Suicide.....a question

[East]

OK...I am taking stuff out of my proverbial closet and coming to terms with all of my ghosts ..thanks in large part to a lot of you.....you guys are really good...

...I think I have presented about six problems here now in the time I have been here...and all but one of them are now resolved or much much better...I am one of those people who actually takes the advice given to me if I can at all use it at all..and am grateful for it. I don't take it for granted.....even if I can't use it I always appreciate the effort and time anyone takes....

So now the next ghost has revealed itself...and I need to know if anyone has any insight into how I can come to terms with someone who I loved committing suicide?

I have been angry for years...and I have tried to forgive him and I have put flowers on his grave many times...but still...I have a huge block and I am not sure why.....

I m afraid almost that I can't forgive myself for being angry...I hate that this is/was/continues to be my reaction....

Has this ever happened to anyone else?

This is my baby brother who took his life 10 years ago...and I think it is time to process it....

I was thinking of going to a group..but I hate group therapy for the most part.....

So I am wondering if anyone has any insight or anything that can help me..or have any of you ever experienced this? ...or know of someone who did?

The best guess I have so far...I think maybe a part of me is closed off because it broke my heart...and I think maybe the anger is a way of coping with it and not having to feel any pain.....

I am not sure though...it is a very tough subject for me to address.....

Here is his picture....





I haven't even been able to look at his pictures until this past month....and that is hard enough....

So...do you think I might have the answer already?..is it that simple?...or maybe something else? It is such a difficult topic....

Thanks for reading....

[MikeW]

Perhaps I don't understand the problem. Apparently you loved your brother and, in a sense, felt betrayed by his suicide. I really don't know what words to use to describe how you felt, you can supply those yourself, but the point is, it remains something unresolved in you -- and you're presenting this as if you should have some sort of resolution. I don't know about that.

For sure you'll feel better, more at peace with yourself if you are able to find it... but I'm not sure that can be either 'forced' or 'bought' in some sense of those words. I would guess (not *knowing* anything) that there is/was a LOT of emotion between the two of you ... what I'm trying to say is that it may not just be the suicide, but a lot of unresolved feelings re your brother, your relationship to him, and that in the context of your sociopathic (I believe you've called it) family.

My best gay friend committed suicide in 1998. At the time I was quite angry with him about it and also angry at myself. In this instance I, all his friends, knew that this guy had serious issues with depression and anxiety and had had most of his adult life. We all considered the possibility that he might suicide. Given his tendency toward hypochondria, none of us would have been surprised if he overdosed. BUT the way he did it was with a gun through the mouth. This shocked us all because it meant he had purchased a gun and kept it a secret from all of us. (Because if we had known of it, we would have found some way of taking it from him and he very well knew that.)

Part of this, too, is that I'd gone to dinner with him just two days before he suicided and I knew full well he was in a very bad place. In fact, in retrospect, I realized he had been saying "good bye" to me the whole evening, but I'd just not "understood" what he was doing. Moreover, during our dinner conversation, I'd made up my mind that it was time for me to perform a "radical intervention" in his life. Specifically, I'd decided that it was time to insist he take a psychedelic journey with me. This was not something I'd seriously considered in his case because there were so many "contra-indications" to his case. But during that evening, I came to the conclusion that he needed to be knocked outside his usual ballpark. I'd "guided" one guy (at his request) who was seriously considering suicide and it totally changed his life around. (In fact he's alive to this day and this was about 20 years ago.)

So I was partly angry with myself for having not insisted on something like this sooner.

All this said, this friend was not my brother and however much I may have loved him, he had been a part of my life for only a few years (unlike a sibling). So it isn't that I didn't understand WHY he did what he did or that I have some moral objection to suicide, rather it is more like the kind of frustration we all must feel with the absoluteness of reality. That is to say, we all have options and choices so long as we're alive. But death is a finality that puts an end to all that. From that point, what is, is... and that's all there is to it.

So, I doubt anything I'm saying is helpful but this is as close as I can come to having anything to offer about it.

