Category Archives: Guest Post

Loss my older brother to suicide August 27th, 2018. He left behind four kids. I just want him back. It wasn’t his time and i know he didn’t mean too. The worst part is that i feel maybe, MAYBE something could’ve been done. He left a voice message saying he wished he could speak to me, that if he could he wouldn’t do it. I just feel so lost, i don’t know life without him. I need him and want him back. GOD PLEASE GIVE ME STRENGTH

He would have been 39 this May, married with two young beautiful children. How could anyone be struggling so much inside and feel like they couldn’t reach out. Why wasn’t I more available and more welcoming to his texts and calls? We live in different countries now but we are still family. I don’t want to play the blame game but it can’t be real, he can’t really be gone. How do u be strong now for my own family, my parents, my boys who loved my brother so dearly. I need help to cope it still seems like a dream 🙁
I can’t even begin to imagine how his wife and kids must feel, they found him. How could anything ever be that bad that there was no other answer. Please can’t someone help me understand what happened and why….

Zachary Ryan Bowden. My oldest brother and best friend. We didn’t start off as best friends, no. Of course I was the weird little sister who has cooties. At that age we didn’t speak unless it was him making fun of me calling me meg or something else stupid. He was the cool one. The ring leader. The big brother all of my other big brothers and I aspired to be. He was always responsible. Always saved his money up smart to get something cool. Started his retirement savings at the age of 16! Not to mention he was handsome and certainly had his fair share of girl friends. We started bonding with each other a lot more when I turned about 14. His girlfriends would come over and I’d score him points by being the sweet little sister who says “oh he’s said so much about you, you’re all he talks about”. I’d give him advice. Then at about 16 I tried my first Smirnoff and we started becoming the best friends that we are. We partied together, mixed friend groups, and really just had a hell of a time. We also shared our sadness with each other. Our depression. What it was like to feel isolated and alone in a room full of people. What it was like to want to change and feeling incapable and defeated by the idea. What it was like to drive to work everyday with the thought of pulling the steering wheel and ending it all in a split second. What it was to feel pain. We showed one another that maybe we’re not alone if we still have each other. Someone else on this planet knows exactly how we feel and we can rely on one another. We hid our emotions from our family members. Kept it confidential. We didn’t want to worry our parents. We didn’t want to be perceived in a negative light. Just another cry baby teenager with sad boy complex. One night Zachary called me at four in the morning. Crying. Of course I went over to his to consol him. He talked again about all of his emotions lately. He even told me that he sits every night in the same place before going to bed. Next to his night stand with knees to chest holding his hand gun his dad has bought him for hunting that Christmas held right up against his left temple. Loaded and cocked. He’d sit there and cry for an hour trying to decide if he wanted to. If it was worth it. That night after he told me that it really hit me like a ton of bricks…. I knew exactly how he felt. I made him promise me, swear even, that he wouldn’t kill him self and he did. So naturally, sobbing, I promised too. I felt burdened by the promise, shackled even. Shackled to the earth to live out my sentence. I had made a promise after all. One month later on September 4th, 2017 he sat. Sat with knees to chest next to his bed side table with the gun cocked and loaded pointed at his left temple, tears streaming. And shot. At 11pm. I was angry. At him. Mostly at myself. Guilty. Alone. Really alone. Now I live out my days shackled still but stronger. With a tattoo on my left wrist “ i promise ;”. I hate the tattoo. I regret getting it. It’s like something to laugh in my face just ever present on my body. A year earlier I had witnessed my grandfather die of cancer right in my arms. But nothing could prepare me for the sting of my brothers death. I lost a piece of my heart. Forever. Just this year, 2019 my mother died. Drug overdose. She never really was a mom but I so desperately wanted her to be. It was hard. And now, just a few months after my mother, my grandmother is dying of cancer and of course I’m the one forced by her side to witness it. It does bother me but not to the extent it should. I’m simply numb. That’s what a lifetime of trauma and misery at the young age of 20 can do to a person. Numb them. I have to live out my days. Knowing that the last shred of happiness and innocence I may have had died with Zachary that night of September 4th.

My older brother was my hero, our grandparents had to raise us because my father wasn’t stable and my mother left us, we almost ended in foster care, I was 4, my brother was 7 almost 8, we were really close, I followed him around like a puppy , we had pretty good childhood, our grandparents were the best and blessing from God for us. My brother took his life on July 9th 2018, broke into our aunts house and shot himself, now I’ve seen it all, I was 3rd infantry division, 2003 Iraq veteran, 1st operation, lost dear friend in suicide car bombing , I’ve seen horrible and traumatic s*** but to be with my brother for 3 days in ICU with his head in the condition it was, well that seems to have taken my soul, my brother was so kind, really smart, top of his law school class, great friends and well loved and liked by all, hell 2000 people showed up paying respect in our little town, I was at work less than a mile away from my aunts house when he decided to leave, now I’ve been with my brother for my whole life, we had 1 bad fight our whole life, he was my hero, very gentle soul, to know him you would love him, the best heart. To be honest, I dont have much family. My brother and I were really close, growing up not knowing our mother hurt but we always had each other to lean on, I’m just lost, feel like my heart and soul has been ripped out,
Life hit my brother too hard and he couldn’t recover, I would give my life happily for his, there is no time machine, and I can’t change what happened, but I hope someone who is on that level with life will read this before they decide, because the amount of hurt, and sadness you have with living, is nothing compared to the pain and suffering your leaving.

