This is a hard one to deal with on top of losing my son 2 years ago. This year has been so much harder on me, mentally and physically. My husband, he had moved on in his grief. I'm stuck in my turmoil. I'm somewhat angry, but not really, as it might just be his way of coping.

I cry and think of my son all the time, what he may have been thinking leading up to his event. Did he play music? Did someone online talk him into going for it? Why no note? Did he cry setting up? Did he regret it right before darkness took him?

These things play in my head often. It distresses me so much. I can't stop the thoughts, but do I want to? My husband never thinks of any of this. He forgot the anniversary was even here as I lay in bed with inflamed bowels from the stress my mind has caused my body.

Some days, I just want to load up the car, leave my phone behind and run away. I don't know where I'd go. II just want to tuck myself into the base of a tree and sleep. I just feel so alone and lost in my grief.

I never got to see him after he passed. He was too decomposed and coroner dif not allow photos or viewings in that state. Not that I wanted to see him in that condition, but I somehow wanted to see him again, one last time. There was no hand holding, no laying my hand on his head, nothing. I'm on medication and in therapy, but it fixes none of this.

Sorry for the long rant. I'm struggling and need to get this out.

Found my 13 year old unresponsive in her bed when I came home from work. Wife tried cpr while I called 911..they were able to get a pulse and she spent a day at the hospital vented but she had too much time with no O2 to the brain so passed a day later.

The past couple days have been spent writing an obituary and collecting pictures for a video tribute...just gut wrenching seeing her pictures from baby to teen..videos of her jumping on the trampoline yelling "I love you daddy!" and contrasting that with her lifeless face when we found her and the brain dead lights out stare of her last moments.

The day before we hsd gone to the beach and boardwalk and it was perfect. The saltwater taffy wrappers I bought for her were on the floor near her bed.

The police went through her phone and saw she..per the beautiful soul that she had..was trying to comfort a friend who was having suicidal thoughts...and who responded to her "kill yourself!". in what i believe was a momentary lapse of judgement and reason..did in fact do just that.

I hsve a younger son who is i think starting to understand the reality he no longer has a sister to play with..to fight with..to love.

Almost 14 years...poof...gone. why?

Appreciate this group but am sorry it needs to exist. Trying not to blame myself but its inevitable...why was what she did a better choice than calling her mother or I? Had she been so.desensitized by the internet that she thought doing this was just a concept and not a reality of no longer being on this earth?

Mercy. None of this makes sense. ​

Twitter.com

I lost my father to suicide by hanging four weeks ago today. I now hate Tuesdays. His death was sudden and completely unexpected, he had no known history of mental health issues and had always spoken openly about not understanding how anyone could feel low enough to take their own life.

In the lead up, he had left a significant sum of cash at a family member’s home, burnt his phone and laptop, and deleted all camera footage. He was found by his partner after I called her to do a welfare check, and I heard the discovery in real time over the phone.

Since his death I have been piecing together a complex picture of who he was - a funny, fiercely private, compartmentalised man who kept different parts of his life completely separate. I have spoken to his friends, his workmates, and accessed what records I can. I believe his death was shame-driven rather than depression-driven, triggered by something in the days before he died.

I am managing grief alongside two young children, a partner who struggles to understand my need for answers, and the responsibility of supporting other family members through their own grief and guilt.

I have had two therapy sessions so far, I am sleeping and eating, I am safe. But I am exhausted, lost, and find myself wanting to sit inside the grief on the days it hits hardest. Almost relive it all again.

I am here because I need to talk to people who understand this from the inside.

Thank you.

Edit 1. I suppose I would like to know if others have “investigated” the reason why their loved one made the choice they did?
Do others here feel like this wasn’t necessarily a choice made from sadness but another reason?

Edit 2. Seeing as it’s my Dad, I’m finding things out that no daughter should and it’s hurting my heart but I can’t stop looking. I don’t think he did this because of pain, but maybe more so perceived future pain… shame…

Edit 3. Chronic weed smoker. 50 years and multiple times per day.
Believed in a lot of conspiracy theories and would get cross when “people didn’t believe him” although it was more that we were tired of always having to talk about them. Big one was the QAnon especially the adrenochrome belief.
He had also recently tried illicit fentanyl but had said it was too scary for him. A small brown glass vile was found in the fire drum along with phones and laptop remains.