[TwisttheLeaf]

Hey East, I'm sorry for your loss, and for the pain of it yeah?

I have a feeling I don't process this sort of thing like the majority, probably because I have been suicidal myself, and have no real fear of death.... or didn't until a recent event I've shared with you in private. Tho, even that wasn't fear of death so much as a fear of leaving Gideon and my sister behind.

Maybe.... it would help to wrap your head around the perspective of the person committing suicide? I dunno. I can tell you that for someone seeking that "solution" it really does look like the -only- solution available to them. The sadness and pain depression causes them is so all-over-encompassing, and overwhelming, that you can't think of anything else. You can't SEE that it's temporary, it just feels like it will never end, that you will never feel better... that it will never get better.

In my case, the combination of medication, the insistent assertion (mantra) during those times that it IS temporary even if I can't see it and can't believe it, therapy (especially during those dark times), and Gideon's nearly obsessive NEED for me to be there in his life... these things are what turned the corner for me.

Even then, in the middle of a depression... sometimes the thoughts and urges return even when I don't want them to. Even when I fight against them and the overwhelming belief everyone would be better off without me in their lives. I know, now, that it's the depression whispering lies in my ears. But it's still persuasive in the moment. It's still a struggle.

Those whispers can chip away at you. At everything you are, everything that means -anything- to you. Everything that makes you.... you. Sometimes those of us who have to deal with depression's whispers crumble under their pressure, a pressure that's way more pervasive and persuasive than peer pressure ever could be.

I don't know if this helps any, but maybe it will. I hope it does.

[subdivisions]

Okay, I may get hate for this, but... I don't think suicide is a bad thing. It's just something that happens. I don't think it's good. But it's not bad either. People who do it are not "selfish", "cowards", "pussies", etc. that mainstream society brainwashes us to believe. We didn't choose to be born. Why should we have to live? What is really selfish is forcing someone to live when they don't want to. He's probably at peace now. I know this is hard to say, but, you shouldn't feel sad about it. He did what he wanted. I respect people who go after what they want.

And all the "help" out there... therapist, psychiatrists, medications, hospitalizations, groups, etc... they don't do shit for most people. Most people with depression end up miserable their entire lives. Let them end it if they want. Don't force them to be miserable.

Moreover, during our dinner conversation, I'd made up my mind that it was time for me to perform a "radical intervention" in his life. Specifically, I'd decided that it was time to insist he take a psychedelic journey with me. This was not something I'd seriously considered in his case because there were so many "contra-indications" to his case. But during that evening, I came to the conclusion that he needed to be knocked outside his usual ballpark. I'd "guided" one guy (at his request) who was seriously considering suicide and it totally changed his life around. (In fact he's alive to this day and this was about 20 years ago.)

I love how you think that psychadelic drugs will magically solve everyone's problems.

[East]

Wow.. [MENTION=20947]MikeW[/MENTION] and [MENTION=20738]TwisttheLeaf[/MENTION]..Thank You! I didn't expect so much so soon...it's like both of you guys unlocked the doors immediately...I am seeing so many things all at once that I haven't seen before....

I m processing it as fast as I can and will be back when I collect my thoughts....

...and thank you for sharing your personal stories...it helps me understand things a lot easier in that context.

[Mdoc]

Hi, I'm new to the site, but having read your post, think I can maybe help a little. I have suffered from anxiety and depression problems most of my life and yes there have been times when I have thought as suicide as an option, thankfully like others I have somehow managed to talk myself out of it, but that's my situation and not yours.

What I would really to say to you is that holding onto the anger is just likely to make it harder for you to grieve for your brother and come to terms with your loss. If your anger is from the fact of him committing the act of suicide and you look at it as a selfish thing he done, then what you may have to understand is that no one over thinks of doing such a thing lightly and they certainly do not go through it without it being something that has gone round and round in their heads. It then takes an almighty amount of courage with a whole heap of despair to actually go through it.

