Author Topic: Anybody else lost someone to suicide?  (Read 3653 times)

justajane

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Anybody else lost someone to suicide?
« on: June 11, 2015, 03:55:10 PM »
I just found out that a longtime friend of mine took his own life on Monday. We had lost touch in the past year and just re-established contact with each other. We were planning on getting a drink, but I had to reschedule. Of course a drink with me wouldn't have changed anything, but the regrets and second thoughts are very intense. This is my first experience with suicide. I have lost people to cancer and  sudden accidents. This is different and distinct in terms of grief.

I personally know depression. I understand suicide. Ultimately I do not think it is selfish. I do not think it is an easy way out. I feel no need to make such pronouncements, especially having experienced tremendous, long term despair myself.

Nonetheless it is extremely hard. And now that I've experienced this, I think - what if someone even closer to me were to do this? He was a friend but not a close friend. What if my siblings (who are horribly depressed) make this decision? What if one of my children one day decides to do this? I know these thoughts have no answers, but now that the door has been opened so to speak and this reality has touched me, it's hard not to be afraid.

Anyway, I wanted to ask my thoughtful fellow forum contributors who have experienced this how they coped (or didn't) with suicide. What actions, emotions, and thoughts were helpful to you? Conversely, what ones weren't?

QuietOne

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Re: Anybody else lost someone to suicide?
« Reply #1 on: June 11, 2015, 04:26:57 PM »
I'm sorry for you and your friend. I especially can see how painful it is for you based on your recent contact with him.
 
DH and I lost high school friends to suicide while we were in college, but I felt two later ones much more deeply. One was a friend of my mother's who I also kept in touch with because of her support of my mother through some rough times. The thing that still hurts today after a decade or more is the method she chose - she set herself on fire. The entire situation she was living through was horrible by itself, but I just can't get my head around how she did it. She called her parents first but they were unable to reach her in time. My heart breaks. Honestly, I try not to think about it much because it's too horrible.
 
But here's the one which stirred many emotions - my father-in-law committed suicide years ago. DH and I had just had a baby and I was pregnant. I remember many emotions that didn't even make sense - feeling so unimportant to him that he would do this before he met his next grandchild, anger at my mother-in-law for not preventing it or noticing, anger at him, then finally the one that lasted the longest - intense guilt that I didn't do enough to make him feel loved.
 
I didn't read much about suicide when it happened, but read articles here and there afterward and this flow of thoughts and emotions sounds typical. It took a long, long time to accept it and forgive myself. I guess if I knew at the time that these were the thoughts and feelings of family left behind, it might have made me forgive myself earlier. I just can't know.
 
I hope you find peace.
 

scrubbyfish

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Re: Anybody else lost someone to suicide?
« Reply #2 on: June 11, 2015, 04:34:16 PM »
So very sorry for this loss :(

Yes, I lost a dear friend to suicide, and nearly one other.

Like you, I do not fault a person for attempting or completing suicide. A person has to be in a lot of pain to make that decision, and as a society, we offer horrifically little care for people going through severe challenges.

That said, of course we also feel pain when we lose a loved one this way. We can feel guilt -even when we know we were there for them as much as we could- as well as depression and, well, all the normal stuff we feel in grief. Depending on our relationship with them, and our last contact, it can also be a "complicated grief" with additional suffering.

It's good to talk about it. Because of my son's biological history and diagnoses, I intentionally talk with him about suicide. How the thoughts arise for some people, the effectiveness of help "the earlier the better", how he can talk with me about any thoughts or impulses and that I will always do my best to find help for him. Etc.

As with all hardships, what I find helpful is to process my feelings completely. Honour them. Cry. Have a private or shared good-bye ceremony or four. Go to the funeral. Or don't, whatever fits you best. Keep talking with others who knew the person, sharing memories, sharing grief. Write a letter to the person and read it to them aloud.

May your friend now be at peace.

dycker1978

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Re: Anybody else lost someone to suicide?
« Reply #3 on: June 11, 2015, 04:51:12 PM »
First of all I am sorry for your Loss.

I lost a cousin to suicide about 15 years ago.  We were not close, but I could see what it did, and still does to his Mother and sister.

Recently my son spoke to a friend about them helping her commit suicide.  We caught it in time, and got, are getting the help we need.  It is a tough thing to go through.  I am glad that I don't have to live with the guilt of that everyday.  He is a member of the LGBT community, as a transgender person(FTM) and as such I will spend the rest of my days stopping the discrimination to all people and helping them overcome, to the best of my ability.  I am sure he will too, when he heals.

Insanity

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Re: Anybody else lost someone to suicide?
« Reply #4 on: June 11, 2015, 04:53:11 PM »
Sorry for your loss.  Have family members battling depression (including myself) and anxiety.  I know people who have taken their lives but no one I was close to.


choppingwood

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Re: Anybody else lost someone to suicide?
« Reply #5 on: June 11, 2015, 05:47:20 PM »
I'm so sorry for your loss.

My brother took his own life when he was thirty-three. It was the evening before my twenty-fifth birthday.

I was a little angry then, but mostly sad. Thirty-five plus years later I am much angrier that he didn't try to get help. He was a man who lived life to the fullest, and I am angry that he missed the best part of it.

How did I cope? There is a balance between talking about a death and talking too much about it. My brother's wife and one of my sisters needed to talk about it at great length. My parents could not talk about it.

My brother was on the other side of the world when he did this, so there was no local funeral. People did not call me, they called my parents. I told few people. I did tell one friend who I could count on to tell everyone what was going on, but she decided it was too personal. ;-) When I did tell people -- especially people near my own age -- they were so upset that they became absolutely silent. Their hands trembled. It ended up I was trying to make them feel better. (My parents experienced the same, but with people becoming absolutely hysterical during condolence visits.) I had comforting conversations with my boss and his wife, who called me individually, and had thought about what to ask. Open-ended questions, as I recall. "What are you thinking about this?" I was straightforward about grieving, though. I don't feel it is unresolved for me.