I am a freshman in college. My older brother passed away five years ago. I was told it was a drug interaction, and an accident. My mom denied the possibility of suicide to my face several times, while my grandma hinted to me that he was depressed, and I knew in my gut all along something was not right. He was hands down the best brother in the world, HE WAS my world, I loved him more than anyone. He was such a good person, he cared so deeply, he was underspoken, a protective big brother. I remember being told of his death, being confused, going through therapy, asking for more answers, at least SOME specifics, more explanation, for years before finally accepting the lie I was being told. A drug interaction, an accident. It was not until two weeks ago, on the phone that I finally demanded answers from my dad, and I learned that my brother had shot himself with a gun alone in his room after a night out. I feel as though I am hearing of his death for the very first time. Grieving for the very first time. Everything is so much clearer, so much sharper, so much more painful and real. I am angry I wasn’t told five years ago, I would most be on a completely different path in life. I feel extremely alone, my entire family knew but me, and now only my dad knows that I know the truth. I spoke at his funeral without knowing. I explained the situation to friends. I never thought I had a reason to be very involved in the suicide movement, a close familial relation. My brother is a huge part of my identity, and I was lied to about his demise. I have a very strong connection to him, which is why nothing felt right these past five years. I knew there was more, I knew him better than that, I knew he was too good and I knew that he was in pain. That sense of connection was partly blurred for me for five years with a sense of confusion. I am angry at my family, I don’t know what to do, I don’t even think my mom knows about the truth- or she is in severe denial. My parents are divorced. Apparently he left a note, but my dad says he doesn’t have a copy- yet I called the police department and they say he WAS given a copy- they also say that I can’t get a copy without his okay. I am lost, I am lonely, and I am in a massive amount of pain experiencing my brothers death for what feels like the first time. I was lied to by my entire family, told at least three separate different situations, all ending with “it was an accident”. Confusion and pain. I feel very lost, I want to honor him, I want to try to make the world a better place for him, but I am in so much pain and I have so much anger at my family. He was my big brother.

I lost my brother yesterday. He hung himself. He was 48 years old. I have so many words, but so few. It’s just so intense. There is a huge hole in my chest. I can’t stop the flow of tears. No one knows what to say so they say nothing. It’s a very lonely grief. I just feel so lost. I can’t ever tell him again that I love him, that he matters. I love you Scott.

I have a confession. Even a year later, I am still so mad at my brother for how he has changed everything, and everyone around me. I am mad at him for casting a sad shadow over anything good that happens, “oh this is would be so much better if your brother was here.” “If only your brother was here.” “I wish your brother was here…”
Well he’s not and that is not my fault, so why should it distract from anything good and successful that I do. Now, don’t get me wrong, I wish he was here too. I’m just still mad at him for choosing not being here.
I know this is selfish and I should probably be ashamed but he killed a piece of all of us on that night. I’m mad he took his own life but also the lives so many people who loved him. My father tells me he will never be truly happy again. I struggle to feel like I am enough for my parents. How can I ever be enough child for them. I can’t tell my parents how sad I am, they need me to be okay all the time. It is a lot of pressure to be two (happy) kids in one.
I am I the only person feeling like this?

I just found this site, I wanted to find people who’d been through this. My brother, Andrew, died by suicide yesterday morning.
It’s been less than 48 hours but it feel so long. The house creaks and I think it’s him in his room. I don’t know what to say to my family. I don’t know what to do, how to be with family without him. We would always be together at times like this, we’d be glued to each other’s sides. We were always on each other’s team and I feel so alone.
When we were together we could almost read each other’s minds and so I feel like I should have been able to stop it. He was so ill for so long and the pain was just too unbearable. He left a note but didn’t say he loved us.
I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and him still be gone.

My brother shot a killed him self in the room next to mine this past Monday. He was only 15 and I’m 17. He was my best friend. I heard him open and close the door before he shot himself. After he shot himself I didn’t even know. I called his name three times to no answer and assumed he just dropped something. 30 minutes later the police are at my house and I find out my brothers been dead. All I want to do is leave so, so I try to leave in my truck and two officers jump out it front of my ram 1500. I proceed to use the truck to get them out my way. After they pull their guns on me, I turn off the truck and get arrest and spend the next four hours in the back of a police car after my brother suicide.

My baby brother hung himself in a train station toilets 20 years ago on March 9th 1999
He had just celebrated his 19th Birthday 7 days previous.
I hate this time of year, I miss him so much we were close, or I thought, both serving soldiers at the time. I am still angry with him, he left us, left the family to cope with the grief, which has gradually ripped our once close family apart.
20 years and it still hurts. I miss you John xxx