My baby brother, Doug, shot himself in the head two days ago. I am struggling with every emotion I have read about. What I have not read about is the images that are engraved in my head of him sitting in his car, alone…and the graphic details of his death. I don’t think I will ever be able to close my eyes again and sleep peacefully. Please help me!

My sister killed herself with meth in her system. I had sent her a careless text a few days before and argued and made her feel she couldn’t reach out to me. I was the only person left she would have gone to. I feel so guilty. And tired. Sometimes i feel like I’m taking her place. Her life seemed hopeless and hard, I understand why she felt like taking it was an option. Im not suicidal myself, but I can’t forgive myself for not seeing how horrible life had been for her and just assuming she’d get through it. I feel like I deserve to feel even a little how she did, and still it doesn’t compare.
Damp
The ocean pulses against me
In
Out
Over
around
pullmetugmetakemeconsumeme
Sometimes I wish the water would just take me
No longer damp, but
Drowned.
Right there with you sister
Sometimes,
I think she had the right idea.
And while I feel so ashamed, I can’t stop myself from thinking it.
And pondering it
For a while
pullmetugmetakemeconsumeme
Sink into the edge
The ocean pulses against me
In
Out
Over
Around
Like blood pumping,
A dank existence that never stops
An infinite cycle, damp, uncomfortable.
clogged skin, clogged senses, clogged mind.
A dank existence that never stops–
Never stops
Pulsing
Drowning doesn’t look so bad
pullmetugmetakemeconsumeme
With clouded eyes,
You jumped in–
And sank.
My eyes are wide open.
Crusted in tears like the hot sand that lines what consumed you.
I don’t stare at the water.
I stare at you.
No clouds haze across my sky
But you do.
The constant tug of the ocean
The constant scortch of the sand
The constant pulse
pullmetugmetakemeconsumeme
The constant pulse,
That just. Won’t.
pullmetugmetakemeconsumeme
Maybe to have the right idea
You need clouds.
Or maybe,
Had I been right there with you,
Sister
The ocean would not have pulled
The sand would not now burn
And an existence that never stops,
Wouldn’t look so bad.
But My eyes are wide open.
Damp
The ocean pulses against me
In
Out
Over
around
pullmetugmetakemeconsumeme

You and I, we are the same. You were the one person on earth to be so much like me and you took your own life. Is it going to happen to me, too? I have been living with depression for years, just like you. Genetically, we are alike. Raised in the same environment, so if you as my big brother couldn’t stand the world, how will I survive? I try so hard to be okay, to snap out of it but most days I am hardly breathing really. So am I gonna suffer the same fate too? I am so lost without you, it feels so incomplete, this world, it feels so incomplete without you. Most days I don’t want to be here anymore, I just want to be with you. To know you are okay, to know you finally found rest. Please if you can, come to me in my dreams and tell you are okay. Just once, I just need to know you are okay. I need you to know I love you, so far you have been the biggest influence of my life. I love you so much.

I found this site while doing research on how other people cope with the feelings that I’m feeling. I know I probably need professional help but I can’t bring myself to talk to mom about it because i’ve maintained this stable version of myself in front of her and everyone else for this long. It’s killing me to see her so heartbroken since we lost you. And although it doesn’t seem to be working I want to believe that her seeing me being okay will help her be okay. Since the day I was born you were always there. And I honestly don’t know how I would’ve made it here without you. In elementary school,  when a half-diagnosed disorder kept me from being able to speak a single word to the teachers and most of the kids, you were always there to communicate for me. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom at afterschool care without you having to ask the staff for me. At summer camps when I was put into a group of girls that I had nothing in common with, you let your annoying little sister tag along with you and your friends so I wasn’t alone and I can’t ever repay you for that. My whole life I’ve had you to look up to and I wish I would’ve given you the opportunity to rely on me like I relied on you. It’s been 3 months exactly since you left us, and not a day goes by where I don’t think about how things could’ve been different. I am so sorry that I wasn’t there. I’m so sorry that I let an argument keep me from saying bye and telling you I loved you the last time I saw you. With everything going on, the soonest we could have your memorial is next weekend and the closer it gets the more i’m dreading it. I’m not ready to sit around listening to everyone talk about how you’re gone. To finally see everyone in one place mourning is going to make it so much more real. I want to keep living in this little bubble where I pretend you’re not dead. Even though I know it’s real, it feels like you’re just away on vacation or something and that’s why I haven’t seen you in so long. I don’t think i’m ready to say goodbye for good but I know i don’t have an option and it hurts so damn bad.