I am angry today, because tomorrow is the anniversary of his death. Normally, though, I remember him with affection and good humour and am reminded of him by things he liked to do or things he would have liked to have sees. Though there is a family history of depression, I am not prone to it (I am thankful for that.). I live alone, though, and because of the family history, I am careful about staying clear of the tipping point, especially now that I have fewer family. If I find myself in a poisonous relationship or workplace, I address the situation or step away while I can still make healthy decisions.

Norrie

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Re: Anybody else lost someone to suicide?
« Reply #6 on: June 11, 2015, 06:06:36 PM »
My heart goes out to you and to your friend's family.

I had a good friend commit suicide when I was 19 years old, and it was incredibly hard. The circumstances were almost more than I could bear at the time. It took me a very, very long time to really be able to process it and come to terms with it. I did a lot of talking it through with friends, but I wish that I had gotten some counseling at the time.

Be gentle with yourself.

HappierAtHome

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Re: Anybody else lost someone to suicide?
« Reply #7 on: June 11, 2015, 06:29:40 PM »
A recent ex-boyfriend, when I was 17. Absolutely heartbreaking at the time, because of the waste - he had so much potential and had made so many poor choices, and then in the end, had no opportunity to correct them, to find happiness or to make more of his life because it was just over.

I found counselling helpful.

I've also had cousins and acquaintances kill themselves, but nobody else close enough for it to be a personal event for me - at least not when always viewed through the lens of losing that ex.

justajane

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Re: Anybody else lost someone to suicide?
« Reply #8 on: June 11, 2015, 06:40:27 PM »
I appreciate all these responses so much, and my heart also just hurts for those of you who have experienced this as well. Friends, brothers, cousins, father-in-laws...it's just so, so hard.

I vacillate between sadness and just overwhelming grief. He lived two blocks from me, and I don't think that I will be able to drive down his block where it happened for a very, very long time. I don't know the specific details, and I really don't want to. I found out about it being suicide by reaching out to someone in another state. Even though he was a stranger to me, I just wanted to be sure he knew of his friend's death. I suspected suicide when I heard about the death yesterday, but he confirmed it to me. I really feel bad for this person, because my friend had sent him a last minute e-mail indicating that he wanted to die. The friend sent a local acquaintance immediately to the apartment, but the police were already there. It was too late. 

I'm almost embarrassed admitting that a friend lived so close to me and that I hadn't seen him in at least a year. My younger self would have thought - how could you value a friendship so little that you didn't reach out to someone who lived so close? Why didn't I invite him over for a beer? I just got so caught up in my own micro-family life that I let time pass. I don't feel any sense of responsibility for his death - just a profound sadness that someone who was part of my life for years is now gone and that now I can't invite him over for that beer.

The main positive about all this is that in the past 24 hours I have been in contact with mutual friends that I haven't talked to in years and years. Our shared grief has brought us together again in some respects. We all feel the same - some regret but mostly just deep sadness for him that he was hurting that much.

justajane

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Re: Anybody else lost someone to suicide?
« Reply #9 on: June 12, 2015, 08:59:59 AM »
I found out that he had already boxed up and cleaned his apartment, which means this was not a spur of the moment event. Considerate of others to the end, I guess. I don't know if that makes it easier or harder, but hearing all these details are just so, so hard. I'm hoping that dealing with all my disparate emotions head on now will ease the grieving process, but I know grief is cyclical rather than linear.

And, again, this was not a close friend of mine. We had a long history together, though. I just don't know how those of you who lost closer friends and relatives endured. There's just something so different about a person choosing to die -- and all the obvious pain that that entailed -- that makes this so difficult for those left behind to process emotionally and mentally.

scrubbyfish

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Re: Anybody else lost someone to suicide?
« Reply #10 on: June 12, 2015, 09:05:02 AM »
Yes, it really is so complex, justajane. The grappling, the grasping, the wondering, the angst, the turning in our heads of different paths and potential outcomes.

What you're feeling and struggling with makes total sense.

I can only hope you experience some respite moments in amongst the hard ones.

QuietOne

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Re: Anybody else lost someone to suicide?
« Reply #11 on: June 12, 2015, 12:38:21 PM »
The suicides I mentioned took place almost 20 years ago yet I still felt like crying when I wrote about them and I continue to feel like that as I read yours and the other posts. I think it's just difficult to realize that people you know or love can feel so much anguish that they end their lives. And that this was happening and all of us were unaware. And these thoughts may be present for the rest of your life, I suppose.
 
The grieving process of losing a loved one or acquaintance is in addition to that, I think. All of us can share memories of them and have adjusted to and accepted life without them. But dig deeper and that pain of trying to grasp the extent of THEIR pain is still there for me.
 
I like that dycker is determined to help end discrimination and hate that often leads people to suicide. I am also an advocate for LGBT rights and other minority groups but on a personal level, try to stop people from throwing hate at others. My FIL wasn't a member of a marginalized group but as a leader in a small community, faced an angry mob with pitchforks for weeks or months who held him responsible for something his underling was accused of and could not cope with that on top of his depression. There's no excuse for all of that hate.
 
I guess that's my own method of remembering the ones I've lost - standing up for those hurting.
 
I don't know if any of my rambling is helpful, but sometimes it's just good to talk and listen to others. People often find it helpful to share their memories of that person. If you want to tell us about your friend's life, please do. But I hope you are able to work through this and find peace.