Perhaps the best feeling you can hope to achieve is that your brother saw it as his only way out and he had to have been in such pain and suffering mentally that for him it was what he seen as the best solution. Arguably you may have wanted him to seek help either from yourself or others and this might be the source of your anger that he never reached out, unfortunately when someone is in such a dark place there can be a tendency to not want to be a burden to the people they love, this may also have been something he was thinking.

Obviously not haven known your brother I can only speculate on these things, but I hope this post gives you some further in site and can help you reach a place of peace.

[MikeW]

...I love how you think that psychadelic drugs will magically solve everyone's problems.

You know, you're begging to sound like a complete jerk. I do NOT believe "psychedelic drugs will magically solve everyone's problems." That is an inaccurate and over simplified statement that was obviously meant to be an insult. Psychedelics are tools and they *can* be beneficial in SOME instances -- like any tool they can also be abused. It is ignorance of their use that defines that difference. Just because YOU have a problem with them doesn't mean THEY or I are the problem. Now, I dropped this subject in your thread... do not get into a back and forth with me about it here as it is totally off topic.

ETA

...And all the "help" out there... therapist, psychiatrists, medications, hospitalizations, groups, etc... they don't do shit for most people. Most people with depression end up miserable their entire lives. Let them end it if they want. Don't force them to be miserable.

This is your own pain, anger and frustration speaking and, once again, you're making to broad a statement. "Most" assumes a majority of cases and you don't KNOW that as an established scientific fact; it is simply your belief or your observation based on nothing more than your personal experience. True, not everyone is helped by the interventions and therapies available. I don't deny that. However, it is also true that SOME are... and I am one of them. I was depressed even as a child and it only got worse as I got older. I not only thought about suicide I once made a totally ridiculous and half assed attempt at it by driving my motorcycle over a cliff (totaling my cycle and doing nothing much to me but knocking me unconscious). It wasn't until I was in my mid 20s, living away from my parents, that I was able to even *begin* to get a handle on my depression -- and for that I needed lots of help. I was very fortunate to get it, too. Since then depression is rare in my life and suicidal ideation even more rare. I *do* get your point which is if people are "miserable" they should not be forced to remain miserable. I don't totally disagree. But, again, things aren't as simple as you make them in your head. In this case precisely because suicide is a permanent solution to what may very well be a temporary problem.

The real question is, why do people CHOOSE to remain miserable? From that POV, living a miserable life is a way of acting out one's rage at those who were supposed to know us, love us and accept us for who we are but didn't -- thus leaving us feeling invisible, unloved and betrayed; and suicide motivated from that is the ultimate "FUCK YOU!" statement. Its like saying, "Fuck you, I don't have to live in your miserable fucked up world!"

Reality, however, is not what we think and feel inside our heads. <<< THAT, what we think and feel, is a construct that has been significantly influenced by people around us (especially our parents and other figures of authority) . To us it *becomes* real; becomes what we experience *as* real; and becomes what we identify AS our self. SO, we end up believing that WE really are "miserable" - when what we are is just fucked-up (injured) and fucked over (physically and emotionally abused) by idiots and assholes who don't know shit from shinola. SO, yeah, we're pissed off. Beyond pissed off, outraged and hurt that we've had to endure this shit.

Its just that THAT, the understandable emotional reactions to physical and emotional abuse, does NOT have to define either our sense of self OR our experience of living. However, to learn that, to truly grasp that, we have to be wiling to 1) get into and find way of safely expressing our justified outrage and 2) be willing to "let go of it" as a sense of personal identity. It really can be a SHOCK to discover that one doesn't HAVE to be miserable.... that it is, in fact, a choice we make unconsciously every fucking day of our lives. A choice that is a kind of "social suicide" because it not only Xs us out of most social interactions, it completely prevents us from ever getting to know those aspects of ourselves that are positive, fuck, even down right happy.