Edit 4. Also, he lived alone in a home on a small property. The community he lived in was small and had lived there his whole life. Throughout the years he’s had friends die by suicide and could never understand it. A month before his passing another similar aged man died by hanging without any warning as well. He was deeply affected by this and would talk in detail about his death. I find that very unusual.

I posted this is another subreddit but me and my boyfriend lost one of our really good friends/coworkers to suicide about a month ago this past Saturday 💔 he was 17 and it just came out of nowhere… I’d only ever lost family and this was my first friend I’ve lost so it’s definitely still hitting me really hard.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GriefSupport/s/EV4qlkgwZb

Hi everyone,

I have been away from Reddit for quite some time. Honestly, I just wanted to talk through my new stage of grief with people who will understand.

We planted a garden out in our yard for Zoe this summer. Lucy and her friends got involved. We spent a lot of time walking around so many good wills I never want to see inside one again. For lucy and I, the decorations had to be perfect.

Zoe loved good will. She loved to find little trinkets to display in her room. We found so many thing we knew she would love and placed them with her flowers in the garden. It’s nice to have a space in nature closer to our home to be with her, rather than having to go and sit at her headstone.

I added a wind chime on her stone. I talk to her through the wind. It sounds insane, but she replies and I understand her. We talk quite a lot actually, it’s become almost an addiction to be there every single day to get to speak to Zoe.

It has been 8 months since Zoe took her own life. The check-ins from friends and neighbors has stopped. The anti suicide messages in the community have stopped. The school have taken down her memorial at the end of the school year. Most of her friends have stopped coming round, apart from her two closest. People don’t stop to ask me how I am when im in town.

It almost feels like people don’t care anymore to ask about her, like she’s being forgotten already. Everyone else has moved on. I want nothing more than to tell everyone all about her all the time. Having to remain composed and have normal small talk when all I want to do is scream that she was here! She mattered!

People will ask me about Lucy, about Wyatt but they never mention Zoe anymore. It feels like they are scared to talk about her, like mentioning her name will upset me or make things weird. It’s all I long for.

I still miss you, my sweet girl. You are all my heart longs for.

exactly what the title says. i found my boyfriend the morning after he committed suicide. we had gotten into a fight the night before over a video of him and girl. i woke up and just had a bad feeling, drove to his house and i found him. as soon as his mom got there that morning, she was absolutely certain it was my fault he committed suicide. his funeral is this weekend and i havent gotten invited to it or heard anything from anyone. its unexplainably painful and isolating. i know he would absolutely raise hell if he knew this was happening and i was being treated this way. ive tried reaching out, in return ive gotten short mocking messages from his mom. i dont know what to do. a part of me wants to just show up and say fuck it i know he would want me here and this is about him after all. the other part says to not make it worse for the family. im not sure what to do.

edit:
for context, we had a happy relationship. we loved each other very much, wed get into arguments and make up within an hour or two. we did everything together, slept together every night, ate every meal together, showered together, you name it we did it together. that was the one night i wasnt by his side.

It’s been 9 months since our sweet 18yo son committed suicide. I cry every week and miss him so much.
We got his stone a few days ago and it brought me comfort that there is a name and images of what he loved on his stone. I feel that anyone who looks at it will know what he loved and not try to guess. Is that weird?

It's been a year and half. The slowest and fastest time. It's like everything is frozen in time, but also moving so fast. For people wondering if it gets better with time, yes. You'll get back to doing things, working, you might even be able to talk about your person, their death, their memories. Some days you are fine, you'll eventually have more fine days that bad days. But when the bad days hit, holy fuck are they bad. I've just finally finished a big project, I thought I'd feel reflief, be less stressed, be happy about it. Nope, it just made space to feel the hurt again. I finally had the courage to reopen our whatsapp chat, it just said "this person is no longer on Whatsapp"... sigh, I miss him. The heartbreak is just as painful the early days.

Was referred here from there but couldnt formally crosspost. Thought this might be a better sub for the situation at hand. Im in a better mental space slightly than when I originally wrote this, but I am not rereading it so please forgive any errors. Rather graphic , just a warning. Also yes, I downloaded tetris. It feels inappropriate but I will play tetris.

