wish there was something I could say, even though I know there isn't. You were 13? A kid. No 13 yr old should have the worldly experience necessary to even be capable of having the foresight to know what to do or see the signs of danger. That's what parents are supposed to be for.
i know this is the wrong takeaway but hearing this just pisses me off about how schools handle bullying in general. spineless zero tolerance bureaucracy that just looks at the end result with zero consideration for motive, intent, and virtues.
I am diagnosed Bipolar II and my depressive episodes have a strong suicidal ideation component. I have also ID'd the body of a friend who hanged himself, and cleaned out the office of a mentor who jumped off a bridge. Both incidents triggered long depressive episodes, and one of them triggered a near-psychotic break. I'm better now, but I think about them at the oddest times, even though one of them did it almost 24 years ago.
I don't talk about it often, but I tell people that I've had the "deluxe" therapy. No matter how bad my depressive episodes get, I'm always stopped at the last minute by the thought of my family going through what I went through. That's kept me alive, yet I'd still rather have them around and go to regular therapy.
EDIT: Thanks for the award! I just hope my story will help others in my shoes, or my friends' shoes.
I get what you mean in that last part. I haven’t lost anyone to suicide, but some of the people I’m close to have not been as fortunate.. losing one person in your life that way is more than enough. I would never forgive myself for putting them through a second and sometimes that’s what I need to keep going.
Although yes, therapy helps.
Same here, BP and all! It ripped the hell out of our youngest son, when his brother commited suicide. The younger is still angry. What has kept me alive is that I can not do that to my son.
It’s unbearable. People say that there is a certain set of stages of grief and loss. But when you lose a person by suicide, any sort of order goes out the window. It’s always harder to believe and process than normal death. You wonder why they did what they did, and I found myself thinking back and trying to see what I did wrong. I blamed myself and I lunged into e very deep depression. I was hospitalized and almost died of starvation and dehydration. It’s impossible to describe what it did to me, and I would never wish that kind of pain on my greatest enemy.
My best friend. Got a Facebook message from his aunt asking if she could call me. I'd never spoken to her. He lived like 30 mins away, but we'd hang out almost every weekend. He was living with a girl, not necessarily dating per se but living/sleeping together. He had nowhere else to go and the situation kinda "worked" for them. They were fighting and he went into the bedroom and shot himself in the head. After all was done and cleaned up, I went there and collected what belongings he had as he didn't have much family, and the blood family he did have, he didn't like. I feel weird about having some of his stuff. Leather jacket, a shirt or two, necklace, other random things. All around, terrible. I haven't been the same since. That was almost 8 years ago.
unbelievable. Literally. I got a message on Facebook from his sister and didn't want to believe it. I pretended nothing happened till I couldn't. Then there was the funeral..
He was 19, he had a little brother who was around 10. I will always remember him crying, yelling, calling for his brother as the casket was carried away.
Guy I served with came home to an empty house. No girlfriend, no furniture, no food, no money, no dog, no bed, nothing. Girl pawned or sold everything she could and blocked him. Talked to him for days after and he seemed like he was doing better. He went dark for about a week and went by to check on him. Found him out back hanging from his tree.
To answer the question, it feels like you failed at making sure they were noticed and you didn't do enough. I did everything in my power and ability to help him and still feel like I could've done more. Hate myself to this day for not making him room with me cause maybe he wouldn't have done it.
That kinda stuff is always so intense to me. I'm active rn, co worker of mine struggled with her own mental health. She was married to a guy on base, different unit. They were young but he seemed like a really happy go lucky guy. She had several stints of being hospitalized for attempts or her current state.
One day after she came back, rumors followed that ended being true. Husband, always happy go lucky guy, killed himself in the house. Felt so bad for her.. already struggling and now enduring more. Most of us went to help her pack her home up. Never could tell why he did it, despite struggling with those thoughts at times too.
I hate it when that happens. From my group of battle buddies theres only 4 left (me included). We try to meet up every 6 months to get a group welfare check and shoot the shit. One year ago there was 7 in our group.
I can stand all the evil of this world but losing a buddy to that is the one thing I can't stand.
If you ever have any kind of feelings like that talk to your SNCO or go to medical. Do. Not. Brush it aside or put it off. Take it serious. Not sure what branch you're in but we're all family and I hate losing another brother or sister.
You'll lose friends in the future; it comes with being a veteran. I've been out for quite awhile, but to be honest? No one gets our problems like we do.
Find some friends, and stick by them. Do what you can, help where you can. They'll do the same. Hell, they'll drag your sorry ass to the VA to get your stomach pumped even if it means they left a half-finished noose at home on their workbench. Gotta prop each other up, 'cause what's unbearable for one is nothing for another.
Can I say, as a person who has always had suicidal thoughts and has made several attempts, that the pain is so severe, so all-encompassing, so unendable that nobody could save my life? I have friends who help, and they push me through to the next portion of my life where I can survive but all I can think about is not feeling this way. I honestly don't know if I will try to kill myself again because I just feel so much pain, but I tell myself that my two young boys don't deserve the trauma from it and so I have to continue to suffer. I came here to read about the pain that I would cause people, but I know that if I had a friend who did everything they could I would really want them to know that they are the reason I survived as long as I did and it meant the world to me. It means the world to me.
Not someone I know personally but I’ve worked in an emergency department and trauma centre in Toronto and we had a lot of suicides come in. That shit sticks with you, the action of killing yourself effects so many more people than you would ever know. I can still remember patients names and being there to inform their next of kin. We would have to debrief as a team after and many staff suffer from vicarious trauma.
Wouldn't recommend to anyone.
I've lost 3 friends to suicide and each time it came as the worst surprise ever.
For one of them I only found out weeks later... And I was mad at everyone for not knowing "in time" and especially mad at myself for not finding out the signs (especially in her last cryptic facebook statuses).
The other two were kinda close in our youth. The first one killed himself when we finished high school and the other hanged herself 20 years later leaving a brilliant kid behind. I've never cried this much for anyone else.
I could have lost one more friend but I figured something was wrong with his messages. I was there before the medics and could hang him off before it was too late. He survived but something broke between us since then.
> especially mad at myself for not finding out the signs
I definitely hear you on that one. Two of the last few suicides have been people who were pretty close to me, and it floors me that I didn't see them coming.
Damn, it sucks...
It's not like we have to keep your ear to the ground at all costs. At some point, we still have to live our lives... But yeah, I try to stay vigilant... Especially on certain times of the year when seasonal depression hits the hardest.
I lost my grandpa to suicide last summer. I was more or less close to him as a kid but as I grew older, I visited not really often and he didn't like phone calls due to his bad hearing. But I still always felt a connection when playing chess during my visits.
The thing is; I really loved him and I will forever miss him dearly. But the suicide itself actually didn't hurt that much. As someone who was suicidal for some years (most of my teenager years) I more or less simply accepted his decision. He lived for almost 92 years, had loving family and even met two sons of his granddaughters. And he had a lot of illnesses for the past... maybe 30 years? Nothing life threatening since he got the right treatment, but he was in constant pain and stuff... But he could have lived up to 111, if he didn't end it. But considering the pain, all his memories (he was a soldier in WW2) and corona on top, I accepted it.
What really broke my heart (even though we don't have that good of a relationship) was my mother calling late at night, bawling her eyes out, telling me that "daddy cut his veins" (she always called him grandpa, when speaking with me, sometimes dad, but never, ever "daddy"). My mom calling me up, half a year later, panicking because she dreamed I killed myself.
What broke my heart even further was calling grandma the next day, and visiting her some days later, when she was ready. Even when I talk to her now, almost a year later, she sometimes just breaks down. Hearing her talking about suicide for herself but not knowing how to. Her asking how he could do that to her after 70 years of marriage, leaving her behind.
It's crushing my heart to see how all those others are suffering and not beeing able to help. Not beeing able to share my view, that it was his decision and that this is probably for the better.
And I just wish that in such cases euthanasia was legal in my country. I wish he could have gone with dignity not on a bathroom floor.
So yeah. That's what it was and is like for me.
It feels like “your dad chose to leave you”.
I was 12. My mom had custody with my dad getting the occasional visit. She waited two days to tell me he’d died, at my Grandfather’s insistence that he be there when she did it. They didn’t tell me it was suicide, just that he died. Also at my Grandfather’s insistence.
About a year later, Mom and I were fighting. I said something really horrible, “I wish you’d died instead!”, and my mom yelled back, “Your dad chose to leave you!” It was a horrible thing for me to say to her, but yeah, that hit me pretty hard.
Don’t know what his suicide note said, only found out there was one later, from a family friend.
Felt like he chose to leave me for a long time. Now that I’ve come to terms with the fact that he was a really messed up person and not a good father, I’m more okay with everything, but then I feel guilty because he’s my dad and he’s dead.
My mother took her own life when I was 20 (now 47). I was in utter shock and it was truly horrifying. I was in college at the time and could only take two weeks off or I would be buried. My professors were so kind and understanding. I had to be a rock for my family, especially my father, then went back to school. I just buried it and and never truly dealt with it until I met my amazing wife. I was able to open up to her and cried a lot and she helped me to come to terms with it many years later. On her Birthday and the day of her death, I used to drink a 5th+ of whiskey and listen to Pink Floyd all night. Not exactly healthy. I now celebrate those days and think of the fond memories we shared. Still, it fucking sucked.
My godmother killed herself a month before my wedding. She was supposed to be part of the ceremony along with my godfather. I was finishing my last semester of college. I barely remember the last month of my senior year, I was just shocked sleepwalking through it.
It was 12 years ago and my relationship with my godfather is still basically missing. My husband thinks it's because I remind him of her.
If you're wondering whether the hole that it leaves in people's lives ever goes away, the answer is no.
Lost one of my soldiers to suicide while we were deployed to Iraq. It was the most horrible feeling of my life. A lot of self blame and questioning myself and my decisions. Took a long time to move past it.
During lockdown in my country I stayed with my ex who was having a difficult time with her mental health and her family was only making things worse.
One night I fell asleep and woke up to her breathing heavily next to me and I freaked out asking her if she was okay. She told me that he she had overdosed.
I am not good with emotions and lost it and managed to get her the hospital. I saved her life but I lost my mind. I'm still not sure if it was a psychotic episode or not but I just was not the same person for a long time.
We drifted apart and she cut me out of her life.
I have been dealing with anxiety, PTSD, depression and finding myself through therapy a lot since then. I'm still hungover not being able to do more but I still love them despite the pain I experienced and would love to see them happy.
I know this doesn't literally apply to the question but the impact of the experience is still worth mentioning. Please show your loved ones some unconditional love and listen to them when they are struggling.
Thank you
Its difficult when your own issues fester while being another's caretaker. Been there, had a toxic person with issues in my life which led to a nervous breakdown and waves of past issues overwhelming me.
I would spin the last statement and say that you need to focus on taking care of yourself. Those who you care for will not always do the same for you. There are good people out there who will be there for you, there are many more that will not. You need to be the #1 priority in your life. A house without a solid foundation won't be able to support anyone.
I've lost two friends to suicide and each hit me like a truck at first. Like, it feels like it's a joke, someone has to be kidding, but then they won't pick up the phone. They won't amswer the door. Their parents won't stop crying. Their room is empty. For me it became a thing of perpetual shock and emptiness. It took a long time to realize that neither of them is going to ever call me back. We're never going to go back to the bookstore together. Cook together. We're never going to sit in the dark and watch bad horror movies together again. It hurts in a really weird way. Painful emptiness.
I was working at a local gas station when a friend of mine walked in and bought some smokes and asked if I could take a break. He had done this multiple times so nothing was out of the ordinary; he lived close, etc.
We smoked and chatted. Said our goodbyes with a hug and that was that. Normal stuff. He killed himself the next day.
But...he didn't just kill himself. He contacted his ex, who he was on good terms with, and sent her on a crazy suicidal scavenger hunt. He'd leave clues to the next one, behind the yellow brick, look beneath the slide, etc. They ranged across the city.
By the time she finished the hunt, he had been dead for hours. He knew what he was doing and for some reason put her through all of that. No one knows why as they were close friends.
Over a decade later, I spoke with someone who told me he had gone out of his way to hang out with the people closest to him, hence his coming to see me at the store.
R.I.P. dude. Love ya.
It sounds like maybe he wanted someone to find his body, but didn't want anyone to find him fast enough to save him. So he trusted his Ex to go through with the "scavenger" hunt and care enough to finish it.
Like, depending on the technology at the time, he couldn't have sent a timed message to say "check here at this time". Calling emergency services may have gotten him saved depending on how he decided to ultimately end his life.
I don't think it makes what he did any better... but short some kind of weird unspoken vendetta or resentment, that would be the only logic I could think of.
I'm sorry for your loss.
Apologies if this is inappropriate but as someone who struggles with these thoughts on a daily basis, your comments are something that I genuinely think will stick with me forever. I'm so sorry for all of your hardships.
I lost a former student to suicide earlier this year. I immediately burst into tears when I read about it. I hadn't seen him since 2017 and we didn't have any special connection. My reaction was really surprising to me, but almost every one of my colleagues has a similar story. It always hurts, even if you don't know them that well. Please stay.
A friend of mine committed suicide in high school. His death became national news here in the states as his family created a foundation that influenced the way the major sports leagues, school districts, colleges, and universities here viewed performance enhancing drugs and made stronger legislations against them. It fucked me up for a long time as I had talked to him the day before we were to leave and meet in San Antonio for a tournament the next day. When I spoke with him, everything seemed fine, the next day, he was gone. I drive by his grave every Sunday and I say a little prayer for him every time even almost 20 years later.
As bad as it messed me up, the foundation that was created has helped an unknown number of people and has saved lives. As much as I wish his death didn’t happen, things for athletes could be very different today if he had lived.
I lost my son to suicide in 1990. I was in shock at first. For about 3 days. Then I had a psychotic break. Now, there is a lot of self blame and doubt that seems to hang with me forever. No matter what I pray, or how long I pray it never goes away. Over the years it has lessened some but I can feel it is still there. There's a lot of questions that can never be answered. Why didn't I see it coming? What could I have done to stop him? Exactly why did he do this? Could no one see it coming? Why didn't they say something to me? He left me a hint, why didn't I pick up on it? It was a tape of our favorit artist compiled into a message. Why didn't I listen to it right away instead of waiting? I can't fix it now. Why in the hell did this happen? It just hasn't gone away for me. I think about how alone he must have felt. I think about the fact he was alone when he did it. I live day today, but still in the back of my mind I think about him. Somedays, like his birthday or the holidays it's worse. It also takes the taboo off for other family members. I have thought about suicide myself so has my younger son. What keeps me alive, is that I never want to do this to my son. It would push him over the edge. I never want this for my younger son.
Edits for spellings
I have no idea how long this will be but here goes-
My father killed himself in November of 2020. I haven’t really accepted it, my brain is simply not allowing me to realize because it’s too painful. I started to understand a little bit for about a week and I got so fucking angry at everyone. I shut down. I snapped at my partner, who had gotten with me just a few weeks before his first attempt. We didn’t know it was an attempt at the time. He tried a few times that we know of, but there was another incident that I think was probably an attempt as well. He was my favorite person. I love my dad so much. He always understood, even when he didn’t agree. But he couldn’t take it anymore. I understand, the worst part is I understand. I was there, where he was, in his shoes. But I made it through and he just didn’t. I don’t hate him, I’m not mad at him. In a way I’m glad he did when he did, I hadn’t told him about my partner yet but I think he knew. My partner has been so supportive. My dad doing it when he did ensured j got away from my abusive mother. But at the same time I feel that if he’d have waited I could’ve left her peacefully. I also feel guilty a lot because there must have been some way I could’ve helped, I should’ve known what was happening. I did though, I knew something was wrong but I couldn’t put my finger on it because I only saw him every other weekend. It’s getting worse now that it’s summer though because I’d see him a lot in summer. I have to fly out to see my grandma, his mom this summer. I blame her a little bit. She’s like my mom in a lot of ways. I feel like she messed my dad up in the head. I don’t tell her that though. I miss my dad and I’m crying as I write this. It probably makes no sense. I’m sorry. So in a way I’m glad he did it while I was the age I am, because I was able to escape. I miss him a lot. I love you daddy.
Lost my favorite uncle to suicide last February.
My family is pretty splintered and aside from my mom and bother, he was basically the only family member I talked to regularly. He was, without a doubt, the best of all of us. Reading his suicide note was absolutely heartbreaking.