Again, I say this as someone who has BEEN THROUGH THIS SHIT. Totally. LOL.. I remember one time, I was about 28, there was this guy, someone one of my house mates was dating, sitting in my living room and he was talking with me and in the course of that he said, "Remember your first anxiety free day?"... and just sort of went on talking. But that (to him) casual statement really stopped me. And I finally stopped his monologue and said, "Wait, you've had an *anxiety free* day??!!!" I was seriously shocked. I'd NEVER had such a thing; couldn't even IMAGINE It! I couldn't imagine ever being not only free of anxiety but actually HAPPY! Frankly, I thought people who talked like that were fucking delusional idiots!! But it was clear to me in that moment that this guy just took that sort of thing for granted, which is why he spoke that way so causally. To HIM, having an "anxiety free" day was NBFD; it was common, perhaps even typical.

WOW. How the fuck does that work? It took me another 10 years to even begin to figure that out and actually LIVE (not pretend or imagine, but actually live) life free from guilt, anxiety, depression, resentment, fear... all that shit. And I thank my lucky stars I didn't throw myself over a cliff (either literally or through some other means, like suicide or becoming an alcoholic or drug addict) before I got the chance to actually experience that. To see for myself that *I AM NOT MY FUCKED UP FEELINGS*. For sure, they are apart of who I am, apart of my history and, at times can surface to bug the hell out of me. But deeper down I know from experience there is another self -- and that self is FREE of all that. He IS my true self, my true life; free from the idiots and assholes who "rule" much of this world.

So, yeah, people should be free to do whatever the fuck they want. I don't argue with that. But they should also be free to discover that who and what they are isn't what they've been told or led to believe or, perhaps, have experienced so far in their life. Who they really are is something so precious, so unique, so special, so amazing -- it is an absolute fucking tragedy it has never been reflected back to them by the people around them who "say" they love him. And why not? Because they didn't have it reflected back to themselves... and so they don't know anything about it. It's all just about "behaving"... that is "image"... "pretending" to be something one is not.

/End of ETA rant.

[RUoutthere]

Hello East, I am sorry for your loss and can appreciate your pain. Suicide is a tough subject. I would venture to say that a high percentage of gays and lesbians have wrestled with it. Not saying your brother was gay. That's a private matter. But he obviously was struggling with something in his life. It is not always easy to genuinely feel the pain someone else is dealing with in their life that causes them to feel the only peace is death. While there are cases of positive results with introducing the right medicine to deal with chemical deficiencies in the brain that cause depression, there are also cases that it is the problem itself and medicine and even therapy do not always have good results.

At my age, I have had to deal with a number of people in my life that had serious issues and there have been a few suicides as a result. None were easy and to this day I still miss them.

In my path of life though, I have learned a number of things and have become wiser. A lot has to do with beliefs. I am not going down the path of preaching religion. That is one of those topics that is not supposed to be discussed among diversified thinking. LOL However, everyone does have some set of beliefs in their life that are developed over time and accumulation of information. I happen to be a believing Christian. But I have also tried to be aware of what other people believe. I have found that there are numerous similarities in various beliefs. One that may be something for you to consider is the belief that nothing ever really is gone, including your brother. We exist in a universe that is completely made up of energy. You can't create energy. You can't destroy energy. It has always existed and it will always exist. It does change into form and out of form constantly. The universe is always changing. In the case of humans, we arrive in life through the activity of our parents. We interact with energy our whole life through making decisions and dealing with what life presents. When we die, we simply transform to another energy so we are never really gone. I'm not talking about spirits and ghosts. Each of us were a body that was made up of energy that existed among others and we responded to them through feelings and emotions. When people leave us, natural death of suicide, the energy that made up their physical being is just transferred to another form of energy and it is still part of thins great thing we call life. Your brother still exists. maybe not in the form you loved to be with. But he is there all around you in some other form. I wouldn't doubt that it has had an influence on you to come to grips with it on this forum. I am sure he loved you and wants you to be happy. In whatever form he is, he is not struggling with what troubled him so much as a person.

I am happy for you that you are dealing with this. That is a positive step. I wish you great success with it and you too can now change that negative energy of pain into positive energy that will improve your quality of life. One day, you too will transform from this human life but you will still be connected in someway to your brother.