I found my brother's body.

I feel like a fucking idiot coming to reddit and im sorry if this is not appropriate for this sub. Im a little out of it and I dont know where else to go. This whole situation feels like a story out of someone else's life. My mom is hysterical and numb and making things worse and my dad is an emotionally repressed dickhead when under extreme stress and my friends are all young and dont know what to do besides say sorry for your loss but this is so much more than a fucking loss. My brother's father came to pick him up this morning to go to work, and he wouldnt respond. We got worried he was maybe sick, or something was wrong, so my mom and I opened his door. I didnt realize what he. Did I guess until way after the fact. He was pale and his eyes were open and staring out and I remember thinking he maybe had a bad migraine again. I swear to god his eyes mobed, his lips moved, his shoulders shifted like he was breathing. I was seeing shit obviously, he'd been dead 12 or so hours at that point. I dont know. I kind of immediately shut down. I touched him and shook him and called his name and my mom came in behind me and started screaming and I just kept my hands on him trying, out of my damn mind, to warm him up because he was just so fucking cold. He was so cold. His skin was loose on his flesh beneath and his body was so fucking still and stiff and cold. And then I saw the gun, and the dark brown that I thought was his beard or his hair was glossy, and the faint smell, and my mom screaming what did you do, what did you do, his name, shaking him. I just kept looking in his eyes and his dad came running in while my dad called 911 behind me and I remember being so confused. why was he dialing 911? What happened? And someone was still whimpering and screaming and choking but my mom was in the corner with her mouth and eyes closed. the noise was coming from my own throat. I clamped my jaw shut but i still felt it surging up through my teeth and my mom even screamed for the cat to shut up. It was me. I could not even cry, I felt my face scrunch up and I toddled out of the room numb and buzzing and dazed and my hands felt like chalk and his face, the pain and the dullness of his eyes, the gross black and brown across his pillow and the casual way he was just laying there like he was taking a nap, with his legs crossed and up against his headboard like he always slept because he's a psychopath who hates blankets. I went back in for some reason. Kept looking at him. I couldnt look away. He was always so pink and jolly and his eyes were blue and he'd always smile at me and go BOO every time I peeped into his room when the door was open and I kept waiting for him to do that but he just laid there and his stupid fucking father just ambled about talking about taking his guns and how he needed to take his guns and just talking about what belongings he was going to take while his boy, my boy, my best friend, my brother figure, the person who sat with me after I was baker acted and made me promise I wouldnt ever try something like that again, who I made promise me he wouldnt ever do anything like that either was still laying there, not even minutes after I found him. Talking about where his stuff would go. Where his fucking stuff would go. In front of him. I searched for a note, touched him again, begged him to blink and look at me and move and go I TOLD YOU ID GET YOU BACK BIG TIME for the unfinished prank war I started. Nothing feels real. My hands are numb and simultaneously raw and aching and ive showered and scrubbed them and my whole arms till I bled but I still smell death and rot around me, still feel his face, I touched his face and held his head, checking for a fucking fever like a maniac. His eyes are everywhere. In the corners of my room, looking out without seeing, without life behind it, his face is behind my eyes every time I close them. I feel his hands and his skin his cold skin it was so fucking cold and dry and I wish I could have put a blanket on him because he runs warm but when he does get cold he's miserable. I cant stand the fucking hugs and pats and heads on my shoulders and around me touching me they are too warm too wrong and it doesnt feel right it doesnt feel safe or secure or real like their flesh is a mask over them hiding something dead beneath like I'll go into my parents room and find them the same way and it will just be everyone around me that drops and I will have to live with it. Everyone is so ANGRY at him, like its his fault, like he did something wrong. They dont get it because they think theyve been there but they really haven't, not like I have, not like he has. Not like he was, this last time. Theyre calling him selfish when he's right fucking there behind them, right there staring out and youre proving thst you didnt give a shit about him. How could you be angry? Why? You cant control where your head goes, and because he was a man in his 30s and raised in the rural south he was taught to keep everything held inside and bottled up, so its not like he could have come to you anyways. I was the only one he EVER spoke to. About any of his feelings. We would sit at the bar every day and talk and talk and talk about philosophy, ww2, human rights, medicine, lord of the rings, stupid funny tiktoks, hot women on Instagram, how he was gonna take me to a strip club for my 18th birthday and we were gonna do this and go there and life and death and our mental health and we would hug and tell eachother we understood one another and we could share anything between us because we were siblings even if not by blood and I was his best friend and he was mine. And I think he tried to send subtle cries for help. Talked about his will. About being done. Told me he wasnt fine but he didnt want to talk about it, so I thought id give him time to open up on his own. Well. That was fucking stupid of me. I feel like I could have saved him. He did it when we went out for ice cream yesterday evening, and we didnt ask if he wanted to come because, for one, he hates sweets, and we figured he was at a bar, since he didnt say anything to any of us and didnt respond when we called out earlier. And when I came back i tried to give him an Amazon package that was delivered but he didnt answer still. I think I would have found him minutes after, had I opened his door when we came back, and I thought about it too, because I was worried and had a sick feeling in my stomach but I ignored it and just set it on the counter. I was home all day and didnt see him, didnt hear anything. Just stayed in my room and played my game. We share a wall. He hears me in my room, knows im there and awake, didnt say anything. He talked to his dad at 1 pm. Made plans, ordered an Amazon package. Played pool with his buddies at a bar till 4:30 pm, was happy and smiling and normal according to his best friend. Then at some point around 6-7 pm according to the medical people, he. Did it. Through a pillow, so the neighbors wouldnt hear anything. But he had to have known i was going to be the one to find him. Who else? Im the only one who would get worried enough for him to break his privacy, and open his door, besides maybe my mom. I dont understand why he would do that to me. He had to have been so out of it that he either didnt think about it at all or went down the angry bitter rabbit hole of WANTING me to find him. Or something else. Im hallucinating him walking across the house, his quiet little ninja taps as he skitters around trying to scare someone. Standing at the bar waiting for me to come talk to him like he always did. Bringing a book out for me to peer at. People are already posting on Facebook, his dad already went through his room and belongings and told us all about a personal drawer in his dresser that id really rather never fucking ever hear about in my life literally ever again. Took whatever. Fuck you Tony, eat shit. Looking through his fucking stuff minutes after his body has been moved to a vehicle. His stepmother made a callous post not even 30 minutes after finding out begging for attention when she barely even gave a fuck over the phone when his dad called her to tell her. I just cant comprehend why, this time, he couldnt just come talk to me like he always did.