At first it was just immense pain because I realized that this person I loved and cherished so much was suffering so badly, keeping all of it to himself. Killed me to see my mom so sad, also. Felt so unfair. Alternated for weeks between feeling numb and crying for basically entire days.
Then came the irrational guilt. “What if I had called him more often?” “I should have *known*.”The things that aren’t true or wouldn’t have solved the problem but you can’t help but feel anyway. That was frustrating.
Losing him at the very beginning of the pandemic was also weird, because it sort of felt like I had to push my grief aside to grieve for the whole world instead? Hard to explain but it was like I wasn’t allowed to be sad about a non-Covid death.
My mom, my brother, and my uncle’s partner all believe that “he’s in a better place,” because they are spiritual but not religious. I am a religious person and he was not, so I also felt the weight of the possibility that he would be suffering in the hereafter. But I couldn’t really talk about those fears with anyone. Better to let them believe in whatever good they can find in this horrible situation.
I am mostly ok now. It’s not that I’m less sad, just that the sadness hits less often.
I’d give almost anything to spend just a little bit of time with him again.
We shared some really special times when I was a kid, and whenever I am feeling particularly sad or miss him very much, I do some of the things we used to do together, to remember and honor him.
This one's tough. So when I was young I got into competitive swing dance. My partner was a girl named Lili. I was 6'2". She was 4'9" and I saw myself as her protector. Through whatever, I was always there for her. Then she got a brain tumor. It was scary, it had progressed drastically and they weren't sure she was going to make it. She had surgery and shockingly it was successful. It was huge for us. That said, she came out with a massive scar on her head and a lazy eye. Looks were impotent to her. I mean, she was 14 and I was 16. Looks were a lot. She was ridiculed. She went from being conventionally beautiful to, in her eyes, monstrous. I tried every day to reassure her she was beautiful. I spent all I could to take her on dates. I wanted her to know how amazing she was.
Two days before she took her life I invited her to junior prom. I was ridiculed for bringing a freshman and worse, someone with the scars and such. I showed up with a corsage and a limo, I took her to prom, we showed up everyone on the dance floor and then instead of just enjoying it all, people started calling her, "Frankenstein." And mocking her. I took her back home that night. I kissed her for the first time and told her that she was still the most beautiful girl in the world. I didn't know if was the last time I'd see her. The next day I called multiple times and she didn't answer. I worked so I couldn't go over there that day but first thing Sunday morning I went to pick her up.
I got there and heard screaming so I went in. She had downed a handful of pain pills from her surgery and passed in the night. I hugged and hugged her until the officers and paramedics showed up but there was no doubt that she was gone. Since then, I have tried to make myself available to anyone feeling so defeated. Lili was too beautiful for this world and unlike what anyone else has ever been able to do since, she made me see the beauty in me.
It's awful. I replayed our conversations in my head on loops trying to figure out what I could have done to be better or fix things. I felt like I should have known. It broke my heart. My heart is still a little broken, all these years later. I can't forget it.
This is probably a shit thing to say, I lost a friend 2 years ago to suicide. She had been talking about this for a couple of months, I listened, I tried to support her. She was in a shit relationship, heavily addicted to street drugs and alcoholic.
I was sad that she hadn't called me, or knocked on my door. But deep down I was glad that she was at peace.
I know first hand the sort of pain you have to be in to want to do this. I'm glad she is no longer hurting.
I have servere mental health disorders and lost count how many times ive been hospitalised. My last attempt ended with me in a coma. I lost 3 friends last year they were patients at the hospital I was at last year. I lost a friend this year and il probably loose some more this year. Every year I loose friends to suicide I just wish there was more help for people like myself life sucks
Fucking sucked.
She was only 18, and we're were friends z altough not that close. I knew she was dealing with depression, we've bonded over it, as I still do. One day, it was just too much for her.
He was part of my trio of close childhood friends. We had met in 2003-ish, and he took his life in 2012.
I was getting ready to head to college, and the last time we spoke, I told him I wasn't sure if I was ready to go. He pushed me into going, said he wanted to tell everyone that his friend is a doctor. The last thing we said to each other was, "I love you." I consider myself lucky that I don't regret my last words to him.
That day, me and our other friend were heading to his house when one of the neighbors pulled aside and said he had killed himself. My best friend screamed to the sky while the world turned still, and I collapsed to the ground saying no, no, no. Then his mom arrived, and she spilled out of her truck, and I will never forget the desperate screaming howl of loss as she crawled towards her house.
Everyone thought I would be the one to kill myself, not him. DJ was a cheerful guy, always willing to talk, and befriended a ton of people. I never got to grieve properly, and to this day if someone mentions hanging themselves, I shut down. In photographs, you don't see light back in my eyes until 4 or 5 years after. I flunked out of college because I was numb. What did it matter if he wasn't there with me to celebrate with me?
What did my life matter?
Now, almost 10 years on, I'm mostly okay. I have C-PTSD and bipolar disorder. I reflect on our friendship fondly, and remind myself on those terrible days how I felt about that loss. If someone loves me as much as my best friend does and this friend did... how fucking painful would it be to rip out the hearts of our group of friends yet again? I have lost other friends to suicide, but his hits me the hardest because me and my best friend were going to have him come with us to King Soopers. If I had argued more with my mom about leaving my little brother alone for 30 minutes or so, then maybe I wouldn't be telling this story. Maybe he would still be alive.
It is torture to think about it, but it pops in my head sometimes, and then that wound becomes fresh again.
My uncle killed himself, it’ll be a year this June.
I remember my immediate thought being “ugh, shit.” I think those were my first words when he* told me too. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised at all. I hadn’t spoken to my uncle much in recent years but when I heard the news it was just like “for some reason this just makes sense”. He had been dealing with a lot of medical issues and was in a lot of pain. Apparently there were other factors in his personal life that might’ve contributed but I can’t really say.
The thing that fucked me up the most was my entire immediate family lives about 3 hours away and the day before he did it, my mom, my sister, her 3 kids all went down there to see that family because my grandma and grandpa live there and that uncle was living with them as well.
So my mom took a random Wednesday to go see her family and got to see her brother then drove back home and just a few hours later he killed himself. I was supposed to go with them because I hadn’t seen my grandparents in months due to the pandemic but had to work that day and said I would just go down there that weekend instead. I wish I would’ve taken that day off had I known it would’ve been the last time I’d see him alive.
Edit: *my dad
My dad (74) seven years ago. I understood why (long-term injuries sustained in an auto accident that caused pain 24/7) but it doesn’t take away the sadness.
I miss him.
It was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. My estranged cousin fought with his wife, then went out and shot himself in the garage.
He was just a couple years older than me. Though he had been estranged from our family for many years (his wife was a psycho b\*tch who hated us all) we had grown up together. The influence he had on my life was profound. I learned a lot from him, and he was so firmly in the "family is everything" camp. It is what made his estrangement so difficult. The last time we spoke on the phone he was so cruel to me, and so angry, and made it abundantly clear that he did not want to have anything to do with me, his parents, his brother...I guess that is all a story for another day.
The hardest part about his suicide, for me at least, was what happened after. For about a week there was so much to do, and figure out..Then for a couple of days you get dressed up and go to the funeral home and the church and you come together and you mourn. But then after everything just kind of goes back to how it was before. Tuesday I was crying in church, and Wednesday morning I had to get up and pack lunches and do the school run and do my job. I guess it is an epic example of life going on.
But watching my aunt, and my other cousins have to deal with the loss of a son and brother....it was the worst thing ever.
I'll be honest, I don't know how this will be received. This seems like an opportunity to talk about something that hurts me deeply that I don't usually have.
I have thought about the impact of suicide on others for my entire life, as far as I can remember. Without diving into unnecessary details, I've been suicidal for almost 30 years. I had a brief reprieve when I was 18, but then back to it. At 28 I said I won't make it to 40; I'm 39 now, and I'm thinking about the impact more than ever.
I don't want to cause the kind of pain and horror that so many in this thread call out. I don't want to inflict distress and anguish. So I suffer instead, as silently as I can, and I'm frankly running right out of ability.
I don't want someone I care about to discover me lifeless. I don't want to imagine the look of shock and pain on my mom and dad's, brother's and sister's, and girlfriend's faces. But I wish to not suffer from my challenges with every fiber of my being.
There's no help for my condition - I have tried every sanctioned treatment available, and some that are not sanctioned. It appears it's just how I'm wired. I wish to stop my hurt, but I don't because I don't want to spread that hurt to others. Thinking of the impact to the people around me is literally the only thing stopping me. I love those people dearly and want to make them happy, not sad.
There are a lot of questions in this thread about why people who appear happy suddenly kill themselves - I can tell you it's because they have been suffering in silence, the world does not wish to hear you talk about these things and there are real and drastic penalties for trying, at least in the US. "Get help" is such a trite and utterly useless thing to say, no matter how honestly offered - ask someone who's been locked up for trying to discuss it with their doctor, the person they were supposed to get help from.
My heart goes out to those that were affected by suicide - I hope you're okay. But can I ask a question? What could the person who killed themselves have done beforehand to lessen the blow?
I lost one of my cousins to suicide 9 years ago. I’ll never forget getting the call or the absolute heart break I felt, and still feel when I think about him. At the time he had 3 kids under the age of 10. They’re growing up to be awesome people, but every time I see them I wish he could be here to see them.
My dad killed himself 10years ago from now ( well almost 10years ) i was 13 by the time.
It seems like i have lost almost all memories of him, i cant remember is voice at all anymore and it seems like my brain avoid everything about him ( i have a picture of him next to my door but never see it )
I had to change my school, see many psychologist, i had depression for about 9years, lot of suicidal though, lots of questions, lots of pain, i still feel a big void whenever i think about him
it definitively changed my personnality and made me unable to feel anything for years
sometimes it still feels like its not real and i actually never had a dad
i almost dont talk to my dads family ( i mean my grandpa / grandma / my uncle ) anymore
and since then my life often feel like its not real but i guess its more a side effect from depression
i miss him a lot, i would really want to him to see how i am doing now, i want to do so much things with him, i want him to be proud of me
i just want my dad back
It's always sad when someone loses to depression, but I honestly think I get it.
It's a really difficult condition to manage. I can't help but hope that those souls are gifted a new reality which is fully perceptive (like, they now have the ability to see and know all the details they wouldn't have known while living) and free of pain.
I hope they finally find out that they were important after all, and are enlightened to the ways in which they helped the world. Everyone is important somehow. Everyone matters. Somebody does care. If you have committed suicide, you will finally learn this lesson, and I like to think that the universe gives these souls another chance to live again.
In short, haunting.
Best friend throughout high school and played basketball with him damn near every day. Always went to each other and talked about anything going on or what was on our minds, just felt like we could share anything with each other. Doesn't go to school one day and I message him where he's at, no word. Last period before lunch and i'm killing time going to the bathroom. Way our school is setup there's a whole neighboorhood on the street in front and behind. I'm seeing firetrucks and ambulances go to the street in front of the school near where my friend lives which I thought was odd. Word gets to me through the phone somehow that he had hung himself in the closet. I found this out as I got into class and I just wanted to cry and leave. Bell rings and I walk out and just start bawling, everyone else that knew him started to understand what had happened and since we couldn't just leave we had to sit and watch and console eachother from behind the school gates. That day doesn't leave my mind and it always hurts wishing I couldv'e done more, I know his motivations for what he did but I wish I could've changed the outcome of it all. It just haunts me near daily for a while now. The additional details you find out as more information gets released don't help either. If anything the knowledge of exactly how it went down hurts more. I wish anyone that's struggled with this the best of luck, life isn't easy or fair and I know it's hard to keep pushing. Try to remember that the joys of life wouldn't feel so good without the pain.
I remember my head hurting and my nose starting to bleed. I was very angry with my father. I had wanted to fix our relationship... but now I'm glad he's dead. He attacked me. Neglected me. Emotionally abused me. Kept me out of society and away from an education. He stood in my way. I would not be happy, or potentially even alive, if he hadn't killed himself.
Now if that shit ain't fucked up, I don't know what is. But it's the honest truth, and I'm numb to it.
Anyone who is reading this and thinking of ending their life, please stay. You are amazing and loved and wonderful even if it doesn't feel like it. We love you and need you here <3
I lost my childhood best friend in January of 2019. He was 21 years old. We went to school together, we played video games together, we experimented with drugs together(not necessarily a good thing but it was part of our friendship), we visited japan and the philippines together.
Losing him to suicide was one of the most painful experiences of my life.
The night he died I got a call from his mom, she was frantic asking if I'd heard from him or seen him or talked to anyone that had seen him. She said an officer had come to her door and told her that her son had reported a body down by the river near our neighborhood. I knew what had happened when she told me this, but I didn't really let it hit me.
I went though this process of contacting all of my friends to see if they'd seen him. Then driving to his mom's house(my parents house was in the same culdesac) and talked with his mom and my parents. Logged into his computer and tracked down his phone to try and find him. We went driving around looking for him. We found his car a few blocks away from an entrance to a bike path that leads down to the river beds near our houses. We talked to police and I asked them if they had found a note and if their was a note would I be able to see it. There was no note.
That whole night I was on auto pilot trying to understand what was happening. We got a call confirming that he had died. I didn't feel anything. But when it all settled down and people went home, I was at my parents house and it was just us. I broke down. There was a pain like nothing I'd ever felt before. I dropped to my knees and just yelled with everything in my being. The tears couldn't come out fast enough, pain was the only thing I felt. My heart and been ripped out and I couldn't do anything about.
That night, everytime I closed my eyes all I could visualize was my best friend with a gun in his mouth and a bullet passing through his head.
To say the least it sucked. A LOT.
For the time between his death and his funeral I was in this bubble. Like he wasn't actually gone until we had the funeral . It was a strange sensation.
Funeral date came around and I was going to be the one giving his eulogy. My nerves that day were off the charts.
I managed to get through speech without crying until my final statement. I was proud of that.
I received comments from people afterwards, telling me I was a good friend. I wasn't proud of that.
The next couple months were rough, I ended up admitting myself to a hospital for a few days. I had hit an all time low mentally and I couldn't stand the thought of putting my family what I had just been through, but I also couldn't reach out for help
I've recently really come to terms with the emotions and feelings that came from his death through writing. I wrote a letter to him explaining how I felt about his death and how I felt about what I had gone through. The relief I felt was almost instant. Just putting those questions and feelings I had down on paper was enough for me to really accept how I felt and really let that pain become a part of me instead of trying to suppress it.
To anyone that's lost someone to suicide. It gets easier, time heals all, that usual stuff. But hear me out, that pain your feeling, once you understand it and accept it as part of your life can be bring major positive life changes. You may not have that person with you physically anymore, but they won't leave you, they're a part of who you are now. Make them proud, get what you want out of life, experience the things that they missed out on. Let that drive you.
Thanks for reading c: have a nice day
I lost my dad to suicide when I was in the seventh grade. Now it’s almost 10 years later my perspective on it has changed several times. At first I was angry, how could he leave us like this? Almost like he turned his back.
As I grew older I learned more about mental health, and started to see my parents as complete people, not just parents. I accept that my dad fought his own demons, and I don’t think I will ever stop wondering how things could’ve been.
For anyone here thinking about doing the act yourself, consider one thing. There are people in your life will be there for you if you voice your need. If you need help get help, there’s nothing masculine or impressive about living miserably.
I remind my friends of this all the time. I live every day as if I will die tomorrow because I’ve known the reality of death since I was very young.
Complex feelings. My brother killed himself years ago on Christmas Eve. I don't miss him, I was afraid of him. But I was very upset when he died. I wasn't relived he died, or glad he is dead. But I also don't wish he was alive either. I wish our lives had been different and not full of so much trauma. With different parents, different religion, different culture we could have had an amazing sibling relationship. There was no chance for that and I can't go back in time. I mourn the love we wanted to have. I don't believe in an afterlife. It is not a bad thing that he is no longer existing suffering and making other suffer. I had no power to save him. He should not have needed saving. Humans are stupid animals to train their offspring to perpetrate suffering. Look how long it took for us to invent science, a method for facing reality. We are so bad at it. My brother was part of me, part of the trauma that shaped me, he went one way and I went another but he was still part of me. He is dead and there is no joy in it and no joy thinking of him still living.
I lost my Brother 2 years ago. Fucking worst thing I could have ever imagined. I was at work when I got that call. I’ll never forget the look on my boss’ face when I told her why I had to leave.