I’m having a really tough time these days. My mental health has been deteriorating because I am running out of ways to stay distracted. It’s been 2 and a half years since you died and I haven’t even began to comprehend it. I just didn’t have time to grieve, so I didn’t and every time I would think of you, it would lead to a weird experience where I think “huh? he can’t be dead. How in the world could he be dead? And before I send myself into a panic attack, I just go on Instagram to distract myself. Life is really f***** hard and I just don’t know what to do anymore. God said that if he took something from me, he would give me something to fill the hole in return. How could he replace my brother??? Nothing could ever compensate for the way I feel.

I don’t really know why I’m here, I just know I need to put my thoughts somewhere as right now they’re trapped inside my head. I don’t know if anyone is even going to read this but I know I’ll feel a sense of relief once I hit send. I’m a survivor of sibling suicide.
I’m not sure survivor is the correct word I’d use because I’ve not been surviving since it happened.
I’ve not looked into getting support until now, nearly 6 months later. Support from family and friends is just simply not enough. No words can make me feel better and no one knows what I’m going through unless you’ve been through it yourself, which is how I ended up on this website.
I’m 23 and my brother was 20.
I still live at home with my parents, my 18 year old sister and my brother who is no longer here.
We had a very happy childhood and life up until that point, which keeps me wondering why it happened.
My brother was very sensitive. He liked to sit in his room all day playing his PlayStation. He was definitely a home bird like myself. We liked our own company.
I won’t say he was odd but some of the friends he hung around with weren’t a great influence which led him to get into trouble a handful of times. I’m getting off track here but I want whoever is reading to understand the type of person he was. He had his anxieties and the day after his death and the day we visited him in the mortuary, he was supposed to be at a job interview. He had been unemployed since he finished school. Like myself he wasn’t sure of what he wanted to do in life and was afraid of growing up but he just needed to get out of his shell.
He had a girlfriend who he seemed to be really fond of, they were together for around 10 months and broke up a short while after Christmas.
I’m not certain it had anything to do with his actions but may have played a part, I will never know. He never left a note or any trace of “why”.
It was New Year’s Eve and I had gotten promoted in my job, with very little time to celebrate, my new position would start January 20th. I had been practicing my new title while in work with the help of my manager so I’d be ready and also at the time we were doing a stock take so I came home on the 8th of January exhausted after working 4 full days in a row. It’s Wednesday night and I hadn’t seen my brother since the weekend, not even remembering the last conversation I had with him. I was always out of the house before he was awake and I came home from work and went straight to bed.
That night I had come home to hear he was drunk, got scolded and went to sleep it off. Everything about that night and our routines had changed, as if it were meant to happen. My usual routine was coming home at 8pm, having dinner in front of the tv with my mam, while my dad watched a movie in the dining room/kitchen. That night I decided to leave my mam asleep, eat dinner in my room and watch twilight with my sister. During this time my brother was supposedly asleep. My dad decided to watch tv in the sitting room because I was upstairs. These actions ruined our lives. Not that we were to know, these situations had happened before where he came home drunk and slept it off.
I was so tired that I turned the movie off halfway through and went to sleep roughly at 9:30pm. I was awoken an hour later by screaming downstairs. I was so afraid to move that it took me at least a full minute to get out of bed and see what was happening. I thought a murderer had gotten into our house. I met my sister on the stairs screaming “he stabbed himself”. My legs were like jelly as I ran downstairs and entered the kitchen where I seen my brother laying on the couch we had in the room, sitting slightly slouched and eyes wide open staring at me. I sometimes can’t seem to remove that awful image from my head when I close my eyes. I don’t want to get too graphic or go into too much detail. At the time I thought he was alive, I don’t know why because there was hardly any blood left inside him. I was just trying to be hopeful. Ambulance came, police came, he had been removed from the “scene” and were questioned. The whole entirety of that night has traumatised me. The way we were all being questioned as if we had done something because of the circumstances of his death. I know they were only doing their job and It definitely wasn’t a typical suicide case or way to do it. He had stabbed himself in the heart with a knife. We were told he would’ve died instantly which is the only thing keeping me going. Knowing he wasn’t in any sort of pain and not being able to shout for help. We thought it had happened as soon he did it, my mam got up to the toilet and she found him. My dad heard a glass break which we thought he was holding at the time of his death, as he must’ve come down for a drink like he always did. Normally he’d pop his head into my mam or dad to say sorry or hello, he didn’t this time. No one heard him, no one knew why it had happened, we were in complete shock. The doctor told my dad he had been there for an hour before he was found which I still question to this day. I just don’t understand. I’m forever going to question that night and never get the answers I want which is the biggest struggle for me. I could cope with an explanation but I don’t have one.
I went back to work on January 20th and seemed to be doing well.
Fast forward to lockdown where I’m unemployed and having to be stuck in the house where my brother took his own life 24/7. I’m being constantly reminded of his absence.
This is the first time I’m dealing with grief, the first time I’m losing someone, someone so close to me. I don’t know if my grieving behaviour is normal or excusable. I don’t know how to grieve. I don’t know how to cope. People rely heavily on support from friends whereas I push them away and isolate myself completely and try deal with my emotions on my own.
People around me seem to be moving on with their life and I’m stuck on this loop.
I’ve been crying every night since it’s happened and I’m afraid that soon I won’t be able to get out of the hole I dug for myself.
I hear the saying “you don’t get over it, you learn to live with it” but I don’t know how to.