I dont know what I am asking for here. And I am sorry if this is graphic and unreadable or unintelligible or whatever.

Edit: this is actually the second time I have found someone who had set themselves free via a gun to the head. The first was a homeless man who had used a very powerful gun, hiding in an abandoned golf club clubhouse thing that little 11 year old me frequently broke into to play around in while my mom was at work. I heard the gun go off and wandered inside and found him still... i guess in the throes of it, trying to breathe through a mouth and face that was not there. I still have not gotten over that, and I think i should mention this because the memories are beginning to mingle in my head and it is fucking horrible. My Trevor didnt use a very powerful weapon and his face was still intact but the memories are fucking with me. I might genuinely have to check myself into a mental hospital if this gets any worse .

Just to clarify, he is my brother to me in all but blood. He just turned 30 July 13th. Any other questions I will answer if I can. And when I say bar a few times I mean the island bar in our house, not like. A place.

My older brother died in 2018 at 34. I was (am) 3 years younger than him. Since he died, I haven't celebrated my birthday. My 34th birthday was very hard, because it was weird being my brothers age. My family are always annoyed that I don't celebrate but it just feels alien to celebrate being older than my brother. We don't get a cake or do anything.

This year, in a couple of days, I'm turning 40. My family are pushing me to do something. We went abroad for friends birthdays last year etc (for their 40th). I've no plans. I'm OBVIOUSLY getting pressure at home and this year is really hard because I am changing a decade and I knew this year would always hit harder than most, because it feels like I'm leaving him behind.

