My younger brother committed suicide 2 days ago. He was only 22 years old. He stepped off from the top of a cliff. I’ll forever be haunted by the day he didn’t come home and I had to call the police. I’ll never forget the police turning up at my door and taking their hats off to tell me that he has died. We found the note in his room. He suffered from depression for so many years, he never felt right and life was just too much for him. I love him so much, and everything I do in life from now on will be for him. I still think he’ll walk through the door some time soon. I can’t believe he did that and I can’t believe this is happening. I can only hope that he has found peace, that he wasn’t scared and that he’s in a better place. I can’t stop thinking about him standing at the top of that cliff, in the dark and cold, alone. I wish I could’ve been there to hold his hand and tell him it’s okay. It hurts so much to know that he was so sad, I hate that he was so sad, I would’ve done anything to take that sadness away from him. I miss you so much baby brother, I love you so much and I’ll carry you with me everywhere I go.

It has been 9 years since I lost my oldest brother, and 2 years since I lost my 2nd brother. I am the only one left…and I never reached out to get help until this month. I am really struggling with sleep, if I sleep 3 hours a night that is a good night. My anxiety is on another level. I cry everyday and I have no excuse for why I never reached out for help. I am not sure what I was thinking
I just started looking into support groups for help and advice on an appropriate grieving process because I am clearly struggling. Any helpful comments will be much appreciated!

It’s been nine year since my brother committed suicide. He was only 13 and he didn’t leave a note. Sometimes I still sit back and wonder why. I miss him everyday. I was only 7 when it happened. I can hardly remember it and yet it hurts so much. Its even worse because I always try to remember him and the things he liked to do and how he acted but I can’t. It’s like my brain is blocking him out. I don’t want it to though because I want to remember him. I NEED to remember him. I wish he hadn’t gone, I wish someone had seen the signs. I sometimes blame myself, why didn’t I notice how badly he was hurting. He was always so happy, at least I thought he was. Will it ever stop hurting? Will I ever stop missing him and wondering?

On July 12, 2014, my older and only brother shot himself in head. He was 25. 8AM Saturday morning. I had literally just fell asleep an hour before he did it. I was up thinking about our sister that passed and he was asleep on the couch. He woke up and went downstairs in the hallway and I slept on the couch. I woke up to my sister screaming “Timothy’s shot!” 8:15AM. He shot himself in the head downstairs. We never knew he owned a gun or was feeling so low to this point.
We’d lost our 18 year old sister April, my big sister and his little sister, a year prior, to gun violence. She was killed. He was there with her as she laid dying in his arms. He’s our only brother, so I know he felt like he was supposed to protect us and he couldn’t protect April. I am still angry that he did something so selfish, leaving behind kids and an already grieving family.
How didn’t we see the signs?? Today I laugh and smile at memories, tomorrow I cry, then the next day I’m mad again. But mostly I just try to spend as much time as possible with my family and we’re open about everything going on in our lives. We keep each other strong Depression isn’t a joke and people need to pay attention to signs in family members or friends.
Love you Timothy Love you April

My brother took his own life by hanging on January 23rd 2017. I remember that night more than any other night, the weather was absolutely aweful. He had recently split from his fiancé and she had not let him see his two young daughters in almost a week. We never knew that he had been suffering from depression and anxiety. He left us a video explaining this and how he couldn’t live without his fiancé. He felt that Suicide was the only option he had. He left behind 3 young children, as well as his two daughters he also has a son from a previous relationship. There’s just myself and my sister now trying to be strong for our mum. We all struggle everyday, some days I don’t even want to go outside the house. I cry a lot, mainly when I am on my own. I sit at my dinner table looking at the door, praying for him to walk in. I miss him so much, we were close growing up. I wish I had known how broken he was and been able to help him. It’s almost a year now since he’s been gone, it’s passed is by in a blur tbh. I feel that it’s not getting any better though, I feel it’s getting worse. I sometimes just lie in bed looking at the ceiling, overthinking it all. Punishing myself of things I could have done. He’s all I think of from the moment I wake until the moment I go to sleep. I dream of him most nights. I just can’t imagine spending the rest of my life living in this way. It breaks my heart to look in my mums eyes and see how broken she is. My brother was the oldest just 30 years old when he took his own life. I’m 30 now just recently turned and our sister is 19. I really need someone to talk to who has lost a brother/sister to Suicide. I’m in a six year relationship but my partner doesn’t really understand how I feel inside.