[Gideon]

Death is...hard. The emotions of those left behind is even harder.
It's hard to let go of those we love, it's hard to grasp the concept of never seeing that person again. Never witnessing their smile, hearing their laugh. It's hard when you pick up the phone and realize just as your thumb brushes over the contact name that...oh...he's not here anymore.

I recently lost my dad, which is one of the hardest things I've ever had to live through.
I got a close up view of what might life might be like without Twist a part of it....

It's -hard-, man. And suicide? That's even harder for those of us left behind. There are so many emotions involved....pain, loss, anger...guilt. That desperate need to -understand- when there are no answers or understanding to be had.

When I was 21 I lost a good friend of mine...self inflicted gunshot wound to the head...
We spent hours at the hospital, trying to understand why he'd done it, trying to will him to live, to react. Trying to deal with what was quickly becoming a very painful and useless LOSS.

Terry was 19 years old when he took his life, and to this day suicide is a VERY sensitive subject for me. It makes me sad, it makes me angry, it leaves me with countless questions and doubts. It leaves me wondering still, to this day...What if...

What if I'd only been there? What if I could have just talked to him one more time? What if I could have STOPPED him? Should I have seen it coming? Should I have known? Were there signs that I missed?

Guilt...survivor's guilt. A friend's guilt of the one who didn't do anything to make that life WORTH living. Was it really not worth living?

Terry died a long time ago, but I will never forget the -look- of devastation in his mother's eyes as she buried her child. It's that look that haunts me even now.

I've helped Twist over the years deal with his own suicidal tendencies. I've helped him to understand that while that sense of relief might be there for him, what's left behind for US? That is devastation, that is loss and grief and pain and anger. That -need- to keep him in my life and the absolute certainty that to lose him would destroy me.

Death is hard, man. And suicide is harder. It's not very likely you'll ever get your answers, or you'll ever really be at peace with it....just know for your own peace of mind that whatever torment and pain he was suffering is eased now. And know that, for whatever it's worth, you aren't alone.

[novice]

Hi, I'm new to the site, but having read your post, think I can maybe help a little. I have suffered from anxiety and depression problems most of my life and yes there have been times when I have thought as suicide as an option, thankfully like others I have somehow managed to talk myself out of it, but that's my situation and not yours.

What I would really to say to you is that holding onto the anger is just likely to make it harder for you to grieve for your brother and come to terms with your loss. If your anger is from the fact of him committing the act of suicide and you look at it as a selfish thing he done, then what you may have to understand is that no one over thinks of doing such a thing lightly and they certainly do not go through it without it being something that has gone round and round in their heads. It then takes an almighty amount of courage with a whole heap of despair to actually go through it.

Perhaps the best feeling you can hope to achieve is that your brother saw it as his only way out and he had to have been in such pain and suffering mentally that for him it was what he seen as the best solution. Arguably you may have wanted him to seek help either from yourself or others and this might be the source of your anger that he never reached out, unfortunately when someone is in such a dark place there can be a tendency to not want to be a burden to the people they love, this may also have been something he was thinking.

Obviously not haven known your brother I can only speculate on these things, but I hope this post gives you some further in site and can help you reach a place of peace.

I would second this. People resort to it out of sheer desperation &/or inability to cope. It is easy for others to condemn it but they don't have to walk in their shoes. I have been there (& could be again) - but I wouldn't want to put my family through the pain of it. People say suicide is "selfish" but if a person cannot solve/resolve w/e their problem(s) are & can find no other way - it is suicide OR continue to suffer. I think people can assess their own abilities (or lack of) to effect their lives & come to the rational conclusion that for w/e reason(s) they won't or aren't able to improve it. Then, reluctantly, do the ultimate in "giving up." I'm not saying I necessarily condone it but I certainly know from personal experience where he was coming from - if you've never felt that way you can never really understand how insidious & inescapable depression can be.

Anyone who commits suicide was suffering & now they aren't. I'm sure your brother only wanted to end HIS suffering - NOT cause yours. You KNOW he wouldn't want it to continue to plague you......so, somehow.....try to "forgive him".