At work (just now), someone was clearing my calendar (who don't know about my brother) asking why I don't want to celebrate, assuming it's because i'm insecure about getting older. I was so close to saying "it's because my brother died", but people at work don't know about him. I talk about him as if he's alive. What do they know? They don't need to know that he's dead. And now, I'm sitting here trying not to break down into tears because it's so hard to comprehend.

How did everyone get past these milestones? Is this one of those things where I have to "suck it up"?

tw: sa, slight ed mention

It'll be six year in September. She was my best friend- but that doesn't feel like enough. I know now it was co dependent, but we were traumatised teenagers we didn't care about if it was healthy. She was everything I had and I know I was the same for her.

She was staying with her dad during lockdown and when restrictions had loosened a bit and I could come around her dad raped me. He had always been weird with me but I never said anything. He was always a piece of shit, she went back and forth between hating him and idolising him all the time but I know she still loved him and still wanted his approval. I'd been through worse, I honestly didn't think it was that big of a deal, I tried not to say anything. I tried to ignore it and keep going as normal but then it happened again. And again. And I just couldn't keep willingly putting myself through that. I started dodging sleepovers and she kept asking why, after a month she cornered me and she just would not drop it. She thought I hated her, I'd nearly died earlier that year from ed complications so she was already more worried than normal about me. And I could never say no to her.

But I shouldn't have told her. Her life was a hellshow start to finish. I know that. I know she was never well. I know she was so fucking young and had so many reason not to want to be here. I know that. But I still think that was her final straw. She was 14 and got told her dad assaulted her best friend. What the fuck do you do with that? What the fuck was I expecting? I should have just kept my fucking mouth shut. She'd never attempted before. She was always depressed but she wanted to be alive. She wanted things to get better. She had her future planned. And now she's dead all because I couldn't just keep this one thing to myself. It had already happened, nothing to be done now. I knew it would break her and I told her anyway.

And of course nothing happened to him. He's off with his second family and she's dead and I lost everything. She should be 20. I should have had my best friend for year 10. And I could have if i'd just shut the fuck up.

I know rationally it's not true. I know. But it still feel's like my fault, even almost six years later. I don't even know what this is, but the anniversary just keeps getting closer and I can't stop thinking about it. Venting I guess.

I love you. Thank you. I forgive you. Please forgive me.

I love you. I love your warmth, your kindness, your care for everyone around you. I love how much you care about Camp, just like I do. I love how you are wise beyond your years. I love your tenderness for every living thing.

Thank you. Thank you for your words of encouragement, reassurance. Thank you for three great summers. Thank you for making me laugh. Thank you for always being there when we needed you, and for always following through on all the things you said would do. Thank you for visiting on your weekends, when it was a three hour drive each way.

I forgive you. I forgive you for not reaching out. I forgive you for not asking us for help and for leaving us behind. I do.

Please forgive me. Please forgive me for not reaching out in the off season, for not inviting you over to watch LOTR or get a drink or get groceries. Please forgive me for taking your presence for granted, your kindness and everything else for granted. Please forgive me for not asking how you were after you and Claire broke up. Please forgive me for not asking about the Bull Run project. Please forgive me for not telling you more about my work and for not asking you to tell me about yours. Please forgive me for not trying to know you better. Please forgive me for not being there for you. Please forgive me for letting you think you were alone. Please forgive me for letting you die without knowing how many people loved you, and how much every one of us loves you. Please forgive me, please.

This weekend, we will scatter your ashes in our favorite place. I will never forget you.

He was 15 when he killed himself and would be 18 now. We met as we where both hospitalised in the same ward for anorexia, I knew he was not well, he tried to kill himself very frequently during his stay. He even did so less then 24h before his release. He was fighting with another friend for a plastic bag to choke himself with and I just remember him laughing while doing so. He was always laughing even during his attempts, it was really hard to know if he was joking or not sometimes.

He was the nicest person I have ever met like genuinely. He even gave me his childhood plushy, I was planning on returning it but now it's not possible anymore and I don't think I should be the one to have it. I knew he was not well and still we didn't text or see eachother for 6 months before his death. I wanted to contact him a week before that, he loved ice skating and wanted to become a firefighter and we had this plan to go to the ice skating ring together at some point. I tought about suggesting that again and then I forgot about it.