I just discovered this site, and as I read the many submissions that resonated with my experience, I succumbed to the pain that is there all of the time for my 30 year old, wonderful, caring brother.
He took his life in October. Used a rope and ended it all on a tree in my parents’ backyard. He was all alone, which I think is the most painful part of this entire story for me. My dad found him, and my mom said she swore she saw dried tears on his cheeks as he lay in the grass after they cut him down. As weird as it sounds, I almost wish I was with him, comforting him during this terrible and tragic glitch in time.
He had been struggling for quite some time with chronic headaches. Fast forward through the struggles of a couple drug-induced manic episodes, working with a poor mental health system, a couple suicide attempts, seeking help from COUNTLESS doctors for headaches or anything at all (failure on all counts, it seems), and here we are. We lost the battle.
I often think of his suicide like battling cancer. For nearly a year and a half, he talked of suicide and we worked SO hard to keep him alive, to keep him healthy. He knew he was loved. He wanted to get better. He had so much potential. It’s almost strange to me how unprepared I was to lose him, since he had basically been trying to warn us for so long. Nobody can comprehend the severity of this kind of tragedy until it is experienced.
The permanent absence of his laugh, of his smile, of my favorite arm to hold, is hurtful, painful, and just plain sad. I’m 25, and I know that with time, the grief of loss will change and wane, but it will always be a terrible void. It will always be hard.

In the north west of England we refer to our male siblings as ‘our kid’.
Our kid killed himself in August 2016.
It’s Sunday night, cold and Liverpool, where I live is rain lashed. Sunday is bad enough most of the time but tonight I can’t get him out of my mind. It’s so painful.

Subject: Approaching 6 years

I found this site a few years ago and now have the app installed on my phone. I don’t open it too often, maybe once a month. I read thru the guest posts and feel the pain. I understand the feelings so many think no one can possibly understand. I have been there, I still am.
My younger brother shot himself in the head on feb 4th, 2012. He was 25 years old, getting a divorce and a Marine.
I am finally seeing a counselor, finally working thru the feelings. I have been shoving them deep down, ignoring them. But this year is a year of great change. I am divorcing my husband of 10 years and opening up to the world.
The hurt of losing my younger brother hasn’t lessened any. I still think of him everyday, whether I speak of him or not. It is a cycle of talking and crying and finding someone to listen. Whether you hold it in or let it out, everything is real and ok. Our lives are never, ever going to be the same. Nor should they, we have felt a loss so profound. For me, I am going for what makes me happy, I am not letting life’s negativity or other people hold me back. There have been two life altering events, losing my brother and finding my father. Two things that I couldn’t even dream of when I was younger, and now they have happened and for the good and the bad, I am here still.
I pull down my brothers flag case, with his picture and his medals. I open it up and if alone, I cry. I let it out, then I pull it back in and continue.

Subject: I lost one of my beautiful brothers yesterday

I received a text & phone call from my other siblings, that my second oldest brother took his own life to hanging. We are in a state of shock. He was a great man that struggeled with alot of things in life like most of us do. It was such terrible news that anyone could ever receive in there whole life. What shocked us was that we did not think he could do something like that. It is like a bad dream. We just ask Why o Why did you do it. My beautiful brother was stuck in a bad rut. He was only 55 years old. He had a wife 25 years married & two adult son’s. He was about to move & start a new adventure with this move with his wife. I will never get over this great loss of my darling brother that would never hurt anyone. He was full of love & giving. The sad thing is I will never get a phone call from him ever again & I will never hear him laugh. He was always there to talk to through good & bad times. It is so so heart breaking it tears your heart out. You rest in peace Mark love & miss you forever but always in our hearts.

Subject: Missing my brother John

It’s now been 238 days since I lost my younger brother John. It’s been very difficult through the holidays and I continue to try to accept what happened. I gave my 4 nieces and nephews a beautiful slate plank with an individualized picture and saying for each of them as a gift. I still struggle with wishing they had explained everything that was and had happened. And wishing that I had asked the right things. I love the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” and wonder why I wasn’t able to be my brothers Clarence. I find it hard to totally express my feelings to my family as they then start to become concerned about me. But all I trying to do is work through my own grief.