In March 2019 I heard the words that still haunt me to this day. **** has killed himself. Those were the words my mum said to me. I can’t even describe the pain, even to this day I can’t even explain the stabbing feeling I felt.

My big brother was the most sweet, kind and polite person you would ever meet. I used to get embarrassed at how unbelievably nice he was to people. Unfortunately, people see this as a weakness. He had terrible self esteem issues that I too suffer from, but we were never the type to talk about how we felt. He always seemed down ever since I can remember.  We just thought that was his personality. (can you believe it, his own family, me! actually thought this!)

My brother didn’t have any friends and his work colleagues bullied and made fun of him. I too was in the same situation as my brother and would often contemplate my life but I am so unbelievably fortunate to have found someone who loves me and wanted to spend his life with me, my brother never got that chance.

Our mum, she is the best mum anyone could ask for, she would do anything for us. She loved him more than life itself and they would speak two to three times a day. She has had to do a lot for us both to ensure we had a good life which meant sacrificing her own happiness, but you don’t realise any of this when you are young.

I was always so hard on my brother and he always said stop acting like my mum. I didn’t mean it, I just loved him so much and knew he was destined for great things because he is so smart and kind he could do anything. As we grew older I met someone and went to university, unaware my brothers life continued to collapse around him. I just never knew it was that bad. Like most of you, it’s that idea that my sibling was able to collect items to kill himself and actually drive somewhere all alone as I slept snug in my bed. I always thought to myself if something bad was to happen to my family I would get a feeling in my body that would alert me, I never got this.

My mum is broken she is the most important person on this earth and I love her more than words can describe. Hearing my mum tell me she can’t go on and is living a nightmare is just heart breaking. I wish I could speak to her but I just don’t know what to say, and I should! I am the only person she has left! I just feel guilty and should have seen the signs! I tell myself everyday that I am a horrible person and it’s all my fault. I can’t get the words out if my head. I am angry at him aswell for doing this to himself and allowing my mum to suffer. The emotions are so mixed it’s like a rollercoaster. I dream about him almost every night and think about him every time I am alone with my thoughts. I just wish I could feel him near me have a sign that he is happy, something to tell me that he is ok, anything.

I have no idea how to continue my life, I have the most sweetest husband in the world and we had our baby boy 10 weeks ago which was another stupid thing to do to my mum as I think it kills her inside to see this little baby boy and she just lost her own baby boy. There is nothing I can do to take the pain away from my mum and it kills me, she is such a loving person and doesn’t deserve this, no one does. She loved her boy so so much and I just don’t know how she will continue, that’s what scares me the most. I don’t want another call like that again, my mum is the only family I have left I can’t lose her! My brother was in his early 30’s, he should have been living life to the fullest and watching his sons grow up.