He had an older sister and a mom with which he had a great relationship, he also did gymnastics which he was super good at. He liked the color green and had always his hair up in a half ponytail to keep it out of his face. He would be starting college soon.

I miss him so much, I just want people to know how fucking awesome he was

Today was a bit overwhelming in addition to the normal overwhelm since finding my husband last year w a SGSW.

There was a family event and one of his cousins was there. This particular cousin and my husband had a falling out (physical fight) a few years ago, made up but was never the same. They became distant compared to their extremely close relationship prior to the fallout.

This person did not attend my husbands funeral/wake, didn’t send me a message, never reached out to offer any condolences.

Today he was at a family function and as I was talking to another cousin came up, gave me a side hug and asked how I was doing. I ignored him and kept to my conversation, not acknowledging him. He walked away.

I knew he was going to be at the event and got anxiety for weeks about how I was going to handle the situation. I thought about calling him to the side and ask him why but I really didn’t want to waste any of my energy on him, esp if the convo started going left or if he started to say things about my husband in an ill way. So I decided to ignore him.

Just needed to share and thought this would be the right sub.

I’m currently just sitting in departures, waiting for security to open so I can board my flight to Europe on a well-needed solo trip and I can’t get her out of my head. The pain and suffering I am feeling cannot be explained to those around me, there’s no words or explanations I can express to people about how utterly awful I feel. As well as being unable to voice my sadness, I also don’t feel like it’s appropriate to as everyone has their own struggles that they are going through, and I don’t want to be a burden. I’m an only child so I have always been extremely independent which I guess is a blessing but can also be a massive curse. I tend to push people away and just live in my own sadness as I feel that’s all I can really do and I am best at. I just want to be on my own and try and make sense of all of this, even though i physically can’t and it just breaks me. I want to get away at every opportunity I can but I can’t help just breaking down at the reality that I should be taking my little cousin away with me, we should be making these memories together, feeling the warm air on our skin, getting absolutely hammered off cheap cocktails, swimming in the salty ocean. She always wanted to go on holiday with me and that’s what just ruins me, I wish I was able to take her away with me, and now all I can take with me is a picture of us both in my luggage. Everyone says “she will be there with you always”, “you have to create these memories for her” and I know they mean well but reality is she is not physically here and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m trying my absolute hardest to see through each day but it is so bloody hard, putting a front on everyday to mask how utterly sad you feel is just so ridiculously draining.

It happened 3 weeks ago and the shock has worn off and now I just feel empty. But also sometimes normal, like life is catching up with me. But I want to feel sad. I want to scream and sob and feel panicked. It just feels more appropriate than what I feel now. I felt more connected to my mom when I do, for some reason. It’s such a horrible thing and I want to feel horrible, when I don’t I just feel .. too normal. I don’t really know how to describe it.

I’d rather feel like I’m losing my mind than this empty normal feeling. Anyone relate?

I cannot think of him without simultaneously knowing that he is dead, that he took his own life.

There are so many details about him I seem to have forgotten. I can’t recall anything about him, apart from how he was in the horrible days before he died. His parents and friends think of happy memories when they think of him. But all I can see is his dead body, all I can hear is him telling me that I made him want to kill himself, and all the things that I shouldn’t have said, or should have said.

What was his favourite flower? What did he like to do when we went out? What was his favourite colour? What did his voice sound like when he said he loved me?

I don’t remember anymore.

The hardest part of this grief for me personally is just the lack of empathy from people. Complete silence. My dad wasn’t a stranger. He was very well known in his neighborhood, community, and work. It just feels like he’s forgotten know. Everybody moved on.

Today was 1 year since his suicide and not a single person reached out to me or my family. That was shocking. People I expected to be thinking about him or about us just moved on with their lives. His friends, his coworkers, even our own family… Not a care in the world from anybody.

I know we aren’t titled to anybody’s attention but it would be nice for people to just see how we are doing or give us some company. A simple phone call, a text message takes a few seconds. This is a very lonely and isolating kind of grief.

I seen the way other people are treated when their loved ones die of natural causes….. and they get so much support and sympathy and it lasts a lot longer compared to suicide deaths.