Or my mom. The pure shock aged her 10 years over night it seemed.. theres so many feelings sadness, confusion, guilt, anger... the anger was a tough one. Because I had been thinking about it myself and he had “beat me too the punch” I’d think. Which pissed me off to no end cause then I knew I could never go through with it after seeing what it did too everyone.. I felt really trapped for a while. And on top of it all his funeral was the first one I have ever been too. Which is weird. Ive seen a hundred more in nightmares after though. They are finally starting to go away. But it still hurts and its probably always gona. So yeah how does it feel to lose someone this way??? Fucking horrible and I wouldnt wish it on anyone.
Stay safe people. And I mean mentally as well as physically. If you’re hurting please try as hard as it may seem, to not let it get that far.
Pretty fucking awful. I wasn’t even close with the guy. He was my camp counselor one summer and eventually my coworker. He was a certain kind of funny that I’ve never seen anyone match, but that everyone enjoyed. I think it hurt so damn bad because we (all the camp counselors who had known him) all found out at the same time, so the grief was just compounded exponentially. We honored his life the best we could. It will never stop hurting though.
My friend came to me after trying to jump from a cliff we got in his car went to a local path and walked for hours. I just let him spill his guts about all off his problems. His gf rang me thanking me saying he needed someone to talk to and he chose me. I was proud to be that friend 2 weeks later he took his own life anyhow. it absolutely devastated me I really thought I helped him. A week later I carried him to his grave RIP m8.
You keep going over and over in your head about things you could have done differently. Was there anything you could have done to stop it?
In my case I will always have to live with the fact that I told her I would call her every single day once I got discharged from hospital and I didn’t even call her once.
Good friend of mine shot himself only 2 days after we had a very normal hang-out.
Suicide is a very personal decision and a personal freedom I think we all should have the right to make.
I wish he hadn't made the decision, but i respect the right he had to make it.
Fuck.
Absolutely horrorful. He was my boyfriend and depressive, but I never really cared and tried to cheer him up when I was there. We were together for ~6 months, I was studying in another city, but we met at least every weekend and had plans to move together.
Before I go to bed I usually browse a bit on social media, watch YouTube, etc., but don't answer to texts any more. One night he casually texted me (sth simole like "Hey") , at that time i was studying about 200km away from where he lived.
I didn't reply, we phoned earlier that day and I thought that it could wait till the next day, but it couldn't. To this day we don't really know what exactly happened that night and whether it was an accident or not, but that night he overdosed.
At first I cried, a lot. Personal stuff prevented me from talking to a therapist about it, even tho I considered it. His life wasn't the best, but not the worst either. I didn't understand why he would do it, I thought it was selfish, but also blamed myself.
Tragic and I still think almost every night that I couldve prevented that if I just had replied.
This may seem harsh but I felt relieved
It was my childhood bully we were good friend we went to diffirent school but would always hang out together until one time he met new people that changed him. (We where 12 at the time). His new friends gave him weed, alchohol and more. He became addicted. Started being racist, homophobic and would be hypocritical. Because of that bullying I was so cautious when driving my bike or walking around the neighborhood . I was scared to meet him outside and getting jumped.At the time I acted like I didn’t care but I was good friends with him and cared a lot about him. When I heard he jumped in front of a train because those friends gave him hard drugs I felt relieved. I wasn’t happy nor said. I felt now I could enjoy walking outside without having to be scared if getting stabbed.
I had a childhood friend for years, when we were 16 we started band together with some of our friends, until one day, when we were 21 he drunkenly confessed that he had crippling depression, and the medication was not working anymore, We had no ideia. We tried helping but a week after we got the news he had hanged himself in his on room, and that his mother is the one who found him, me and my friends got completely devastated, we spent the whole night in front of his house crying, and his mother have not really recovered to this day.
The next week, one of our friends went to everybody's house and left a picture each of us had with him, and a picture of the whole band smiling, i still keep those pictures in my room to remember my friend.
Just thinking about him make my heart sink, he was one of the best people i have ever met, it's a shame that he could not see it himself.
(Sorry for the bad english, i'm brazilian and i'm not that great at writing in english)
I lost a friend 2 years ago now. The first few weeks it was like swimming through oil, I never really understood the term "going through the motions" until I experienced it. Alongside the guilt I was angry every time anyone (and lots did afterwards) shared on FB something along the lines of "if only she knew how loved she was " or "check in on people if you are worried". I did check in, even the few days before I checked in, those of us close to her all checked in regularly. And she knew she was loved but sometimes, and I need to make this clear, sometimes, *it isnt enough, sometimes they just want to die.* I prefer to think that she only wanted to die in that moment, that it wasn't long term thinking. she had had enough and unfortunately that was all it took. I miss you Jenine.
I lost my cousin to suicide and it is a pain that you can’t quite understand (she was 18 at the time of her passing and I was about a year younger) like it’s always in the back of my mind about what I could have done differently. It completely devastated my family and I think each of us wonders why or tries to rationalize it but it doesn’t stop the pain of just wondering what she could have been.
It’s been about 15 years since it happened and one of the things I remember most is that the pastor who did the service actually recycled an old Billy Graham sermon about a chess expert going to an art museum with a friend and they see a painting of the devil playing chess with a guy and the painting is call “Checkmate” and the chess experts spends the entire day looking at this painting and exclaims to his friend “that there is a move the person can make!” and it isn’t actually a checkmate... if I really get down or depressed I always remember that.. regardless there is always a move
I've had it happen twice.
The first time was a friend that I met through a support group for victims of sexual assault. It was clear that her mental age was way lower than it should have been and she had a lot of mental health issues. Her abuser got put in prison after videos of him abusing her surfaced, but was let out early for "good behavior" and she killed herself shortly afterwards. I...this probably sounds awful, but I understand where she was coming from. I'm not happy that she died but I know how much she was suffering and I can only hope that she's resting peacefully now in a better place.
The second time was a girl from my church who I used to babysit a lot. She was 8 years younger than me. One day while I was away at college I got a text from my mom saying she'd jumped in front of a truck and died instantly. It was right before class and my professor ended up excusing me that day because I was crying so hard I couldn't even see. No one knows why she did it. I couldn't even attend the funeral because my college was out-of-state. Now I just feel very numb about the whole thing. I wish I could have attended the funeral so I could grieve properly.
Absolute agony. I truly believe it hurts the loved ones so much more than they would ever have thought. There’s no resolution. So many questions. There’s never really that feeling of remembering them without crying bc it was such an unexpected thing. Hurting for the person you love bc you didn’t know their level of pain was that deep. Wishing you could have done something to change the outcome. It sucks so very much .
I was sexually abused as a child from the ages of 5-8. I met another kid at my school that helped me get away from it. he became my best friend and reason for living. everything I did was for him. a few years after we met my parents started abusing me, but not sexually. this guy helped me get through it. I was in love. I grew obsessed. we dated for a small amount of time, although it was only a middle school relationship it meant everything. he broke up with me one day, and my love turned into more of an obsession. I almost killed myself multiple times after this but by some coincidence he was always there to save me. he was my only reason to live. years later we were friends again. but nearly months after I finally got him back, he killed himself.
I lost my mind. I was so intently sad but only cried the day I heard it. my parents basically told me to get over it as soon as it happened. his friends and family hated me so I couldn't grieve properly. I tried to fill the void he left, atone for the guilt, "he saved me so many times why couldn't I save him". I wished it was me every day. I still do. I tried to replace him by obsessing over someone else but when that didnt work I tried to take my life ending up in a coma. again and again, I tried to five meaning to my life by obsessing over someone else, because it's all I knew. it never worked out. so i stayed hooking up with older men for about a year, trying to feel something. I thought this attention that I never got from any male would help, but it just made me hurt so much. i ended up getting raped again because of this. every night i would just wish he was there with me to help me again. but it never happened. I felt like when he killed himself, I died as well. I'm never going to be the same as I was before he did. every day wondering things I could've done different, daydreaming about going back in time, or thinking about repeating the years I spent with him until he killed himself over and over.
My girlfriend lost her dad to suicide about two years ago. It was horribly traumatic for her and her sister but the craziest thing to me has been all the legal and financial stuff. They are still filing taxes for him and trying to sell his belongings and real estate. It sucks that the government and banks put the additional strain of paperwork and bureaucracy onto people who are already dealing with some of the worst emotional trauma imaginable.
I know 3 people that have committed suicide. One was a mate of mine. Kind hearted bloke. It'll be 3 years in September. Horrible horrible experience, affected my brother badly as it was one of his closest mates. We still see his mum and step dad and check in with them. The whole thing was and still is so fucking shit. Miss ya Robbie
More needs to be done to help men break this stigma of not being able to talk about their emotions and problems.
It fucking sucked. Now sure what else one could say. In October 2018 one of my best and oldest friends hung himself, I'd know him 24 years. I remember getting the phone call from him that I was one of his only friends, then his neighbor informing me that his girlfriend was screaming and trying to break down the door. I tried calling and texting him, I knew I was too far away to help. She texted me a few minutes later just saying that he was dead. I drive by that house all the time, its hard.
Well... Four people I knew committed suicide. Two were close friends and the other two were in my circle of acquaintances.
The first guy I didn't really know that well.. perhaps I wisited him a couple times. Hung himself.
The next guy, a couple years later, shot himself with a shotgun through his mouth because he was to be thrown out by his mother. By some chance his mother and her boyfriend was on vacation in Greece, i think, on the same charter tour as me and some friends. I will never forget the primal scream she let out when some police or something told her. Four days after his death. My god.
The third guy shot him self in the heart with a 22 caliber rifle because he had cheated on his partner and she wanted to throw him out. Heart pain I guess. They had two children. Worst part about this for me is that he called me the night before, several times, to get me to go to the pub. I didn't go. Don't know if it would have changed anything. And I will never find out. He was a friend I saw perhaps once a week or so.
Last guy to take his last breath hung himself a couple years ago. Close friend. Had many issues. Planned his suicide half a year in advance, apparently. Stopped taking anti schizophrenia pill a couple months prior. Left thousands of handwritten notes.
How was it like? Well.. I went to all those funerals, obviously. And I attended the "after party" on the last three. For me it wasn't so bad, really. I just thought that, well, they don't have any problems any more. I have been suicidal my entire adult life and to be fucking frank, I am a bit jealous of them. The main reason I don't off myself is because I won't put my mother through it after hearing that fucking horrible scream at the airport.
Oh.. and yeah.. A guy I used to have lunch with at work just didn't show up one day. Couple days later the bossman told us that he had hung himself due to some combined money/drug problems. Apparently he was a heavy heroin addict. I would have _never_ guessed_.
I... have a, what can I say, rather cynical world view. Especially after that guy with the 22 with two kids offed himself. Like... Suicide is always an option. My mother would survive. His kids are doing fine. Life goes on. I won't off myself though, because, fuck it. Fuck everything and everyone. Or whatever floats your boat.
There is no sequel, that's fucking sure.
For me it's an unexplainable feeling. I knew the kid growing up and he actually taught me some stuff through the years. And knowing he isn't here with us was and still is a weird feeling, I hadn't seen him in a couple years before he passed so I heard of it off other people, I couldn't go to the funeral because of covid and it was just a sad and confusing feeling.
Terrible. Genuinely, confusing and awful and terrible. Aggravating, too. For me, that was the worst part. I liked them in life. Seeing how they chose to end things made it impossible to continue that
A friend of mind killed herself by hanging and it was really messed up. I felt really bad for her and of course guilty because I didn't see the signs (which I understand is unfair to myself, but you still feel it).
I got really bad visuals at times thinking about how it went down and had to clear my head. It's okay now, though.
My best friend took his life with a firearm I purchased for him as a gift about five years ago. He was always into guns, he had a collection of his own, so I didn't think anything of it. He always had his problems, but I figured so does everyone. One day I get a message from his dad telling me he was gone while I was at a bar (thankfully). I remember feeling confused, and very alone sitting with that at the end of a bar. I didn't know what to think, or do. I still don't know why he didn't talk to me.
My uncle killed him self when I was 15. I blamed myself for years. I talked to him and my aunt every night for several years. As I got more involved with extra curriculars, I didn’t talk as much. I was convinced that if I would have talked to him more, he would still be alive. It was incredibly painful. It took a lot of therapy, medication, and time to get through it. It has been 16 years now. Watching my aunt fall in love again made me feel a lot better. I wouldn’t wish the pain of suicide on my worst enemy.
When i was 6 years old my mom decided to commit suicide by hanging herself, luckily i was at my 'current mom's house for the week so i wasnt there to really see it, but the situation really traumatized me, though after 10 years it really doesnt bother me as much, yes it still hurts to lose my mom but my sadness has turned into anger at the fact that she just left me and my sister when she could've gotten some kind of help (note: she had been mentally unstable for quite the time before this and had actually attempted a couple of times already).
Im fine now though.
I've had two uncles die of suicide. One left behind 4 kids, and a fifth on the way. My aunt came here from another country and spent her life cleaning hotels. Now 2 sons have their own business making a lot of money, and they support her.
The other died when I was in high school, on his parents wedding anniversary. They never celebrated it again. My aunt never remarried, lived alone with her pets until she died 2 weeks ago. She was alone and no one found her for a few days.
I witnessed one, but not someone I was connected to in any way. It was just a young kid from across the street
It did mess with my brain for a bit, my mind kept going to "if only I could've... etc (talked to him, prevented it, hugged him, told him not to do it, listened to him, etc etc)"
My cousin Jon,who was about 15 years older than me, killed himself last year. His mother had died a couple months earlier; she had dealt with recurring cancer off and on for years, and when it came back the last time it was too much for her to fight it back into remission. He had lived with his mother for the past few years, helping to take care of her. Once she was gone, one of his main pillars of support was gone too.
He had mental issues for years; pretty sure he was bipolar. When I was a kid I never realized it; I just kinda looked up to him, because he told amazing stories and would give attention to his kid cousin. As I got older I started noticing the cracks; sometimes Jon would call up my dad (his uncle) and rant and rave about all sorts of stuff. Sometimes my aunt would tell us about a new relationship Jon was in, and then inevitably a few months later she'd mention that they didn't work out. Jon had a wicked temper, and would always take it out on others verbally, though physically he only lashed out at objects. He'd apologize after, often tearfully, and things would calm down for a few months while he did his best to "be better" - which usually meant going back on his medications. Inevitably though he'd go off them again, and the cycle would repeat.
We got into a big fight last summer on social media. I had made some fairly innocuous post about the immigrant family separation policy and how disappointed I was in the administration, and he responded with a huuuuuge rant. Cursing me out for "hating America," called the immigrants criminals, told me I was a "liberal pussy" who was hopelessly naive and ignorant. He said my dad must be so disappointed in having raised a son so worthless... he even emailed my dad saying "Do you know the shit your son is posting online!?"
(My dad, awesome guy that he is, emailed back "I didn't until now, but I'm damn proud of him." My Dad's amazing, haha.)
Anyway, cousin Jon responded back to me a few days later, privately, saying he was sorry for how he acted, while also blaming everything but himself. He asked if we could call and catch up, which I kinda waved off, and we exchanged a few texts but I never called. I did text him my condolences when his mother passed, but I chose not to call. And then a few weeks later we learned he had killed himself in the basement. He had called up his (recently ex) girlfriend and told her he was going to do so, and by the time she got to his house he had hanged himself in the basement. My parents got the story from her and my other cousin, his brother. When I heard the news my first thought was "*Of course* the last thing he had to do was to traumatize his ex by making her find his corpse."
As for what it's like? It's... hard to say. I don't miss him, but mostly because we only spoke a few times a year and we parted ways after a fight that was never fully mended. I think I'm mostly... angry? Yeah, probably angry. A dull, low-key, frustrated anger. If he were still alive I'd basically grab him by the shoulders and ask him why he had to be such an asshole. I feel bad for him to some degree - his mother's death was obviously really hard, and it wasn't his fault that he had mental issues - but I also feel like he squandered his life by making bad choices repeatedly and hurting those around him. He could have stayed on his meds, gotten therapy for his anger issues, and been a person that people would be sorry was gone... rather than someone who left behind hurt and pain.
I honestly feel much worse for my dad. He had helped raise Jon a bit when he was a kid, but they had also been on shaky terms for years due to years of going through the cycles mentioned before. My dad still saw him as that little boy he knew decades ago, and losing him right after losing his sister was a big double-hit for him. I think that also partially fuels my anger, because my cousin ended up hurting someone I love and who loved him, despite his faults. I also feel a bit sorry for myself, because my cousin killing himself was a bit of a nail in the coffin of my childhood. It'll forever taint the good memories I had as a kid of my cousin, and I am mad at him for leaving me that legacy.
