Welcome to the Sibling Survivors Site!

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The Sibling Survivors of Suicide Loss site aims to provide a safe place for anyone who has lost a sister or brother to suicide. It’s a place to share memories, discuss your feelings and experiences, and to share photos. It’s a place to connect with others who also miss their sister or brother.

The site was created in 2001 by Michelle Linn Gust. She passed the site on to the POS-FFOS Internet Community in November of 2014. It officially re-opened on January 4, 2015.

We invite you to explore the site and participate. We need you; help us make this site a safe and supportive place for other sibling survivors. You can participate by Creating a  Guest Post, sharing an Inspirational Thought or Message, or Writing a Letter to your Sibling. Please see those pages for more information.

Sibling Survivors is maintained by volunteers from the Parents of Suicides (POS) and Friends and Families of Suicides (FFOS) Internet Community and others. Learn more about these groups on the About Us page.

My little brother, gone after schizophrenia

Guest Post
My brother Michael took his life after a 6 or 7 year battle with schizophrenia. I feel like I lost him twice, and I feel guilty for even thinking that. He is gone now for good. Sometimes in my head I scream “where are you?” I can’t fathom it. The pain sometimes feels unendurable. I am wracked with grief, guilt, regret, horror. I love you so much, Michael. I miss you.

The burden of guilt

Guest Post
I lost my younger brother who was like my own son and my very best friend less than a year ago to suicide. We had so many plans together and now I just feel so alone in this world.
He suffered from addiction and mental health and 4 weeks before he killed himself We fought and stopped talking. The burden of guilt is killing me. I loved and still love him down to my core. I don’t know how to go on.

For my little brother, John M.

Letters
It’s Queen. I’m so sorry. Im writing this letter in advance, it’s 26 June 2024. I’m sorry I left home when you were just about to turn 6 this August. It’s a miracle I made it to turn 19. Please reach out, don’t be too mad! I’ll be back one day, we can play again like old times. I love you and I miss you a lot. All the mean things they say about me aren’t true. I can explain everything.

Chelsea, my cheech

Guest Post
I originally wrote this long message before deleting it. I wish we had parents who were capable of showing us healthy love and acceptance. Parents who took their mental health seriously. I get angry reading past articles following your passing and quotes of what mom and daddy said about mental health awareness. Meanwhile they let their mental health deteriorate and continue to cause destruction. As if your death wasn’t a lesson. I think it’s weird they take no part or think they factored in how you created your perception of your world. I have watched them be so evil and terrible to each other our whole lives.I WISH YOU WERE HERE. Why do some people attempt suicide survive and you didn’t? All I can wish is for you visit me in my dreams. That’s all I get from you now. It just doesn’t feel like enough. I love you so much Cheech, you were so good at masking it … death is so finite and my love feels alive more than ever. It’s been 9 years and it still feels like I’m grappling with you not being here.

Sometimes I stalk the internet, your facebook, old videos, to see what I missed. But I know it doesn’t matter now…

3 losses

Guest Post
I’ve lost 3 siblings to suicide. Details how and why are readily available if anyone wishes for further details, I’m open.
Suicide changes people
I’ve struggled with grief during times when most people got married and had babies. I didn’t. It consumed my presence in the world.
I feel loss grief anger sadness and wonder what my life would be without it.
I won’t ever forget or be healed but I’ve lost all shame.

what?

Guest Post
I got the call last Sunday. My 25 year old brother had hung himself. I’m 21. It’s now Friday, his funeral was today. Since the news, the week has flown by. All I do is lay on the couch next thing I know 9 hours has passed. I haven’t gotten up, ate, done anything in that period of time. Feeling guilt for everything. Watching a new movie he would’ve liked or drinking a red bull etc. I’ve felt like i’m in a dreams-like state the past almost week. When does the dream faze go away? When will I be here? How bad is this going to be when the dream is gone? How do you comprehend this?

To my 妹妹

Guest Post
I’m so sorry I failed you.
I miss you and I only just now realize the permanence of your absence.In a way, your timing was impeccable.Choosing to leave us right as your nephew arrived saved mom’s life
As for me, the sheer ecstasy of early postpartum shielded my consciousness from the intense grief, guilt, regret:
I hated how I didn’t bombarded you with baby pictures;
I hated how I said no to hypothetical aunty-baby dates you wanted to go on with your friends and their nieces and nephews;
I hated how I wouldn’t let you touch my then growing belly;
I hate that E will grow up never knowing you.

I wish I was less stuck up, I wished I had a bigger heart to love you more.

I am so sorry. I failed you. I didn’t see your suffering and couldn’t understand it. To be honest I still don’t comprehend it today.

I’m so sorry.

I wasn’t able to tell you goodbye

Guest Post

The phone rang around 8:00 a.m. on the morning of January 10, 2024. My older brother was up way too early to be calling me. It’s now been a little more than three months, yet the shock of the news of your death from the evening before delivered to me that day still saddens me, scares me, and leaves me with a sense of loss.

I write this letter to you trying to understand why my little brother would take his own life. I have felt guilt since you died. Did I do enough to let you know I was proud of you? Your struggles with incarceration and a drug addiction is something I never understood, but I still never stopped loving you. On the outside looking in, it appeared to me, mom, and our brothers and sisters that you had finally found your way in life.

I know there were times we didn’t agree. There were times I’m sure I hurt your feelings. I know I’m not responsible for your death, but I do feel guilty and am responsible for not doing enough to help you.

Until we meet again. Love and miss you brother.

Lost My Little Brother to Suicide

Guest Post
Hello,
I recently lost my younger brother (age 45) on 3/15/24 to suicide. I am now an only child when all I have known is having my brother. I thought we would grow old together. I thought he would always be there with me after my parents are gone. I have 2 daughters. He did not have any children and lived alone. He struggled to have relationships as he was judged. I think something really bad happened on the internet and I am so scared to find out what they may have been.I had to go over to my parent’s house in my pajamas the other morning as my mom called me sobbing. It is heartbreaking. I have been off this past week but go back to work tomorrow and as a provider, I had to have my staff put all the potentially suicidal patients on someone else’s schedule as I don’t think I could take it having to hear someone else wanting to end their life.

The oddest part is he wasn’t a depressed person or he hid it well. I had more issues with depression than he did. The morning of he sent me a text saying his facebook was hacked. He also had talked to my mom and seemed very upset about some interaction on the internet. None of us know what actually happened but there is an investigation and we are still waiting for information. Part of me wonders if he was going through something though.

It has hit me hard. I still think I am in some sort of nightmare and I will wake up and tell him that thank god this is not real. But I have not waken up and it has been almost 10 days.

Prayers to all of you who have had to endure this pain.

Dear Gregory

Letters
My dear brother,It has been almost 5 months since you chose to end your life. Although I’m still alive, a part of me died when I found out you died. I’m trying to keep it together, but it takes so much work to simply do simple things that seemed so easy before you died. Small tasks take so much effort now that you’re gone. I cry almost daily and although the pain hasn’t gotten better, I have accepted the fact that I will never see you again. I wish you could have seen a 1 minute glimpse of all the pain and suffering you have left behind. If you had, I know you would never have killed your self. You were a great man; you wouldn’t want us to be feeling like this. Mom is devastated. Liam & Olivia need their daddy. We all miss you so much…we ache so much without you. Everything has changed; we will never be the same. You had my dream job of being a secret service special agent; I looked up to you so much, but I never told you that. I wish I had told you how brave I thought you were. I love and miss you so much. Please send us all strength from wherever you are.

I love you always,

Miriam