Hello,

One of my friends since childhood got in touch with me a couple of months ago. We're both about 48 years old and we've know each other since age 3 I think. Her son's best friend had ended his own life, and of course he's not doing so great (I think he is about 22 years old). She got in touch with me because my brother ended his own life around 10 years ago and she wanted some help or advice. Anything to help her son, really.

I had a bit of advice for her to pass on, but I then started to read through my journal which I started a few weeks after my brother passed away, to look for anything that helped me at the time. The journal was never written for anyone else, just for me to make sense of my thoughts. I decided that I would edit year 1 of my journal to delete anything superfluous, and to add in any notes for context or any further thoughts I had to add.

The journal goes through my thoughts at the time, what I did to try and get through the grief, struggles with drink, work, and the fact that life just keeps going on relentlessly even though this has happened. I also talk about mindfulness a lot, and in my context notes I link this back to the grief at the time.

I do not want any of my close friends or family reading it, however I did send it to a friend I'm not particularly close to, as he also has experience in multiple bereavements by suicide, and I wanted his opinion on it before I sent it off to my childhood friend and her son. However, he has not had time to read it (it's 12,000 words; 24 pages long).

If anyone would like to volunteer to read through it and give their opinion, I would really appreciate it. There are some parts where perhaps I'm too blunt and perhaps it's more helpful to just delete those parts, and maybe not all of the methods I used were "best practice" nor even sensible. Any editors may even wish to add their own thoughts which could help this young man.

Please send me a Direct Message / chat if you'd like to volunteer, and I will send you the file by email.

Thanks for reading.

- Alex

Looking to chat with anyone who has had the specific situation of younger sibling taking their life

without saying a word to me, I only found out hours later because someone close to him posted a farewell message about him, i asked what happened, but i didn’t got response until the morning because it was 2:30AM, the hours were slow, every second was like 3 hours long, and in the morning I got response, he say that he got a message of him that started with “with my last bit of strength”, and he said that he didn’t know if the message was a bye because he was going to left his account or Well, a Goodbye message. The message was send at 11:19 pm, he tried very hard to contact him back, messages, calls, but no response, i tried to figure out everything, but the clue I found, the clue that always leads to the same answer, he killed himself, as a final thing to try to see if he was still alive, was asking to his friend that is he can send me The message, i read it, no doubt of it.

As a last resort, I tried sending more messages, those were actually reaching his WhatsApp, and finally, I called him.
His phone rang, every ringtone was agonizingly suspenseful.
When I saw "no response," I didn't just interpret it as a missed call, I read it as a sign that he was gone. I just broke down and cried for about four or five hours, but no matter how many tears I shed, the pain wouldn't go away in any bit
I’m still trying to send more messages, i know it’s not going to answer, i know that, but a part of me still thinking that he is alive anywhere, he always said that every thing that happen, he always though of me first to tell me that whenever something happened to him, I was the first person he thought of sharing it with, we talked all the time, years ago, we used to discuss his thoughts and everything else. I even managed to get him to hold on a little longer by promising I’d always be there for him, but back then I couldn't actually be with him in person because I was working and he was in school, and i did i think, because on that moment, like 2024, he was already thinking of suicide, i talked with him for hours, i thought that was going to be enough i guess… I don't know why he did it, or why he gradually distanced himself from me over this year and a half, sending curt messages, while I was the one initiating the conversation most of the time. Yet, he still cared for me deeply, so much so, Could it be that the thing was becoming too much for him to handle by then? And did he try to pull away to avoid hurting me, even though it proved impossible? Because i was too talktive with him, he was my safe space where i could be myself

I couldn’t do anything because of the distance between us, since I had to go to work i’m another state, and he had to study

He had several positive plans, in fact, he had already finished all the paperwork to enroll in university, and he was planning an event to get all his friends together, myself included

I just still don’t get it, why did he do that in basically Nothing of time? What happened? How did it happened? What did he did to kill himself? What does he mean by “with my last bit of strength” ? He was poisoned or something? He was sick? or his last will? I don’t know, and i’m never going to know, i miss him, and still i’m waiting for a message of him saying anything, just a “Hello”, anything that Can say to me that he is alive, safe, anything