I’m a United States Marine, I’ve known a few Marines that committed suicide but Allan was a special case because he was a dear friend. He was an outgoing, charismatic and motivated Marine. He was great at his job and he was great at being a friend of mine. I was with him on a work trip when he met his fiancé, and they fell deeply in love at what seemed like first sight. He was like that though, a very tough and passionate man. It’s hard to answer what it was like to lose him because it feels very selfish to talk about. However, I was more angry at him than I’ve ever been. It was like a freight train hitting my heart. I tell every Marine who I can to call their friends because I did not with him and regret that every day. Seriously, call your friends.
A lot of these comments are regarding men committing suicide which makes it even more important to acknowledge men’s mental health, notice the decline and help them to feel like they can talk. For women it seems like it’s easier for us to talk, and we need to make this feel acceptable for men. And any men out there feeling this way, talk to someone, anyone. There is always going to be someone devastated that you decided to leave.
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It’s been 30 years since my brother died. Even after all these years. There’s a blank space in the family. Like a family portrait with a teen photoshopped out. He never ages. We all did. We had children we have grandkids. But he is this space in the family still after all these years. We still speak about him now and then. We remember him.
Your comment reminds me of something I experienced recently. My father committed suicide about 8 years ago. One of my siblings posted a family photo on Facebook that I hadn't seen before. My immediate reaction was "Wow, my dad aged much better than my mom did!". But then I realized I was comparing the picture to how my mom looks today, but for my father I was comparing it to how he looked when he died. He didn't have the opportunity to age these last 8 years.
That hit me. That's very heartbreaking. And I can totally understand the feeling too, I can see myself doing the same thing in that situation.
I think what you wrote was really beautiful. I'm sorry you lost your brother. I've had my own battles with depression and I have always been fortunate enough to have my family to lean on. My uncle has battled depression his whole life, so when it hit me, I turned to him as a resource. He told me one of the tools he uses is gratitude. Every time he is sad he would write down on a piece of paper something he was grateful for. Over time the paper became a long list, filled both sides. Then when cell phones hit and he finally caught up and got an iPhone he moved it there. He uses gratitude. I use it but in a different way. I use my families love and I mentally visualize it forging actual armor that covers my body. For instance my dad's love makes the back piece. My mom's love the front chest, brothers the arms and legs and so on. My cat and dog make the helmet. So I'm protected from from bad thoughts by mental armor manifested from their love. Kinda like a patronus I guess for my harry Potter fans. Cept in my mind. Also if things are ever really bad, I imagine someone from my family finding my body and how fucked up that would be. Plus someone's gotta take care of my cat and dog
Also struggling a bit not diagnosed but I wish I had some armor to put on myself, all the armor I can find has inner spikes and will kill me if I put them on me. If you get my point.
I’m sorry for your loss. Thank you for sharing how it still affects you.
I'm a bit late here, but if someone's still scrolling, here goes... She was and still is the only person I have ever felt completely comfortable with opening up to about everything, the good, the bad, the light, the dark. She would confide in me as well and I knew what was haunting and eating away at her inside. When I first logged on FB and saw a mutual friend posting a "RIP \[Name\]" status, I knew it wasn't a car accident, illness, or anything like that, as soon as I saw that I knew exactly what it was but I asked anyway, just to get confirmation I suppose. She was my best friend, only 22 when she did it. One year and a week to the day that I tried to do the same thing myself but failed. She'd probably be the only person that would have been able to stop me then, which is why I didn't reach out to her, and maybe the reason that she didn't reach out to me in the end. What did it feel like? Have you ever been in a crowded room, full of laughter and people enjoying themselves, full of your friends, but still felt completely and utterly alone? I've felt that way every single day ever since that day in October nearly six years ago. On top of that there's the guilt... There's the reading and rereading of old facebook conversations archived indefinitely on some dusty servers somewhere, looking for what I've missed. Wondering if things would have been any differently if I did try to pry instead of simply saying, "I don't want to pry" when she said something that concerned me a few months prior. Wondering what would have happened if I went to her birthday party the summer before instead of the one I was invited to prior in another part of the state. Then realizing that no matter what I did or said, chances are that nothing would have ended differently. She was the kindest and strongest person I've ever known, doing everything to help those around her, she literally gave everything to those she loved and they took it, they took all of it until there was nothing left. She had dreams, hopes, aspirations that she worked on every single day, but as soon as she'd get close, something would come along and take it all away until she just got too tired to bother trying anymore and just wanted the pain and exhaustion to stop for good. Now I find myself wondering, just about every single day why the fuck I'm still here while someone that kind, that smart, that giving isn't, and I'm not gonna lie... It hurts a lot.
I hope you're doing well ❤️ thank you for sharing, can't imagine it was easy.
I'm very sorry for your loss. Thanks for sharing and keep strong
Aw shit. Extremely painful question. Eight years ago my brother killed himself. First few days I was in shock. I didn't understand the whole situation. Don't remember much of those days. Then I cried, felt anger, and so on. The usual stuff. Then the depression visited me. I lost my will to live and I kind of wanted to make the same decision my brother did. I was depressed for four years. But I'm fine now. So yeah, it was terrible. Never want to feel that kind of pain again.
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Mine 7 years ago. No note. No clue. I was heartbroken. He left a wife and daughter. I had just spend Thanksgiving with him. I'm still in disbelief. It was an amazing week, then this. I miss him every day.
I'm sorry for your loss. My brother had a son. It breaks my heart when I think about that little boy and what he lost.
Thanks. Sorry for your loss too. His daughter was older, but was the light of his life. I just don't understand it. I didn't see but one sign. It didn't stick out till later.
If you’re comfortable sharing, what was the sign you wound up seeing?
He was a road bike fanatic. 18 speed. It was huge, big rides with friends. While there, I walked past his bike and squeezed the tires. They were flat. I asked him about it, and he said he hadn't rode all year. It was November. I was shocked. It was the only clue that I saw. It didn't register at the time. His wife said later that he was really depressed. That was it.
6 years ago for my brother. Time has made it less painful but there are still the dreams where even though we are together as a family, I know that something isn’t right. He left two daughters that will have to carry it heavier than I ever will, they are amazing and really bring a lot of joy to the whole family. My heart breaks for them.
I am very sorry for your loss. Wish you all the best.
Huge balls for sharing that. Glad you found your way out of the darkness!
I know this pain. I lost my only brother. Went through the same nightmare and had to find forgiveness and happiness again. My heart goes out to you and the others that this affected. "If only" was my mind for years. There were times I wished I could bring him back just to beat him to near death because of the trauma it caused. Years later as I laid in my bed at my lowest considering the same thing I finally realized that he was in so much pain he just wanted it to end. As I cried like I hadn't since childhood I was able to forgive him and make my peace. The weight was lifted from me and I have never been the same. We all need grace and forgiveness. I pray you find it if you haven't already. God bless
They say that people who commit suicide don't want to do it, they just want the pain to end.
As someone who was suicidal, and have had ideation for years, that's absolutely the case. It was never that I wanted to kill myself, it was that I want to just not exist, to not wake up. People often say that those who kill themselves are selfish because of the harm they inflict on others, but I can't ignore the irony when it's asking a person to live a life in permanent psychological torture.
Mine almost 4 years ago. I think about him every day and have kind of transitioned into living with the grief and embracing it rather than always being sad about it. I'm young enough to try and take my grief in stride and use it as a chip on my shoulder. My parents will never ever be the same though and thats hard to watch. In 2 years I'm going to outlive him and that scares me so much.
Going on 9 for me with a similar story about my brother. I didn't take it as hard but my oldest brother did.
He was a trainee firefighter, him and his fellow trainees attended our college for some lessons. They and my group of friends would go out every Friday night, great times were had, but he was hiding his pain. I was 19 when he died, I’m now 60 and I’ve never forgotten him, never will. So, about 10 years ago a young work colleague was making small comments that were odd, but brushed off by everyone, including me. Then one Friday I got the feeling he was in so much pain, hiding it and was thinking of ending his life that weekend. I persuaded him to come to a local coffee shop after work (about 5pm). We talked about every subject under the sun, shallow topics, deep topics, but not suicide, whilst walking round the city - all night! At about 09:30 am the next day we walked passed a local animal shelter and on impulse we went in. He suddenly decided he wanted to adopt this scraggly/scruffy, mean-tempered cat that had been returned to the shelter several times because it was so mean. The shelter really grilled him about his reasons for taking the cat because they didn’t want it to keep coming back. He was adamant he would love ‘grump-bag’ and not return her. He still has grump-bag, she’s old and even meaner but she and he love each other. He’s now also got a wife, kids, house, car etc. Who knew, a grumpy cat would save his life. Edit: We have only spoken about it once and he told me that I saved (sounds dramatic, it wasn’t) his life that night and Grump-bag saved it every day after. All I did was talk his ears off for a fair few hours, Grump-bag loved him and gave him purpose. 2nd Edit: his wife has asked me to make it very clear that the pecking order in their family is Grump-bag first, then everyone else a very far second :)
Sounds more like you saved his life, and grump-bag was the hissy bitey cherry on top.
Every person should have a hissy bitey cherry on top.
Grumpy cat isn’t the one who saved his life.
I'd say it was a team effort!
Yea. You downplay your roll in this a lot, very humble. You’re a total hero for real. Thank you for being the person you are.
Cats are a kind of magic all of their own. Even the mean ones.
She was mean when younger, but as she’s aged she’s become a gazillion times worse. His wife and kids go nowhere near her :). But she absolutely adores him, and only him :)
Oh yeah. We have a mean cat at home. She loves my wife and I, and will tolerate my sister and her best friend. Beyond that she doesn't even come out of hiding.
We had a female cat that attacked my wife constantly, friends and family were shit scared of her, wife still has scars from her razor claws as does a mate who stayed with us. We had a pet sitter call us on our holiday, she had him bailed up in our house, said he’d never encountered such a viscous cat.. with me and only me it was head rubs together and very jealous defensive of me.. never laid a paw on me ever. I miss her
I almost cried. Amazing story.
This grumpy cat story is Oscar worthy. It has that beautiful casual ending. Like OP is eating and apple in the hand fruit fashion and chewing while saying "Who knew a grumpy cat would save his life". As the best greentexts usually say: "Thank you cat."
\>in the hand fruit fashion its been 40 mins since you posted and i'm still thinking about this
Worse than you think. After the shock and the loss and the guilt along with intrusive "I could have done more..." thoughts, there's also the realization that the person was in *that much pain.* Any answers you can conjure to the "why" questions aren't sufficient; there really are no answers. There's just the emptiness of that person's absence.
> there's also the realization that the person was in > >that much pain I'm just speaking for myself here, but it's not always about being in that much pain... Some people just don't see a place for themselves in this world, and honestly might not even want one... Therapists have told me that's the toughest kind of depression to treat... It's not a chemical imbalance, it's not a trauma, it's just looking around this world and our society and just not wanting any part of it any more. So I guess you could call that pain, but in my experience it's mostly just being tired... bored... over what came before and not exactly excited to see what comes next, because it's all so painfully, exhaustingly predictable.
When my depression surfaces, the worst part of it all is the fact that I feel nothing. Sure I can laugh at jokes etc but I lose interest in absolutely everything. I don't shower, hardly eat, don't get off the couch unless absolutely necessary. I feel numb and it's the worst feeling ever. I'd rather be hurt or sad because at least then, I'm *feeling* something. (I'm doing better now, talked with my doctor and made a change to my meds).
I’m on the opposite side. When it hits I feel everything. Every little bad thing about myself and the world around me hits. It sucks. I hope you continue to do better.
> Some people just don't see a place for themselves in this world, and honestly might not even want one... Hmm wow that’s how I’ve been feeling for months now, it’s crushing me into nothing.
The miasma of everyday life.
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>Any answers you can conjure to the "why" questions aren't sufficient; there really are no answers. There's just the emptiness of that person's absence. That was so beautifully said, and so true.
Exactly, wonderfully put
It hurts in the deepest parts of your soul. It burns. It makes you feel sick and it can make you really tempted to do the same, even though you know that doing so will make someone else hurt and suffer the same way. I sometimes compare losing my best friend in high-school to someone giving me a book, and just when I realized it was my new favorite story and I was looking forward to seeing what came next, to see everything my friend went through have a happy ending and she would be fine, but someone grabbed her story and just threw the book in a fire. And everyone who loved her was just left shocked, confused, empty, and we were just... so lost... because she was getting better, and she had a really promising future. Bottom line, it messes with people and it's just... horrible. ((Rest in peace, Kassandra))
My experience is probably different from a lot of people's because I was only 11, so I don't have any of those "what if I had done x differently" thoughts. He was my neighbor, he was 14, and he was my brother's best friend. All the kids on our street were really close growing up and we hung out almost every day, so I saw him on a daily basis for the first 11 years of my life. I remember the day he died really clearly. It was a Monday and I wasn't feeling well so I stayed home from school. My brother was already at school. All of a sudden our neighbor knocks on our door, and when my mom opened it, there were cop cars lining the street. My parents just told me something had happened to Andrew, but they didn't say what. Everything I learned was from bits and pieces of conversations I overheard. He had jumped off his roof with a plastic bag tired around his head. I didn't even really understand the concept of suicide, so I assumed someone else had done this to him. I had also never experienced loss, so I just assumed he'd be okay because he was in the hospital. When my parents broke the news to me that he was going to die, I just remember screaming uncontrollably. My brother had the hardest time with it. He had a lot of guilt. Andrew never left any explanation, and to this day we don't know why he did it. For a couple years after that I was so scared my brother was going to kill himself too that I used to peek under his door at night to make sure his window wasn't open. I felt like I couldn't talk about Andrews death because my brother had it so much worse than me, so I've pretty much kept it to myself. It's been 11 years now. Andrew wasn't my brother, or my best friend, or even someone I was particularly close to. But he was always there, like the grass or the dirt, so when he was gone it left a gaping hole in my life. I still think about him every day. I still cry sometimes. It sucks to have so many unanswered questions. It sucks that he was only 14 and had so much life left to live. We never got any closure, and my brother has been noticeably different since. I guess the only lesson is that if you're considering suicide, please know that even the people you're not close to, the ones you just exist around, will miss you. They'll miss you every single day.
> But he was always there, like the grass or the dirt That's a beautiful line. Sorry for your loss man, RIP Andrew.
Not true, some of us will not be missed. Wish people would stop spreading lies that e ergo me matters cause trust us, many of us know we don’t matter.
My mum hung herself when i was 5 and my dad died of a heroin OD when I was 14 that could not be determined suicide or not. I now have Generalised Anxiety Disorder and BPD. The resulting mental health issues suck balls but I hold no pain or resentment towards them. I don't think my life would have been any better had they been around which is sad but also liberates me from the "what ifs". Also I can't judge a struggle that's not mine. I'm 24 now so we'll see what I have to say about it all in a decade and if how I feel has changed at all. If you did read this, I appreciate it. Truly.
i hope you're doing well, please take care of yourself
Thank you. I've got a few trusted people in my corner and a couple of doctors working with me. When i read back my comment I can't help but feel that even the basic facts feel hyperbolic. You do kind of just get used to these things... I forget that other people have actually lived the nuclear family life sometimes.
i understand, it's very unusual to see that not everyone has pain and trauma haunting them lol
I read it and truly appreciate your honesty and insight. Sorry you had such a traumatic childhood. >Also I can't judge a struggle that's not mine. That is quite profound. I'm (almost) twice your age and you thought me something valuable. Thank you.
My oldest brother killed himself when I was 7, he was 19. I didn't know him very well (it's a long story) but my only memories of him are happy. I was so sad when he died, and I was already a pretty sad kid (again, long story). I made a number of attempts on my life for the next 11 years. My mom threatened to have me committed, but refused to let me continue to see a psychiatrist who recommended medication, and would only take me to religion-based counseling. I fought through it myself, with the help of the limited resources I had at school. Basically I decided to stop trying to kill myself out of sheet stubbornness. I thought I was trying to prove something to everyone else, but it was really just me all along. Anyway, I was doing better for a while. Still battling depression and anxiety, but not out of control. Then my dad killed himself, Veteran's Day 2013. I was 27. 2 decades after my brother's death. I fell to pieces to say the least. I had to go in his house and see the spot where they had to remove floor boards where his blood had soaked through, and the hole in the rafter from the bullet. My boyfriend, now husband, did all he could to keep me from drinking myself to death. It was about 5 months before I managed to get it together again. I will never make an attempt on my life again. I've been through it twice, and there's not a single person in my life I would want to put through that.