I feel like a terrible person for laughing, smiling or just trying to have a normal day, I feel guilty for having a great relationship with my husband when my brother never knew what it was like to have a soulmate. I feel horrible for finally feeling I had a home with my husband where I feel safe, when my brother never felt at home anywhere. I feel terrible for going to university when my brother had kids young and couldn’t afford to go to university. I feel guilty for having a good day when my brother never had one.

I wish I had listened to my brother and helped him in any way I could. I wish I could have one last hug. I wish I could remind him how special and loved he is. But no these wishes will never come true. I will continue to live this life with guilt, anger, worry and loneliness. Guilt, that I should have been there for my big brother, my only sibling. Anger at the people who made my brother feel worthless and ridicule him. Worry, that my mum will follow in his footsteps. Loneliness, that I can never tell my friends or family how I really feel and continue to distance myself from the world. I will forever be known as the girl whose brother killed him self. Thank you for your time.

Today’s your birthday, brother. I’ll spend the day in the backyard, reading like you used to do. Of course my mind will drift off thinking of you. It doesn’t take your birthday to think about you.  I always do, no matter what day. You should be here, is what I always tell myself and of course the why question is there all the time. I’m afraid will never be answered. When you left, it left with you.

You’re free now brother, but we are not, never will be. Mom can’t even talk to me about you, when I start talking, she stops. It’s too painful for her. My feelings are bottled up and I am grateful for this group that I can express them. Even if no one responds, it’s a relief in a sense. I know I’ve drifted off the topic, my brother’s birthday today. Later in eve, will go to your favorite Thai restaurant for takeout and order your favorite dishes. When it comes to the cake later, you know what my wish will be when I blow out the candles, the same wish for the last 5 yrs of your birthday. That I wish you were here, brother. Happy Birthday in Heaven, brother, I love you and miss you beyond words can say…. your sister

My sister Sarah took her own life on February 22nd 2020. We were a family of 11 kids and she was my oldest sister. Although we weren’t close growing up and butted heads more often than not, as I got older and became a teenager, the 8 year difference between us didn’t seem to matter and she became one of my best friends. It almost seems like an understatement to say that I loved her more than anything on this earth. It’s funny how you don’t think your happiness depends on any one person until that person leaves with no explanation, and you are never going to see them again. And suddenly life loses a lot of its color.

Sarah embodied what being an older sister means in every way. She had the annoying habit of bossing me around and acting like she was my mom (one of the many reasons we butted heads as kids) but she also could make you feel like the most loved and important people in the world. She put so much pressure on herself to be this perfect example for me and my siblings, so much so that every time she felt she made a mistake she would beat herself up over it and allow herself to feel guilty. I would always tell her that nothing she could ever do would make me stop loving her and that I would always have her back, because I knew that no matter what, she would have mine. I still wonder if she ever fully believed me. I hope she did.

There’s a lot more to my relationship with Sarah, the past 4 years put a big strain on it. But I never stopped loving her, and I would have died for that kid. I guess what hurts the most is that she couldn’t live for me or the rest of my family. I never gave up on her, but she repeatedly gave up on herself. I will never know what went through her head on the daily, her journals only tell a very small part of her story, but I would have gladly helped her carry it if she trusted me to. It’s hard not to feel rejection and I guess right now I’m in that stage of grief. Not having anyone to talk to only makes it harder. Sarah’s death has seemed to make strangers of every single one of my family members, and even though my family is so big, I have never felt more alone in my entire life. I know if Sarah was here she would help me carry all this, and I wouldn’t be going through it alone. I guess that’s what I miss the most about her. I hope that she doesn’t see all what’s going on right now, cause the only peace I have is at least she’s happy where she is at, and if she saw the heartbreak her leaving caused, she couldn’t feel happy. I really do hope she’s happy, that’s all I ever wanted for her.

It’s been 6 yrs now that I loss my brother, my only sibling. Two days became 6 yrs, the one day when he went missing and I believe died and 3 days later, his body recovered. He was found in a lake. I keep visualizing in my mind, you walked into the water and let yourself drown. I saw my brother two days before,he seemed fine. It was the last time I would see my brother alive.I wished my brother knew how much I loved him and that I miss him and that I will be lonely forever without him. His pain ended the day he died, my pain is now forever.