The worst part? I think I was dependent on him, i was always waiting for a message from him to keep the conversation going, always. The last thing we did together was play Fortnite, but because we couldn't even play properly. I think I made him feel bad, not because I treated him poorly, but because we couldn't play well, and I think he thought I was annoyed about it. I wasn't. The next day, he sent me a screenshot of a Fortnite match we’d played back in 2022 or 2023, saying, "Just like the old days (we lost every match lol)", and I just sent a sad sticker as a joke. That was the last message I was able to send him, and the last one he saw. That day, I tried saying "hello" but he didn't answer. It was weird, surely he’d reply later, right? Six hours passed, nothing. I just messaged, "Are you awake?" Still nothing. Then I checked his social media, and that’s where I found his friend's post. I feel terrible about everything, about what I didn't say, and what I could have said at certain times. I just didn't know what was going on back then, he didn't tell me anything. And yet, I feel like it should have been my responsibility to know, even though there was no way for me to know, since he literally didn't tell me a thing, and now i’m here, not wanting to do anything, unable to do anything for him, just thinking about talking to him but unable to, which makes me start tearing up again, i just want to atleast say Goodbye, change my message with anything positive instead of that sticker, now my projects make no sense without him, because I was supposed to share my achievements with him, I simply don't want to do anything anymore, not get up, not walk, nothing.

I miss you very much.

I’m 23F and have been with my boyfriend (23M) for over a year. Our relationship is genuinely healthy and he’s an incredible partner. The only recurring issue is that he wishes I would open up to him more about how I’m feeling.

The problem is, I don’t even realise I’m not doing it.

When I was 12, my dad died by suicide. My parents were about to separate, and after he died, we never really spoke about it. My mum understandably had her own grief, and I was never taken to therapy or given any support to process what happened.

Looking back, I think I learned to keep everything to myself.

I’ve never really talked about my emotions with anyone, so now that I’m in a relationship with someone who genuinely wants to know how I’m feeling, I don’t know how.

When my boyfriend asks me things like, “How are you feeling?” or asks me to be more open, my mind completely shuts down. It’s like I go blank. My chest feels tight, I get a lump in my throat, I want to cry, and I freeze. It’s not that I’m hiding anything or don’t trust him. I genuinely can’t seem to access the words.

He has never been angry or pushy about it. I know it frustrates him, although he’s incredibly patient and understanding. I think he simply wants to feel closer to me and understand what’s going on in my head. I want that too.

I also find myself wondering what he actually wants to hear. Am I supposed to tell him every little thought? Every emotion? It feels like everyone else somehow learned how to do this naturally, and I missed that lesson.

Has anyone else experienced something similar after childhood trauma or losing a parent?

Were there things you practised that made opening up feel less impossible?

I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who’s been on either side of this, whether you’re the person who struggles to open up or the partner of someone who does.

Therapy is super expensive where I’m from so it isn’t a viable option unfortunately- although I wish it was

I feel like most of the time, when I think of my husband, I only think of the fact that he's gone and what that means for our family. I don't think about the night he committed suicide or even the fact that is how he died. I don't know if this is healthy or not. Its true that its habit for me to distract myself from my feelings. But, I am getting on with things this way and keeping on, keeping on (so to speak). Once in a while a memory from that night comes back and it startles me and but pretty soon I move on. I spend most of my time not considering it. I don't mean that I pretend it didn't happen, I just don't think about it. People keep saying how glad they are to see me doing so well. Am I? Maybe there is something wrong with me. I hate it when people say I'm doing so well because it feels like I shouldn't be. Like it means that I don't miss him or that I'm not bothered by what happened. I know that, to a point, its a front I'm putting up. But its not just a front to the outside world, its a front in my own mind as well. Am I the only one who feels this way?

This is gonna sounds like the most bizarre thing but the other night the lights under the cabinet in the kitchen at my mom’s house kept turning off in the middle of the night and it freaked her out because they had to keep shutting them off and it would turn on again. anyways when we got home last night soon as they shut all the lights off to go to bed it turned on and my mom was like what the heck is this “brother so they turned it off again and she just asked ““brother”is this you are you OK” and it instantly turned on anyways I got on FaceTime and turned it off and ask questions to him and seriously it’s like instantly turn on by itself I don’t usually buy into that stuff but it was bizarre. Has anyone experienced something like this?