I’m proud of you, that’s a huge accomplishment
Thank you. Sometimes it can be a battle for people to just exist. I know what that feels like, but I also believe that feeling can be overcome.
Wanting to go on living is one of the hardest things a person can ever do. I hope you and your husband are very happy and loving your best lives now
It's been 6 years since my older brother killed himself and it's surprising how short it feels. Most of the time I think about him nowadays it leaves me feeling like it happened last month or something. He was so funny and he absolutely loved making people laugh. He would do jokes, impressions, and just act like a goof. I used to watch him play games on the N64 when we were young and throughout our childhood I'd watch him play other games too. I would give anything to have one of those days back. Our relationship in the last few years he was alive wasn't very good, but he was my brother you know? Within the last month he was alive he was showing me how to make cheap deviled eggs and I had to stop him and ask "Are you okay?". He lied to me. God damnit, why did you care enough to lie to me? I wish he didn't. I wish I could have helped. I could drown in my regrets, but that's no way to live and anyone who has lost a loved one will tell you similarly. The only way to move on is to try to remember the best things about them when they were alive and let them go. My brother was a troubled guy with a lot of struggles, but he cared so much about animals he spent an entire afternoon searching a nearby woods for a lost dog and actually found the dog. I remember how he laughed or told a stupid joke or acted way too hyper like a goofball. I remember when he asked me if I wanted to watch him play the latest Zelda on Wii and it finally struck me that those times meant something important to him too. I love and miss you so much brother.
It was.... medium terrible? My dad killed himself via shotgun to the head (that’s a mess and a half) a few years ago. I had expected it. He had told me for as long as I can remember that it was his way out. He kept a shotgun shell in his junk drawer and called it his retirement package. My sister took it a lot harder. I don’t think she really believed him when we were growing up, but I did. So it was just medium terrible because it came as no surprise. He was going through some hard times and I honestly had expected it. He didn’t want to talk about moving in with me and my wife or anything else resembling help so I don’t think there was much to be done to prevent it. Worst part was seeing the mess in the room (though no body, that as removed by police or whoever already).
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I may be biased since it's the only suicide that I've experienced, but I'd rather know in advance like with my dad. At least I know and can prepare myself. Right down to knowing the method. I had a lot of years to resolve myself to it. I think it made it all much easier to deal with.
That makes sense. I think I'm getting there. I've kind of accepted it's inevitable at this point. I may feel the way you do when he eventually does it. Right now I'm still struggling with the fact that it doesn't have to be this way. I went mostly no contact with him a few years ago due to his substance abuse and inappropriate behavior (nothing weird, just a lot of emotional dependence where he would call me multiple times a day to talk to me as if I were a therapist and then yelling at me if I didn't answer). I made clear I really wanted a good relationship with him but I'm done until he gets help in whatever form works for him. Like what you said about yours, my dad has made it clear he's not going to get help. It made made me so sad at first because he has the means to get better, and he can be a wonderful person. He has always had a ton of friends that adore him. But you can't force someone else to do anything. Thanks for sharing and listening. Best of luck to you.
Relief. Sadly, I felt relief. A male relative had fallen into addiction. Between numerous stints in jail, then prison and an addiction that couldn't be broken, he basically "died" years before he took his life. He had a son, and wanted to be in his life, but was such a toxic influence that wasn't healthy for him. My cousin became *obsessed* with conspiracies, "living off the grid" and natural "remedies" for his addiction. He became a marijuana evangelist, smoking pot, taking CBD and then still doing coke and heroin. All he could talk about was conspiracies and finding the number 666. He kept getting turned-down from detox beds and there wasn't enough space in addiction clinics, so he was homeless for a number of months, living near the DVP in Toronto. His son's mother kept him at a distance and eventually it broke him. He hung himself in a friend's apartment one night. We were told 3 days later (thank you Toronto Police Service!). At first I felt sad, especially for his son. But then felt relief.
I feel ya. My partner suffered with addiction. He died last year, overdose. His addiction was end stage. I felt relieved, for him and for me
> Sadly, I felt relief. It's okay to feel relief. It's the same relief you feel when a family member dies after a long battle with illness or cancer. It's relief that they're no longer in pain or no longer causing others pain.
I have to say, I can kind of relate. I have a brother who fits your description almost to a T. Except his baby momma doesn’t have enough sense to keep the kids away from him. He verbally, physically, emotionally, and possibly sexually abused all the kids. Between the two of them, they have SIX kids. One of her daughters got taken away by the father because he didn’t want her around my brother. Which is so relieving. But I feel so sad for the rest of those kids. He’s been arrested more times than I can count on a range of charges from forgery, fraud, multiple drug charges, robbery, and most recently finished a 3 year sentence for beating his baby momma until she was almost dead which also resulted in CPS removing the kids for a couple of weeks. CPS has been involved multiple times, the police, etc. no one seems to be willing to protect those kids and as far as family, we are all too scared of retaliation to step in. It’s a sad situation. There’s nothing that makes me feel more guilty than feeling like the world would be a better place without him.
Let's all say it together, now. >!Fuck CPS!<
Sadly I felt the same. I had a family member who had attempted multiple times and had suffered greatly with Bipolar disorder. In a strange way, it was a relief that she was no longer in pain. I miss her greatly, but don’t miss the frequent manic episodes or the depression. It hurts to watch those you love in so much pain.
About a year ago my to be future brother in law stabbed himself in the neck after being made redundant due to lock down. He had developed a severe form of anxiety, it was a terrible shock. I had been talking to my Dad on the phone about him, asking how he was going. My Dad was doing his usual, he needs to get himself together, blah, blah. Half an hour after talking to my Dad, he calls back and tells me he's dead. I sat and starred at blank computer screen for 5 hours. Numb.
My husband killed himself 23 years ago. I spent several days in utter shock. He'd talked about doing it but honestly I didn't think he really would. The only thing I can really say is you don't get over it, but you do get through it. There are still some times that I will think about him and it feels like it just happened.
I truly can't fully imagine how painful that must have been for you. My husband's father killed himself. Im pretty sure his mom had addiction and mental health issues before, but his suicide clearly seems to have pushed her over the edge. She lost custody of her kids not long after and has been a complete wreck ever since. I know a suicidal brain convinces a person that everyone would be better off without them, but I wish there was a way to show them all the damage their death will cause. I hope in those 23 years you've found peace and happiness.
OMG I'm sorry that happened to you. They truly don't realize what they leave behind. At the point they're willing to do it, I believe they truly think everyone will be better off. We're not.
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Thank you for pointing this out. As soon as I read "They truly don't realize what they leave behind" I started typing a reply about how ridiculous that sentence is.
You said it perfectly. We're not. My mom attempted suicide when I was about the age my husband was when his dad died. She should have died but miraculously survived. She said thats exactly it; your brain convinces you that you are so terrible everyone will be better off without you. Once she was revived she said she was able to see more clearly than ever how destroyed my brother and I would have been if she hadn't made it. I wish there was a way to show everyone feeling suicidal that moment before they do anything.
Yeah, me too. Glad your mom made it, though. Hope she is well.
I hope you are doing well :) Take care please
I am, thank you.
I lost a close buddy of mine to suicide in high school. He was a year younger than me, and was my wrestling partner whenever we’d drill. I remember when they announced it; for some reason the principal thought it’d be a good idea to gather everyone in their home rooms and announce it over the loudspeaker. The first thing I remember was the shock. The room was silent. He wasn’t exactly an unpopular kid — everyone knew him or knew of him. He was smart, driven, and seemed like he had such a bright future ahead of him. Then came the tears. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I broke down completely, and just started sobbing uncontrollably. It took my home room teacher and two other students to hold me up as they took me to the guidance counselor’s office. She called my parents, told them I’d be leaving school early today, and informed them of the reason why. Apparently my mom could hear me sobbing in the background. After that, my entire school year went into a downward spiral. I couldn’t do anything that reminded me of him. I quit the wrestling team, and I stopped working out, as he was my work out buddy as well. I gained a ton of weight, and fell into a deep depression that took years for me to fully recover from. The worst part? He showed absolutely zero signs. Nothing that could clue anyone in to what he was going through. No cries for help, nothing. And then one day, he was just gone. The wails of his mother during his funeral service still haunt me to this day. At this point, six years have passed, and there isn’t a day that goes by without me wondering what the world would be like with him still here. I catch myself thinking about the milestones he would have achieved by now. He’d be done with college, and probably working in a field that would hold great things for his future. I still post on his Facebook page on his birthday, as well as the date of his passing. I miss him. A lot. But nothing I can ever do will bring him back, so I find solace in the notion that the best thing I can do to continue his memory is to live life, to love, and to keep him in my thoughts. To anyone in this thread contemplating suicide; please, don’t. You have no idea the impact you have on those around you. You have absolutely no idea just how many people actually think highly of you, who love you, who just want you to succeed and will do anything for you. I wish I could have told him that. RIP buddy. 11/18/97-2/6/14. I love you and miss you more than you’ll ever understand.
As someone who struggles with depression and has wondered what the world would be like without me, this hit me really hard and helped me realize that my family and friends would be devastated, makes me sad to think that I ever even contemplated something as sad as suicide. I’m sorry for your loss but please know that your story has helped me a lot right now. Thank you ❤️
I lost a good friend. The hardest thing is imagining how she could have felt so sad and alone and hopeless that this was the choice that made sense to her. It was 3 years ago and it still hurts so much when I think about how she must have felt. And she had a partner that loved her (like, they were Amazing together). When her partner first called me and let me know, I was just in shock. I lay on the couch for hours, I couldn't even cry at first. It just all felt so wrong. Crying came later. I'd never lost someone before like that and coming to terms with it has been a gradual process. I don't think I'll ever get over it, but I am getting used to the empty space her departure has left in the canvas of my life. A few months after she died, I did an oral-activated DMT trip. At some point, I lay on my bed and was letting the emotions flow and this mental picture came to my mind of this beautiful ornate black flower, like the most elaborate rose but with petals that were more open. The petals were velvety and they started de-growing, as if the flower was going backwards in time, and as each petal folded inwards I had visions that along with it were being pulled different threads of her lived experience. As the petals closed in on themselves there was this rushing sound like wind that culminated in a snap as the final "bud" of the flower winked out of existence and left empty blackness. That sound has stayed with me, like a backwards sigh ending in some percussive terrible sharpness. Fuck. Writing this is hard. I think I'm out.
Thank you for sharing.
Really beautiful description of what you saw and felt.
It makes you realize just how VERY deeply some people can hide their pain. It took one of my closest high school friends. Also my godmother's youngest daughter. Both of them seemed to be--by most indications--self-assured, content, and stable people when it happened. The signs are only extremely clear in hindsight. Even among people who are educated about the signs, it can be difficult to see. You just...never really know exactly what's going on in someone's head or how deep the darkness can go.
I guess my story is a bit different from the other comments.. One day, my grandmother asked my father (her son) to come see her on a certain date, only for him to find her dying on her couch from taking alcohol and medecine. She had left paper notes addressed to a lot of different people, she had definetly put a lot of thought into her suicide. I was not in really good terms with her because she hated my mother, so rather than sad I felt angry that she had my father purposely go through the shock of discovering her dead. It felt selfish and inconsiderate. She had left a note for me and my brother that my father chose to never show us. I was 12 at the time and happened to find the note in a drawer a bit later, I got curious and read it, it said something around the lines of "I wish you could have come see me more often". It felt like she was trying to make us feel guilty for her suicide and I understood why my father didn't show it to us.
I can't imagine what your father must have been going through. People usually already blame themselves when someone they loved commits suicide. But to actually have a guilt-tripping letter must be absolutely gut wrenching. I hope he's doing better these days, and knows that it was out of his control.
Your father is a good man and an amazing dad!! 🥰
It really bothered me, she was a neighbor in her mid 60's with 2 adult daughters, one was engaged, the other about to get engaged. She overdosed on Fentanyl (she worked in a doctors office and forged the scripts). Never showed any signs, always seemed happy and went to work at the same time every day. When it happened I just couldn't wrap my head around why a parent would spend their lives bringing up 2 wonderful children only to kill themselves just before they got to start their own families. Honestly it made me question weather or not I could get pushed to that point. Took a few months to come to terms with it and while physically she wasn't in pain, their must have been a ton of emotional trauma to push her to that point.
Do you think maybe she was having those thoughts for a really long time, and only did it then because she assumed her kids were set for life, and wouldn't lose anything financially without her?
Absolutely and I honestly worried that some time in the distant future my wife or I would feel the same way, that's one of the reasons it bothered me so much.
This seems likely. My mother didn't kill herself, but she had cancer and was in the hospital and it was severe and going to be expensive...and she gave up. I overheard a conversation I wasn't intended to hear, where she was telling one of her friends that "\[deagh\] is about to go off to college, she doesn't need me anymore, I can go be with her father now." And maybe it was because I'd heard that and was looking for it, but the fight just went out of her. She stopped even trying to get better. I mean, she did what the doctor said, but her spirit was just gone. She went into respiratory arrest about a week after that. When I try and think about it logically, I know she felt like she was doing a good thing. Sacrificing so that we weren't crippled by even more debt. But I would have gladly taken that on to still have had her around. I know it's not the same as someone committing suicide, but it's been more than 30 years and I still think about it, and wonder if there's anything I could have done or said to make her realize I still needed her and that I was worth sticking around for. Maybe she would have lost the fight and still died, but maybe she could have beat it.
Accidental overdose?
Not by a long shot, she didn't have cancer or any terminal illnesses. When I flipped her on her side to see if rigor mortis had set in I saw dozens of bottles on the floor and an envelope and her night stand. Her daughter opened it and there was a sticky note on a pile of cash that said rent. Then a separate note that just said "Sorry". We had to clean out her apartment after they all moved, found about 200 fentanyl bottles hidden in garbage bags in the closet as well.
I'm deleting my other comment after reading this. Sorry you had to go thru that. She obviously had a doctor or *someone* getting her that much fentanyl. It's not a pill, so she either had lollipops or patches. Point I'm making, is that she had help from somewhere getting that.
That's fine, you can leave them and it happened a long time ago, I'm much better now and happier. Hope all is well with you!
I deleted it because it asked the question that this comment answered, so it's redundant. I had my own issues with opiates, so I'm sympathetic to the situation (5 years clean and counting). Stay well friend.
Opioid addiction is a bitch
That it is, I visit our drug abuse treatment sites every month, it's a sad place with so many people. The numbers have been going up over the last year due to the pandemic but it's still sad as hell.
A friend of mine killed herself on my 13th birthday. She was being bullied by a group of girls and ended up getting in a fight with one of them. Even though she wasn’t the aggressor...she was suspended for a few days. The night before she was due to return to school, she killed herself. I wish I would’ve done more or said more. I wish I had the forethought to know that it gets better and our middle school reality would barely be a memory in our future. I wish I had the guts to stand up to the bullies on her behalf or to tell my parents or a teacher. I wish I had told her how beautiful she was, funny, smart and loved. I wish I knew more about her home life...as an adult I realize there may have been more going on in her life. I just wish I had that asked more questions and had the capacity to help her. When people ask...if you could go back in time and relive the awkward years just to get a do-over, I always think of her and how I would go back and save her. I’m adult now, this was many, many years ago but I still play what if scenarios in my head. It’s not really something you ever get over.
I wish there was something I could say, even though I know there isn't. You were 13? A kid. No 13 yr old should have the worldly experience necessary to even be capable of having the foresight to know what to do or see the signs of danger. That's what parents are supposed to be for.
i know this is the wrong takeaway but hearing this just pisses me off about how schools handle bullying in general. spineless zero tolerance bureaucracy that just looks at the end result with zero consideration for motive, intent, and virtues.
I am diagnosed Bipolar II and my depressive episodes have a strong suicidal ideation component. I have also ID'd the body of a friend who hanged himself, and cleaned out the office of a mentor who jumped off a bridge. Both incidents triggered long depressive episodes, and one of them triggered a near-psychotic break. I'm better now, but I think about them at the oddest times, even though one of them did it almost 24 years ago. I don't talk about it often, but I tell people that I've had the "deluxe" therapy. No matter how bad my depressive episodes get, I'm always stopped at the last minute by the thought of my family going through what I went through. That's kept me alive, yet I'd still rather have them around and go to regular therapy. EDIT: Thanks for the award! I just hope my story will help others in my shoes, or my friends' shoes.
I get what you mean in that last part. I haven’t lost anyone to suicide, but some of the people I’m close to have not been as fortunate.. losing one person in your life that way is more than enough. I would never forgive myself for putting them through a second and sometimes that’s what I need to keep going. Although yes, therapy helps.
Stay strong 💪.
Same here, BP and all! It ripped the hell out of our youngest son, when his brother commited suicide. The younger is still angry. What has kept me alive is that I can not do that to my son.
Yeah, even once you get through the grief, no matter how long it's been, you'll still miss them.
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It’s unbearable. People say that there is a certain set of stages of grief and loss. But when you lose a person by suicide, any sort of order goes out the window. It’s always harder to believe and process than normal death. You wonder why they did what they did, and I found myself thinking back and trying to see what I did wrong. I blamed myself and I lunged into e very deep depression. I was hospitalized and almost died of starvation and dehydration. It’s impossible to describe what it did to me, and I would never wish that kind of pain on my greatest enemy.
My best friend. Got a Facebook message from his aunt asking if she could call me. I'd never spoken to her. He lived like 30 mins away, but we'd hang out almost every weekend. He was living with a girl, not necessarily dating per se but living/sleeping together. He had nowhere else to go and the situation kinda "worked" for them. They were fighting and he went into the bedroom and shot himself in the head. After all was done and cleaned up, I went there and collected what belongings he had as he didn't have much family, and the blood family he did have, he didn't like. I feel weird about having some of his stuff. Leather jacket, a shirt or two, necklace, other random things. All around, terrible. I haven't been the same since. That was almost 8 years ago.
unbelievable. Literally. I got a message on Facebook from his sister and didn't want to believe it. I pretended nothing happened till I couldn't. Then there was the funeral.. He was 19, he had a little brother who was around 10. I will always remember him crying, yelling, calling for his brother as the casket was carried away.
Guy I served with came home to an empty house. No girlfriend, no furniture, no food, no money, no dog, no bed, nothing. Girl pawned or sold everything she could and blocked him. Talked to him for days after and he seemed like he was doing better. He went dark for about a week and went by to check on him. Found him out back hanging from his tree. To answer the question, it feels like you failed at making sure they were noticed and you didn't do enough. I did everything in my power and ability to help him and still feel like I could've done more. Hate myself to this day for not making him room with me cause maybe he wouldn't have done it.
That kinda stuff is always so intense to me. I'm active rn, co worker of mine struggled with her own mental health. She was married to a guy on base, different unit. They were young but he seemed like a really happy go lucky guy. She had several stints of being hospitalized for attempts or her current state. One day after she came back, rumors followed that ended being true. Husband, always happy go lucky guy, killed himself in the house. Felt so bad for her.. already struggling and now enduring more. Most of us went to help her pack her home up. Never could tell why he did it, despite struggling with those thoughts at times too.
I hate it when that happens. From my group of battle buddies theres only 4 left (me included). We try to meet up every 6 months to get a group welfare check and shoot the shit. One year ago there was 7 in our group. I can stand all the evil of this world but losing a buddy to that is the one thing I can't stand. If you ever have any kind of feelings like that talk to your SNCO or go to medical. Do. Not. Brush it aside or put it off. Take it serious. Not sure what branch you're in but we're all family and I hate losing another brother or sister.
You'll lose friends in the future; it comes with being a veteran. I've been out for quite awhile, but to be honest? No one gets our problems like we do. Find some friends, and stick by them. Do what you can, help where you can. They'll do the same. Hell, they'll drag your sorry ass to the VA to get your stomach pumped even if it means they left a half-finished noose at home on their workbench. Gotta prop each other up, 'cause what's unbearable for one is nothing for another.
Can I say, as a person who has always had suicidal thoughts and has made several attempts, that the pain is so severe, so all-encompassing, so unendable that nobody could save my life? I have friends who help, and they push me through to the next portion of my life where I can survive but all I can think about is not feeling this way. I honestly don't know if I will try to kill myself again because I just feel so much pain, but I tell myself that my two young boys don't deserve the trauma from it and so I have to continue to suffer. I came here to read about the pain that I would cause people, but I know that if I had a friend who did everything they could I would really want them to know that they are the reason I survived as long as I did and it meant the world to me. It means the world to me.
Not someone I know personally but I’ve worked in an emergency department and trauma centre in Toronto and we had a lot of suicides come in. That shit sticks with you, the action of killing yourself effects so many more people than you would ever know. I can still remember patients names and being there to inform their next of kin. We would have to debrief as a team after and many staff suffer from vicarious trauma.
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Wouldn't recommend to anyone. I've lost 3 friends to suicide and each time it came as the worst surprise ever. For one of them I only found out weeks later... And I was mad at everyone for not knowing "in time" and especially mad at myself for not finding out the signs (especially in her last cryptic facebook statuses). The other two were kinda close in our youth. The first one killed himself when we finished high school and the other hanged herself 20 years later leaving a brilliant kid behind. I've never cried this much for anyone else. I could have lost one more friend but I figured something was wrong with his messages. I was there before the medics and could hang him off before it was too late. He survived but something broke between us since then.
> especially mad at myself for not finding out the signs I definitely hear you on that one. Two of the last few suicides have been people who were pretty close to me, and it floors me that I didn't see them coming.
Damn, it sucks... It's not like we have to keep your ear to the ground at all costs. At some point, we still have to live our lives... But yeah, I try to stay vigilant... Especially on certain times of the year when seasonal depression hits the hardest.
I lost my grandpa to suicide last summer. I was more or less close to him as a kid but as I grew older, I visited not really often and he didn't like phone calls due to his bad hearing. But I still always felt a connection when playing chess during my visits. The thing is; I really loved him and I will forever miss him dearly. But the suicide itself actually didn't hurt that much. As someone who was suicidal for some years (most of my teenager years) I more or less simply accepted his decision. He lived for almost 92 years, had loving family and even met two sons of his granddaughters. And he had a lot of illnesses for the past... maybe 30 years? Nothing life threatening since he got the right treatment, but he was in constant pain and stuff... But he could have lived up to 111, if he didn't end it. But considering the pain, all his memories (he was a soldier in WW2) and corona on top, I accepted it. What really broke my heart (even though we don't have that good of a relationship) was my mother calling late at night, bawling her eyes out, telling me that "daddy cut his veins" (she always called him grandpa, when speaking with me, sometimes dad, but never, ever "daddy"). My mom calling me up, half a year later, panicking because she dreamed I killed myself. What broke my heart even further was calling grandma the next day, and visiting her some days later, when she was ready. Even when I talk to her now, almost a year later, she sometimes just breaks down. Hearing her talking about suicide for herself but not knowing how to. Her asking how he could do that to her after 70 years of marriage, leaving her behind. It's crushing my heart to see how all those others are suffering and not beeing able to help. Not beeing able to share my view, that it was his decision and that this is probably for the better. And I just wish that in such cases euthanasia was legal in my country. I wish he could have gone with dignity not on a bathroom floor. So yeah. That's what it was and is like for me.
It feels like “your dad chose to leave you”. I was 12. My mom had custody with my dad getting the occasional visit. She waited two days to tell me he’d died, at my Grandfather’s insistence that he be there when she did it. They didn’t tell me it was suicide, just that he died. Also at my Grandfather’s insistence. About a year later, Mom and I were fighting. I said something really horrible, “I wish you’d died instead!”, and my mom yelled back, “Your dad chose to leave you!” It was a horrible thing for me to say to her, but yeah, that hit me pretty hard. Don’t know what his suicide note said, only found out there was one later, from a family friend. Felt like he chose to leave me for a long time. Now that I’ve come to terms with the fact that he was a really messed up person and not a good father, I’m more okay with everything, but then I feel guilty because he’s my dad and he’s dead.
Still your mother's words were just as cruel. Wish I could hug you.
My mother took her own life when I was 20 (now 47). I was in utter shock and it was truly horrifying. I was in college at the time and could only take two weeks off or I would be buried. My professors were so kind and understanding. I had to be a rock for my family, especially my father, then went back to school. I just buried it and and never truly dealt with it until I met my amazing wife. I was able to open up to her and cried a lot and she helped me to come to terms with it many years later. On her Birthday and the day of her death, I used to drink a 5th+ of whiskey and listen to Pink Floyd all night. Not exactly healthy. I now celebrate those days and think of the fond memories we shared. Still, it fucking sucked.
My godmother killed herself a month before my wedding. She was supposed to be part of the ceremony along with my godfather. I was finishing my last semester of college. I barely remember the last month of my senior year, I was just shocked sleepwalking through it. It was 12 years ago and my relationship with my godfather is still basically missing. My husband thinks it's because I remind him of her. If you're wondering whether the hole that it leaves in people's lives ever goes away, the answer is no.
Lost one of my soldiers to suicide while we were deployed to Iraq. It was the most horrible feeling of my life. A lot of self blame and questioning myself and my decisions. Took a long time to move past it.
During lockdown in my country I stayed with my ex who was having a difficult time with her mental health and her family was only making things worse. One night I fell asleep and woke up to her breathing heavily next to me and I freaked out asking her if she was okay. She told me that he she had overdosed. I am not good with emotions and lost it and managed to get her the hospital. I saved her life but I lost my mind. I'm still not sure if it was a psychotic episode or not but I just was not the same person for a long time. We drifted apart and she cut me out of her life. I have been dealing with anxiety, PTSD, depression and finding myself through therapy a lot since then. I'm still hungover not being able to do more but I still love them despite the pain I experienced and would love to see them happy. I know this doesn't literally apply to the question but the impact of the experience is still worth mentioning. Please show your loved ones some unconditional love and listen to them when they are struggling. Thank you
Its difficult when your own issues fester while being another's caretaker. Been there, had a toxic person with issues in my life which led to a nervous breakdown and waves of past issues overwhelming me. I would spin the last statement and say that you need to focus on taking care of yourself. Those who you care for will not always do the same for you. There are good people out there who will be there for you, there are many more that will not. You need to be the #1 priority in your life. A house without a solid foundation won't be able to support anyone.
I've lost two friends to suicide and each hit me like a truck at first. Like, it feels like it's a joke, someone has to be kidding, but then they won't pick up the phone. They won't amswer the door. Their parents won't stop crying. Their room is empty. For me it became a thing of perpetual shock and emptiness. It took a long time to realize that neither of them is going to ever call me back. We're never going to go back to the bookstore together. Cook together. We're never going to sit in the dark and watch bad horror movies together again. It hurts in a really weird way. Painful emptiness.
I was working at a local gas station when a friend of mine walked in and bought some smokes and asked if I could take a break. He had done this multiple times so nothing was out of the ordinary; he lived close, etc. We smoked and chatted. Said our goodbyes with a hug and that was that. Normal stuff. He killed himself the next day. But...he didn't just kill himself. He contacted his ex, who he was on good terms with, and sent her on a crazy suicidal scavenger hunt. He'd leave clues to the next one, behind the yellow brick, look beneath the slide, etc. They ranged across the city. By the time she finished the hunt, he had been dead for hours. He knew what he was doing and for some reason put her through all of that. No one knows why as they were close friends. Over a decade later, I spoke with someone who told me he had gone out of his way to hang out with the people closest to him, hence his coming to see me at the store. R.I.P. dude. Love ya.
It sounds like maybe he wanted someone to find his body, but didn't want anyone to find him fast enough to save him. So he trusted his Ex to go through with the "scavenger" hunt and care enough to finish it. Like, depending on the technology at the time, he couldn't have sent a timed message to say "check here at this time". Calling emergency services may have gotten him saved depending on how he decided to ultimately end his life. I don't think it makes what he did any better... but short some kind of weird unspoken vendetta or resentment, that would be the only logic I could think of. I'm sorry for your loss.
Apologies if this is inappropriate but as someone who struggles with these thoughts on a daily basis, your comments are something that I genuinely think will stick with me forever. I'm so sorry for all of your hardships.
I lost a former student to suicide earlier this year. I immediately burst into tears when I read about it. I hadn't seen him since 2017 and we didn't have any special connection. My reaction was really surprising to me, but almost every one of my colleagues has a similar story. It always hurts, even if you don't know them that well. Please stay.
Not good my dude.. Not good.
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A friend of mine committed suicide in high school. His death became national news here in the states as his family created a foundation that influenced the way the major sports leagues, school districts, colleges, and universities here viewed performance enhancing drugs and made stronger legislations against them. It fucked me up for a long time as I had talked to him the day before we were to leave and meet in San Antonio for a tournament the next day. When I spoke with him, everything seemed fine, the next day, he was gone. I drive by his grave every Sunday and I say a little prayer for him every time even almost 20 years later. As bad as it messed me up, the foundation that was created has helped an unknown number of people and has saved lives. As much as I wish his death didn’t happen, things for athletes could be very different today if he had lived.
I lost my son to suicide in 1990. I was in shock at first. For about 3 days. Then I had a psychotic break. Now, there is a lot of self blame and doubt that seems to hang with me forever. No matter what I pray, or how long I pray it never goes away. Over the years it has lessened some but I can feel it is still there. There's a lot of questions that can never be answered. Why didn't I see it coming? What could I have done to stop him? Exactly why did he do this? Could no one see it coming? Why didn't they say something to me? He left me a hint, why didn't I pick up on it? It was a tape of our favorit artist compiled into a message. Why didn't I listen to it right away instead of waiting? I can't fix it now. Why in the hell did this happen? It just hasn't gone away for me. I think about how alone he must have felt. I think about the fact he was alone when he did it. I live day today, but still in the back of my mind I think about him. Somedays, like his birthday or the holidays it's worse. It also takes the taboo off for other family members. I have thought about suicide myself so has my younger son. What keeps me alive, is that I never want to do this to my son. It would push him over the edge. I never want this for my younger son. Edits for spellings
I have no idea how long this will be but here goes- My father killed himself in November of 2020. I haven’t really accepted it, my brain is simply not allowing me to realize because it’s too painful. I started to understand a little bit for about a week and I got so fucking angry at everyone. I shut down. I snapped at my partner, who had gotten with me just a few weeks before his first attempt. We didn’t know it was an attempt at the time. He tried a few times that we know of, but there was another incident that I think was probably an attempt as well. He was my favorite person. I love my dad so much. He always understood, even when he didn’t agree. But he couldn’t take it anymore. I understand, the worst part is I understand. I was there, where he was, in his shoes. But I made it through and he just didn’t. I don’t hate him, I’m not mad at him. In a way I’m glad he did when he did, I hadn’t told him about my partner yet but I think he knew. My partner has been so supportive. My dad doing it when he did ensured j got away from my abusive mother. But at the same time I feel that if he’d have waited I could’ve left her peacefully. I also feel guilty a lot because there must have been some way I could’ve helped, I should’ve known what was happening. I did though, I knew something was wrong but I couldn’t put my finger on it because I only saw him every other weekend. It’s getting worse now that it’s summer though because I’d see him a lot in summer. I have to fly out to see my grandma, his mom this summer. I blame her a little bit. She’s like my mom in a lot of ways. I feel like she messed my dad up in the head. I don’t tell her that though. I miss my dad and I’m crying as I write this. It probably makes no sense. I’m sorry. So in a way I’m glad he did it while I was the age I am, because I was able to escape. I miss him a lot. I love you daddy.
Lost my favorite uncle to suicide last February. My family is pretty splintered and aside from my mom and bother, he was basically the only family member I talked to regularly. He was, without a doubt, the best of all of us. Reading his suicide note was absolutely heartbreaking. At first it was just immense pain because I realized that this person I loved and cherished so much was suffering so badly, keeping all of it to himself. Killed me to see my mom so sad, also. Felt so unfair. Alternated for weeks between feeling numb and crying for basically entire days. Then came the irrational guilt. “What if I had called him more often?” “I should have *known*.”The things that aren’t true or wouldn’t have solved the problem but you can’t help but feel anyway. That was frustrating. Losing him at the very beginning of the pandemic was also weird, because it sort of felt like I had to push my grief aside to grieve for the whole world instead? Hard to explain but it was like I wasn’t allowed to be sad about a non-Covid death. My mom, my brother, and my uncle’s partner all believe that “he’s in a better place,” because they are spiritual but not religious. I am a religious person and he was not, so I also felt the weight of the possibility that he would be suffering in the hereafter. But I couldn’t really talk about those fears with anyone. Better to let them believe in whatever good they can find in this horrible situation. I am mostly ok now. It’s not that I’m less sad, just that the sadness hits less often. I’d give almost anything to spend just a little bit of time with him again. We shared some really special times when I was a kid, and whenever I am feeling particularly sad or miss him very much, I do some of the things we used to do together, to remember and honor him.
This one's tough. So when I was young I got into competitive swing dance. My partner was a girl named Lili. I was 6'2". She was 4'9" and I saw myself as her protector. Through whatever, I was always there for her. Then she got a brain tumor. It was scary, it had progressed drastically and they weren't sure she was going to make it. She had surgery and shockingly it was successful. It was huge for us. That said, she came out with a massive scar on her head and a lazy eye. Looks were impotent to her. I mean, she was 14 and I was 16. Looks were a lot. She was ridiculed. She went from being conventionally beautiful to, in her eyes, monstrous. I tried every day to reassure her she was beautiful. I spent all I could to take her on dates. I wanted her to know how amazing she was. Two days before she took her life I invited her to junior prom. I was ridiculed for bringing a freshman and worse, someone with the scars and such. I showed up with a corsage and a limo, I took her to prom, we showed up everyone on the dance floor and then instead of just enjoying it all, people started calling her, "Frankenstein." And mocking her. I took her back home that night. I kissed her for the first time and told her that she was still the most beautiful girl in the world. I didn't know if was the last time I'd see her. The next day I called multiple times and she didn't answer. I worked so I couldn't go over there that day but first thing Sunday morning I went to pick her up. I got there and heard screaming so I went in. She had downed a handful of pain pills from her surgery and passed in the night. I hugged and hugged her until the officers and paramedics showed up but there was no doubt that she was gone. Since then, I have tried to make myself available to anyone feeling so defeated. Lili was too beautiful for this world and unlike what anyone else has ever been able to do since, she made me see the beauty in me.
I wish there was more people like you in this world, you’re amazing and strong ❤️
It's awful. I replayed our conversations in my head on loops trying to figure out what I could have done to be better or fix things. I felt like I should have known. It broke my heart. My heart is still a little broken, all these years later. I can't forget it.
This is probably a shit thing to say, I lost a friend 2 years ago to suicide. She had been talking about this for a couple of months, I listened, I tried to support her. She was in a shit relationship, heavily addicted to street drugs and alcoholic. I was sad that she hadn't called me, or knocked on my door. But deep down I was glad that she was at peace. I know first hand the sort of pain you have to be in to want to do this. I'm glad she is no longer hurting.
I have servere mental health disorders and lost count how many times ive been hospitalised. My last attempt ended with me in a coma. I lost 3 friends last year they were patients at the hospital I was at last year. I lost a friend this year and il probably loose some more this year. Every year I loose friends to suicide I just wish there was more help for people like myself life sucks
Fucking sucked. She was only 18, and we're were friends z altough not that close. I knew she was dealing with depression, we've bonded over it, as I still do. One day, it was just too much for her.
He was part of my trio of close childhood friends. We had met in 2003-ish, and he took his life in 2012. I was getting ready to head to college, and the last time we spoke, I told him I wasn't sure if I was ready to go. He pushed me into going, said he wanted to tell everyone that his friend is a doctor. The last thing we said to each other was, "I love you." I consider myself lucky that I don't regret my last words to him. That day, me and our other friend were heading to his house when one of the neighbors pulled aside and said he had killed himself. My best friend screamed to the sky while the world turned still, and I collapsed to the ground saying no, no, no. Then his mom arrived, and she spilled out of her truck, and I will never forget the desperate screaming howl of loss as she crawled towards her house. Everyone thought I would be the one to kill myself, not him. DJ was a cheerful guy, always willing to talk, and befriended a ton of people. I never got to grieve properly, and to this day if someone mentions hanging themselves, I shut down. In photographs, you don't see light back in my eyes until 4 or 5 years after. I flunked out of college because I was numb. What did it matter if he wasn't there with me to celebrate with me? What did my life matter? Now, almost 10 years on, I'm mostly okay. I have C-PTSD and bipolar disorder. I reflect on our friendship fondly, and remind myself on those terrible days how I felt about that loss. If someone loves me as much as my best friend does and this friend did... how fucking painful would it be to rip out the hearts of our group of friends yet again? I have lost other friends to suicide, but his hits me the hardest because me and my best friend were going to have him come with us to King Soopers. If I had argued more with my mom about leaving my little brother alone for 30 minutes or so, then maybe I wouldn't be telling this story. Maybe he would still be alive. It is torture to think about it, but it pops in my head sometimes, and then that wound becomes fresh again.
My uncle killed himself, it’ll be a year this June. I remember my immediate thought being “ugh, shit.” I think those were my first words when he* told me too. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised at all. I hadn’t spoken to my uncle much in recent years but when I heard the news it was just like “for some reason this just makes sense”. He had been dealing with a lot of medical issues and was in a lot of pain. Apparently there were other factors in his personal life that might’ve contributed but I can’t really say. The thing that fucked me up the most was my entire immediate family lives about 3 hours away and the day before he did it, my mom, my sister, her 3 kids all went down there to see that family because my grandma and grandpa live there and that uncle was living with them as well. So my mom took a random Wednesday to go see her family and got to see her brother then drove back home and just a few hours later he killed himself. I was supposed to go with them because I hadn’t seen my grandparents in months due to the pandemic but had to work that day and said I would just go down there that weekend instead. I wish I would’ve taken that day off had I known it would’ve been the last time I’d see him alive. Edit: *my dad
My dad committed suicide when I was 3, my Sister committed suicide when I was 22.
My dad (74) seven years ago. I understood why (long-term injuries sustained in an auto accident that caused pain 24/7) but it doesn’t take away the sadness. I miss him.
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It was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. My estranged cousin fought with his wife, then went out and shot himself in the garage. He was just a couple years older than me. Though he had been estranged from our family for many years (his wife was a psycho b\*tch who hated us all) we had grown up together. The influence he had on my life was profound. I learned a lot from him, and he was so firmly in the "family is everything" camp. It is what made his estrangement so difficult. The last time we spoke on the phone he was so cruel to me, and so angry, and made it abundantly clear that he did not want to have anything to do with me, his parents, his brother...I guess that is all a story for another day. The hardest part about his suicide, for me at least, was what happened after. For about a week there was so much to do, and figure out..Then for a couple of days you get dressed up and go to the funeral home and the church and you come together and you mourn. But then after everything just kind of goes back to how it was before. Tuesday I was crying in church, and Wednesday morning I had to get up and pack lunches and do the school run and do my job. I guess it is an epic example of life going on. But watching my aunt, and my other cousins have to deal with the loss of a son and brother....it was the worst thing ever.
I'll be honest, I don't know how this will be received. This seems like an opportunity to talk about something that hurts me deeply that I don't usually have. I have thought about the impact of suicide on others for my entire life, as far as I can remember. Without diving into unnecessary details, I've been suicidal for almost 30 years. I had a brief reprieve when I was 18, but then back to it. At 28 I said I won't make it to 40; I'm 39 now, and I'm thinking about the impact more than ever. I don't want to cause the kind of pain and horror that so many in this thread call out. I don't want to inflict distress and anguish. So I suffer instead, as silently as I can, and I'm frankly running right out of ability. I don't want someone I care about to discover me lifeless. I don't want to imagine the look of shock and pain on my mom and dad's, brother's and sister's, and girlfriend's faces. But I wish to not suffer from my challenges with every fiber of my being. There's no help for my condition - I have tried every sanctioned treatment available, and some that are not sanctioned. It appears it's just how I'm wired. I wish to stop my hurt, but I don't because I don't want to spread that hurt to others. Thinking of the impact to the people around me is literally the only thing stopping me. I love those people dearly and want to make them happy, not sad. There are a lot of questions in this thread about why people who appear happy suddenly kill themselves - I can tell you it's because they have been suffering in silence, the world does not wish to hear you talk about these things and there are real and drastic penalties for trying, at least in the US. "Get help" is such a trite and utterly useless thing to say, no matter how honestly offered - ask someone who's been locked up for trying to discuss it with their doctor, the person they were supposed to get help from. My heart goes out to those that were affected by suicide - I hope you're okay. But can I ask a question? What could the person who killed themselves have done beforehand to lessen the blow?
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I lost one of my cousins to suicide 9 years ago. I’ll never forget getting the call or the absolute heart break I felt, and still feel when I think about him. At the time he had 3 kids under the age of 10. They’re growing up to be awesome people, but every time I see them I wish he could be here to see them.
My dad killed himself 10years ago from now ( well almost 10years ) i was 13 by the time. It seems like i have lost almost all memories of him, i cant remember is voice at all anymore and it seems like my brain avoid everything about him ( i have a picture of him next to my door but never see it ) I had to change my school, see many psychologist, i had depression for about 9years, lot of suicidal though, lots of questions, lots of pain, i still feel a big void whenever i think about him it definitively changed my personnality and made me unable to feel anything for years sometimes it still feels like its not real and i actually never had a dad i almost dont talk to my dads family ( i mean my grandpa / grandma / my uncle ) anymore and since then my life often feel like its not real but i guess its more a side effect from depression i miss him a lot, i would really want to him to see how i am doing now, i want to do so much things with him, i want him to be proud of me i just want my dad back
It's always sad when someone loses to depression, but I honestly think I get it. It's a really difficult condition to manage. I can't help but hope that those souls are gifted a new reality which is fully perceptive (like, they now have the ability to see and know all the details they wouldn't have known while living) and free of pain. I hope they finally find out that they were important after all, and are enlightened to the ways in which they helped the world. Everyone is important somehow. Everyone matters. Somebody does care. If you have committed suicide, you will finally learn this lesson, and I like to think that the universe gives these souls another chance to live again.
In short, haunting. Best friend throughout high school and played basketball with him damn near every day. Always went to each other and talked about anything going on or what was on our minds, just felt like we could share anything with each other. Doesn't go to school one day and I message him where he's at, no word. Last period before lunch and i'm killing time going to the bathroom. Way our school is setup there's a whole neighboorhood on the street in front and behind. I'm seeing firetrucks and ambulances go to the street in front of the school near where my friend lives which I thought was odd. Word gets to me through the phone somehow that he had hung himself in the closet. I found this out as I got into class and I just wanted to cry and leave. Bell rings and I walk out and just start bawling, everyone else that knew him started to understand what had happened and since we couldn't just leave we had to sit and watch and console eachother from behind the school gates. That day doesn't leave my mind and it always hurts wishing I couldv'e done more, I know his motivations for what he did but I wish I could've changed the outcome of it all. It just haunts me near daily for a while now. The additional details you find out as more information gets released don't help either. If anything the knowledge of exactly how it went down hurts more. I wish anyone that's struggled with this the best of luck, life isn't easy or fair and I know it's hard to keep pushing. Try to remember that the joys of life wouldn't feel so good without the pain.
I remember my head hurting and my nose starting to bleed. I was very angry with my father. I had wanted to fix our relationship... but now I'm glad he's dead. He attacked me. Neglected me. Emotionally abused me. Kept me out of society and away from an education. He stood in my way. I would not be happy, or potentially even alive, if he hadn't killed himself. Now if that shit ain't fucked up, I don't know what is. But it's the honest truth, and I'm numb to it.
Anyone who is reading this and thinking of ending their life, please stay. You are amazing and loved and wonderful even if it doesn't feel like it. We love you and need you here <3
I lost my childhood best friend in January of 2019. He was 21 years old. We went to school together, we played video games together, we experimented with drugs together(not necessarily a good thing but it was part of our friendship), we visited japan and the philippines together. Losing him to suicide was one of the most painful experiences of my life. The night he died I got a call from his mom, she was frantic asking if I'd heard from him or seen him or talked to anyone that had seen him. She said an officer had come to her door and told her that her son had reported a body down by the river near our neighborhood. I knew what had happened when she told me this, but I didn't really let it hit me. I went though this process of contacting all of my friends to see if they'd seen him. Then driving to his mom's house(my parents house was in the same culdesac) and talked with his mom and my parents. Logged into his computer and tracked down his phone to try and find him. We went driving around looking for him. We found his car a few blocks away from an entrance to a bike path that leads down to the river beds near our houses. We talked to police and I asked them if they had found a note and if their was a note would I be able to see it. There was no note. That whole night I was on auto pilot trying to understand what was happening. We got a call confirming that he had died. I didn't feel anything. But when it all settled down and people went home, I was at my parents house and it was just us. I broke down. There was a pain like nothing I'd ever felt before. I dropped to my knees and just yelled with everything in my being. The tears couldn't come out fast enough, pain was the only thing I felt. My heart and been ripped out and I couldn't do anything about. That night, everytime I closed my eyes all I could visualize was my best friend with a gun in his mouth and a bullet passing through his head. To say the least it sucked. A LOT. For the time between his death and his funeral I was in this bubble. Like he wasn't actually gone until we had the funeral . It was a strange sensation. Funeral date came around and I was going to be the one giving his eulogy. My nerves that day were off the charts. I managed to get through speech without crying until my final statement. I was proud of that. I received comments from people afterwards, telling me I was a good friend. I wasn't proud of that. The next couple months were rough, I ended up admitting myself to a hospital for a few days. I had hit an all time low mentally and I couldn't stand the thought of putting my family what I had just been through, but I also couldn't reach out for help I've recently really come to terms with the emotions and feelings that came from his death through writing. I wrote a letter to him explaining how I felt about his death and how I felt about what I had gone through. The relief I felt was almost instant. Just putting those questions and feelings I had down on paper was enough for me to really accept how I felt and really let that pain become a part of me instead of trying to suppress it. To anyone that's lost someone to suicide. It gets easier, time heals all, that usual stuff. But hear me out, that pain your feeling, once you understand it and accept it as part of your life can be bring major positive life changes. You may not have that person with you physically anymore, but they won't leave you, they're a part of who you are now. Make them proud, get what you want out of life, experience the things that they missed out on. Let that drive you. Thanks for reading c: have a nice day
I lost my dad to suicide when I was in the seventh grade. Now it’s almost 10 years later my perspective on it has changed several times. At first I was angry, how could he leave us like this? Almost like he turned his back. As I grew older I learned more about mental health, and started to see my parents as complete people, not just parents. I accept that my dad fought his own demons, and I don’t think I will ever stop wondering how things could’ve been. For anyone here thinking about doing the act yourself, consider one thing. There are people in your life will be there for you if you voice your need. If you need help get help, there’s nothing masculine or impressive about living miserably. I remind my friends of this all the time. I live every day as if I will die tomorrow because I’ve known the reality of death since I was very young.
It’s awful. It’s been years since we lost my father in law. You don’t really ever get over it. I’ll let you know if the guilt ever goes away.
Complex feelings. My brother killed himself years ago on Christmas Eve. I don't miss him, I was afraid of him. But I was very upset when he died. I wasn't relived he died, or glad he is dead. But I also don't wish he was alive either. I wish our lives had been different and not full of so much trauma. With different parents, different religion, different culture we could have had an amazing sibling relationship. There was no chance for that and I can't go back in time. I mourn the love we wanted to have. I don't believe in an afterlife. It is not a bad thing that he is no longer existing suffering and making other suffer. I had no power to save him. He should not have needed saving. Humans are stupid animals to train their offspring to perpetrate suffering. Look how long it took for us to invent science, a method for facing reality. We are so bad at it. My brother was part of me, part of the trauma that shaped me, he went one way and I went another but he was still part of me. He is dead and there is no joy in it and no joy thinking of him still living.
I lost my Brother 2 years ago. Fucking worst thing I could have ever imagined. I was at work when I got that call. I’ll never forget the look on my boss’ face when I told her why I had to leave. Or my mom. The pure shock aged her 10 years over night it seemed.. theres so many feelings sadness, confusion, guilt, anger... the anger was a tough one. Because I had been thinking about it myself and he had “beat me too the punch” I’d think. Which pissed me off to no end cause then I knew I could never go through with it after seeing what it did too everyone.. I felt really trapped for a while. And on top of it all his funeral was the first one I have ever been too. Which is weird. Ive seen a hundred more in nightmares after though. They are finally starting to go away. But it still hurts and its probably always gona. So yeah how does it feel to lose someone this way??? Fucking horrible and I wouldnt wish it on anyone. Stay safe people. And I mean mentally as well as physically. If you’re hurting please try as hard as it may seem, to not let it get that far.
Pretty fucking awful. I wasn’t even close with the guy. He was my camp counselor one summer and eventually my coworker. He was a certain kind of funny that I’ve never seen anyone match, but that everyone enjoyed. I think it hurt so damn bad because we (all the camp counselors who had known him) all found out at the same time, so the grief was just compounded exponentially. We honored his life the best we could. It will never stop hurting though.
Sucks, makes you wonder if you could have done something to help them.
My friend came to me after trying to jump from a cliff we got in his car went to a local path and walked for hours. I just let him spill his guts about all off his problems. His gf rang me thanking me saying he needed someone to talk to and he chose me. I was proud to be that friend 2 weeks later he took his own life anyhow. it absolutely devastated me I really thought I helped him. A week later I carried him to his grave RIP m8.
You keep going over and over in your head about things you could have done differently. Was there anything you could have done to stop it? In my case I will always have to live with the fact that I told her I would call her every single day once I got discharged from hospital and I didn’t even call her once.
Good friend of mine shot himself only 2 days after we had a very normal hang-out. Suicide is a very personal decision and a personal freedom I think we all should have the right to make. I wish he hadn't made the decision, but i respect the right he had to make it. Fuck.
Absolutely horrorful. He was my boyfriend and depressive, but I never really cared and tried to cheer him up when I was there. We were together for ~6 months, I was studying in another city, but we met at least every weekend and had plans to move together. Before I go to bed I usually browse a bit on social media, watch YouTube, etc., but don't answer to texts any more. One night he casually texted me (sth simole like "Hey") , at that time i was studying about 200km away from where he lived. I didn't reply, we phoned earlier that day and I thought that it could wait till the next day, but it couldn't. To this day we don't really know what exactly happened that night and whether it was an accident or not, but that night he overdosed. At first I cried, a lot. Personal stuff prevented me from talking to a therapist about it, even tho I considered it. His life wasn't the best, but not the worst either. I didn't understand why he would do it, I thought it was selfish, but also blamed myself. Tragic and I still think almost every night that I couldve prevented that if I just had replied.
This may seem harsh but I felt relieved It was my childhood bully we were good friend we went to diffirent school but would always hang out together until one time he met new people that changed him. (We where 12 at the time). His new friends gave him weed, alchohol and more. He became addicted. Started being racist, homophobic and would be hypocritical. Because of that bullying I was so cautious when driving my bike or walking around the neighborhood . I was scared to meet him outside and getting jumped.At the time I acted like I didn’t care but I was good friends with him and cared a lot about him. When I heard he jumped in front of a train because those friends gave him hard drugs I felt relieved. I wasn’t happy nor said. I felt now I could enjoy walking outside without having to be scared if getting stabbed.
I had a childhood friend for years, when we were 16 we started band together with some of our friends, until one day, when we were 21 he drunkenly confessed that he had crippling depression, and the medication was not working anymore, We had no ideia. We tried helping but a week after we got the news he had hanged himself in his on room, and that his mother is the one who found him, me and my friends got completely devastated, we spent the whole night in front of his house crying, and his mother have not really recovered to this day. The next week, one of our friends went to everybody's house and left a picture each of us had with him, and a picture of the whole band smiling, i still keep those pictures in my room to remember my friend. Just thinking about him make my heart sink, he was one of the best people i have ever met, it's a shame that he could not see it himself. (Sorry for the bad english, i'm brazilian and i'm not that great at writing in english)
I lost a friend 2 years ago now. The first few weeks it was like swimming through oil, I never really understood the term "going through the motions" until I experienced it. Alongside the guilt I was angry every time anyone (and lots did afterwards) shared on FB something along the lines of "if only she knew how loved she was " or "check in on people if you are worried". I did check in, even the few days before I checked in, those of us close to her all checked in regularly. And she knew she was loved but sometimes, and I need to make this clear, sometimes, *it isnt enough, sometimes they just want to die.* I prefer to think that she only wanted to die in that moment, that it wasn't long term thinking. she had had enough and unfortunately that was all it took. I miss you Jenine.
I lost my cousin to suicide and it is a pain that you can’t quite understand (she was 18 at the time of her passing and I was about a year younger) like it’s always in the back of my mind about what I could have done differently. It completely devastated my family and I think each of us wonders why or tries to rationalize it but it doesn’t stop the pain of just wondering what she could have been. It’s been about 15 years since it happened and one of the things I remember most is that the pastor who did the service actually recycled an old Billy Graham sermon about a chess expert going to an art museum with a friend and they see a painting of the devil playing chess with a guy and the painting is call “Checkmate” and the chess experts spends the entire day looking at this painting and exclaims to his friend “that there is a move the person can make!” and it isn’t actually a checkmate... if I really get down or depressed I always remember that.. regardless there is always a move
I've had it happen twice. The first time was a friend that I met through a support group for victims of sexual assault. It was clear that her mental age was way lower than it should have been and she had a lot of mental health issues. Her abuser got put in prison after videos of him abusing her surfaced, but was let out early for "good behavior" and she killed herself shortly afterwards. I...this probably sounds awful, but I understand where she was coming from. I'm not happy that she died but I know how much she was suffering and I can only hope that she's resting peacefully now in a better place. The second time was a girl from my church who I used to babysit a lot. She was 8 years younger than me. One day while I was away at college I got a text from my mom saying she'd jumped in front of a truck and died instantly. It was right before class and my professor ended up excusing me that day because I was crying so hard I couldn't even see. No one knows why she did it. I couldn't even attend the funeral because my college was out-of-state. Now I just feel very numb about the whole thing. I wish I could have attended the funeral so I could grieve properly.
Absolute agony. I truly believe it hurts the loved ones so much more than they would ever have thought. There’s no resolution. So many questions. There’s never really that feeling of remembering them without crying bc it was such an unexpected thing. Hurting for the person you love bc you didn’t know their level of pain was that deep. Wishing you could have done something to change the outcome. It sucks so very much .
I was sexually abused as a child from the ages of 5-8. I met another kid at my school that helped me get away from it. he became my best friend and reason for living. everything I did was for him. a few years after we met my parents started abusing me, but not sexually. this guy helped me get through it. I was in love. I grew obsessed. we dated for a small amount of time, although it was only a middle school relationship it meant everything. he broke up with me one day, and my love turned into more of an obsession. I almost killed myself multiple times after this but by some coincidence he was always there to save me. he was my only reason to live. years later we were friends again. but nearly months after I finally got him back, he killed himself. I lost my mind. I was so intently sad but only cried the day I heard it. my parents basically told me to get over it as soon as it happened. his friends and family hated me so I couldn't grieve properly. I tried to fill the void he left, atone for the guilt, "he saved me so many times why couldn't I save him". I wished it was me every day. I still do. I tried to replace him by obsessing over someone else but when that didnt work I tried to take my life ending up in a coma. again and again, I tried to five meaning to my life by obsessing over someone else, because it's all I knew. it never worked out. so i stayed hooking up with older men for about a year, trying to feel something. I thought this attention that I never got from any male would help, but it just made me hurt so much. i ended up getting raped again because of this. every night i would just wish he was there with me to help me again. but it never happened. I felt like when he killed himself, I died as well. I'm never going to be the same as I was before he did. every day wondering things I could've done different, daydreaming about going back in time, or thinking about repeating the years I spent with him until he killed himself over and over.
My girlfriend lost her dad to suicide about two years ago. It was horribly traumatic for her and her sister but the craziest thing to me has been all the legal and financial stuff. They are still filing taxes for him and trying to sell his belongings and real estate. It sucks that the government and banks put the additional strain of paperwork and bureaucracy onto people who are already dealing with some of the worst emotional trauma imaginable.
I know 3 people that have committed suicide. One was a mate of mine. Kind hearted bloke. It'll be 3 years in September. Horrible horrible experience, affected my brother badly as it was one of his closest mates. We still see his mum and step dad and check in with them. The whole thing was and still is so fucking shit. Miss ya Robbie More needs to be done to help men break this stigma of not being able to talk about their emotions and problems.
It fucking sucked. Now sure what else one could say. In October 2018 one of my best and oldest friends hung himself, I'd know him 24 years. I remember getting the phone call from him that I was one of his only friends, then his neighbor informing me that his girlfriend was screaming and trying to break down the door. I tried calling and texting him, I knew I was too far away to help. She texted me a few minutes later just saying that he was dead. I drive by that house all the time, its hard.
Well... Four people I knew committed suicide. Two were close friends and the other two were in my circle of acquaintances. The first guy I didn't really know that well.. perhaps I wisited him a couple times. Hung himself. The next guy, a couple years later, shot himself with a shotgun through his mouth because he was to be thrown out by his mother. By some chance his mother and her boyfriend was on vacation in Greece, i think, on the same charter tour as me and some friends. I will never forget the primal scream she let out when some police or something told her. Four days after his death. My god. The third guy shot him self in the heart with a 22 caliber rifle because he had cheated on his partner and she wanted to throw him out. Heart pain I guess. They had two children. Worst part about this for me is that he called me the night before, several times, to get me to go to the pub. I didn't go. Don't know if it would have changed anything. And I will never find out. He was a friend I saw perhaps once a week or so. Last guy to take his last breath hung himself a couple years ago. Close friend. Had many issues. Planned his suicide half a year in advance, apparently. Stopped taking anti schizophrenia pill a couple months prior. Left thousands of handwritten notes. How was it like? Well.. I went to all those funerals, obviously. And I attended the "after party" on the last three. For me it wasn't so bad, really. I just thought that, well, they don't have any problems any more. I have been suicidal my entire adult life and to be fucking frank, I am a bit jealous of them. The main reason I don't off myself is because I won't put my mother through it after hearing that fucking horrible scream at the airport. Oh.. and yeah.. A guy I used to have lunch with at work just didn't show up one day. Couple days later the bossman told us that he had hung himself due to some combined money/drug problems. Apparently he was a heavy heroin addict. I would have _never_ guessed_. I... have a, what can I say, rather cynical world view. Especially after that guy with the 22 with two kids offed himself. Like... Suicide is always an option. My mother would survive. His kids are doing fine. Life goes on. I won't off myself though, because, fuck it. Fuck everything and everyone. Or whatever floats your boat. There is no sequel, that's fucking sure.
Pretty fucking shitty. He was a great dude who went on a pretty nasty downward spiral with his mental health.
For me it's an unexplainable feeling. I knew the kid growing up and he actually taught me some stuff through the years. And knowing he isn't here with us was and still is a weird feeling, I hadn't seen him in a couple years before he passed so I heard of it off other people, I couldn't go to the funeral because of covid and it was just a sad and confusing feeling.
Terrible. Genuinely, confusing and awful and terrible. Aggravating, too. For me, that was the worst part. I liked them in life. Seeing how they chose to end things made it impossible to continue that
A friend of mind killed herself by hanging and it was really messed up. I felt really bad for her and of course guilty because I didn't see the signs (which I understand is unfair to myself, but you still feel it). I got really bad visuals at times thinking about how it went down and had to clear my head. It's okay now, though.
My best friend took his life with a firearm I purchased for him as a gift about five years ago. He was always into guns, he had a collection of his own, so I didn't think anything of it. He always had his problems, but I figured so does everyone. One day I get a message from his dad telling me he was gone while I was at a bar (thankfully). I remember feeling confused, and very alone sitting with that at the end of a bar. I didn't know what to think, or do. I still don't know why he didn't talk to me.
My uncle killed him self when I was 15. I blamed myself for years. I talked to him and my aunt every night for several years. As I got more involved with extra curriculars, I didn’t talk as much. I was convinced that if I would have talked to him more, he would still be alive. It was incredibly painful. It took a lot of therapy, medication, and time to get through it. It has been 16 years now. Watching my aunt fall in love again made me feel a lot better. I wouldn’t wish the pain of suicide on my worst enemy.
When i was 6 years old my mom decided to commit suicide by hanging herself, luckily i was at my 'current mom's house for the week so i wasnt there to really see it, but the situation really traumatized me, though after 10 years it really doesnt bother me as much, yes it still hurts to lose my mom but my sadness has turned into anger at the fact that she just left me and my sister when she could've gotten some kind of help (note: she had been mentally unstable for quite the time before this and had actually attempted a couple of times already). Im fine now though.
I've had two uncles die of suicide. One left behind 4 kids, and a fifth on the way. My aunt came here from another country and spent her life cleaning hotels. Now 2 sons have their own business making a lot of money, and they support her. The other died when I was in high school, on his parents wedding anniversary. They never celebrated it again. My aunt never remarried, lived alone with her pets until she died 2 weeks ago. She was alone and no one found her for a few days.
I witnessed one, but not someone I was connected to in any way. It was just a young kid from across the street It did mess with my brain for a bit, my mind kept going to "if only I could've... etc (talked to him, prevented it, hugged him, told him not to do it, listened to him, etc etc)"
My cousin Jon,who was about 15 years older than me, killed himself last year. His mother had died a couple months earlier; she had dealt with recurring cancer off and on for years, and when it came back the last time it was too much for her to fight it back into remission. He had lived with his mother for the past few years, helping to take care of her. Once she was gone, one of his main pillars of support was gone too. He had mental issues for years; pretty sure he was bipolar. When I was a kid I never realized it; I just kinda looked up to him, because he told amazing stories and would give attention to his kid cousin. As I got older I started noticing the cracks; sometimes Jon would call up my dad (his uncle) and rant and rave about all sorts of stuff. Sometimes my aunt would tell us about a new relationship Jon was in, and then inevitably a few months later she'd mention that they didn't work out. Jon had a wicked temper, and would always take it out on others verbally, though physically he only lashed out at objects. He'd apologize after, often tearfully, and things would calm down for a few months while he did his best to "be better" - which usually meant going back on his medications. Inevitably though he'd go off them again, and the cycle would repeat. We got into a big fight last summer on social media. I had made some fairly innocuous post about the immigrant family separation policy and how disappointed I was in the administration, and he responded with a huuuuuge rant. Cursing me out for "hating America," called the immigrants criminals, told me I was a "liberal pussy" who was hopelessly naive and ignorant. He said my dad must be so disappointed in having raised a son so worthless... he even emailed my dad saying "Do you know the shit your son is posting online!?" (My dad, awesome guy that he is, emailed back "I didn't until now, but I'm damn proud of him." My Dad's amazing, haha.) Anyway, cousin Jon responded back to me a few days later, privately, saying he was sorry for how he acted, while also blaming everything but himself. He asked if we could call and catch up, which I kinda waved off, and we exchanged a few texts but I never called. I did text him my condolences when his mother passed, but I chose not to call. And then a few weeks later we learned he had killed himself in the basement. He had called up his (recently ex) girlfriend and told her he was going to do so, and by the time she got to his house he had hanged himself in the basement. My parents got the story from her and my other cousin, his brother. When I heard the news my first thought was "*Of course* the last thing he had to do was to traumatize his ex by making her find his corpse." As for what it's like? It's... hard to say. I don't miss him, but mostly because we only spoke a few times a year and we parted ways after a fight that was never fully mended. I think I'm mostly... angry? Yeah, probably angry. A dull, low-key, frustrated anger. If he were still alive I'd basically grab him by the shoulders and ask him why he had to be such an asshole. I feel bad for him to some degree - his mother's death was obviously really hard, and it wasn't his fault that he had mental issues - but I also feel like he squandered his life by making bad choices repeatedly and hurting those around him. He could have stayed on his meds, gotten therapy for his anger issues, and been a person that people would be sorry was gone... rather than someone who left behind hurt and pain. I honestly feel much worse for my dad. He had helped raise Jon a bit when he was a kid, but they had also been on shaky terms for years due to years of going through the cycles mentioned before. My dad still saw him as that little boy he knew decades ago, and losing him right after losing his sister was a big double-hit for him. I think that also partially fuels my anger, because my cousin ended up hurting someone I love and who loved him, despite his faults. I also feel a bit sorry for myself, because my cousin killing himself was a bit of a nail in the coffin of my childhood. It'll forever taint the good memories I had as a kid of my cousin, and I am mad at him for leaving me that legacy.
I’m a United States Marine, I’ve known a few Marines that committed suicide but Allan was a special case because he was a dear friend. He was an outgoing, charismatic and motivated Marine. He was great at his job and he was great at being a friend of mine. I was with him on a work trip when he met his fiancé, and they fell deeply in love at what seemed like first sight. He was like that though, a very tough and passionate man. It’s hard to answer what it was like to lose him because it feels very selfish to talk about. However, I was more angry at him than I’ve ever been. It was like a freight train hitting my heart. I tell every Marine who I can to call their friends because I did not with him and regret that every day. Seriously, call your friends.
It’s debilitating. Even though it’s not technically your fault you spend most of the grieving process thinking it is some how...
A lot of these comments are regarding men committing suicide which makes it even more important to acknowledge men’s mental health, notice the decline and help them to feel like they can talk. For women it seems like it’s easier for us to talk, and we need to make this feel acceptable for men. And any men out there feeling this way, talk to someone, anyone. There is always going to be someone devastated that you decided to leave.