# Dealing with suicide in the family



## ComicBookLady

Hello!

11 years ago my mother commit suicide when I was 18 years old. It obviously was a huge deal for me, and effected me in ALL areas of my life. She was the only person in my life that I felt unconditionally loved me.

I feel like I am dealing okay, but 11 years later I still have brief and intense bursts of crying and feeling so intensely sad that I can barely handle it. Especially surrounding feeling bad for my kids that they have no grandparents in their life (she would have been a great one, and my dad is not interested).

So I guess I was just hoping to relate to anyone who has dealt with suicide in their life. How are you coping? Does it also still "get" to you even years later?

Thanks for listening!


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## Cee Paul

Sorry for your loss; and me personally I only knew one person that did that and it was a long time ago and it was my best friend's brother, and it still bothers him somewhat nearly 20 years later from what he's told me.

My mom died from brain cancer 3 years ago and suffered badly on the way out(she was 5'6 tall and weighed only *72* lbs at death)and I will always miss her, and I hated seeing her have to go through all the chemo and weight loss in the end.


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## debster

I'm sorry for your loss and in such a terrible manner and at such a young age. Losing a parent is very tough. Full stop. I still grieve the loss of my mother almost 8 years ago. 

However losing her to suicide is the ultimate tragedy. 

Think of your mother when she was well. How would she want you to carry on now that she is gone, and in spite of what she did? 

You honour her memory but also are saying "Mom, what you did was not okay!" by living in the here and now and not letting this tragedy drag you down. 

Be strong, be brave, but most importantly, forgive yourself when you do need to cry. 

God's blessings to you.


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## ComicBookLady

Cee Paul said:


> Sorry for your loss; and me personally I only knew one person that did that and it was a long time ago and it was my best friend's brother, and it still bothers him somewhat nearly 20 years later from what he's told me.
> 
> My mom died from brain cancer 3 years ago and suffered badly on the way out(she was 5'6 tall and weighed only *72* lbs at death)and I will always miss her, and I hated seeing her have to go through all the chemo and weight loss in the end.


Thanks, Cee Paul, and I too am incredibly sorry for the loss of your mother. How _horrible_ that must have been for you to see her in that state at the end. I'm more sorry for you than words can say 

Well, hopefully it's more normal then that 11 years later I still have issues. I always thought I handled it well, but when things get rough I start doubting if I have healed appropriately.

Thanks you so much for sharing with me


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## ComicBookLady

debster said:


> I'm sorry for your loss and in such a terrible manner and at such a young age. Losing a parent is very tough. Full stop. I still grieve the loss of my mother almost 8 years ago.
> 
> However losing her to suicide is the ultimate tragedy.
> 
> Think of your mother when she was well. How would she want you to carry on now that she is gone, and in spite of what she did?
> 
> You honour her memory but also are saying "Mom, what you did was not okay!" by living in the here and now and not letting this tragedy drag you down.
> 
> Be strong, be brave, but most importantly, forgive yourself when you do need to cry.
> 
> God's blessings to you.


Thank you so much, Debster. Your words made me tear up. I do try hard everyday to make her proud. I feel I've forgiven her a long time ago for leaving me (and my sister), because she spent her entire life up until then being the best mother in the world, sacrificing so much for our happiness. 

That hardest part of it all is seeing my children grow up without a grandmother (or any grandparents). I got pregnant 3 months after she died with my first son, and all I've been thinking about since then is how much my children are missing out by not knowing her. She would have been the best grandmother in the world. Even as a young girl she would tell me how excited she would be when I had my own family and she got to be a grandmother someday. So part of me was really excited for when that happened, and it became a dream of mine to make her a grandmother someday. And of course, when I did have my own children, she wasn't there, and it's been intolerably hard for me to deal with this aspect.

Thanks for listening, and the well wishes.


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## debster

Wow. That must be really hard knowing she was looking forward to being a grandmother. I don't really know what to say.

In Canada, we had a campaign on Tuesday Feb 12 called Bell Let's Talk to raise money and awareness on mental health. $0.05 went donated by Bell for every phone call, text and tweet. $4,418,313 from 96,266,266 calls, texts, tweets and shares was raised. Trying to remove the stigma of mental illness so that people don't have to suffer in silence.

I hope that brings a little hope that things are changing.

Hugs from me and your Mom, on Valentines Day.

Debster


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## Curse of Millhaven

First let me say, I am so sorry for your loss; to lose your mother in such a way and so young is tragic. And yes, I can relate as I lost someone I loved to suicide when I was not much older than you. My first SO committed suicide when I was in my early 20's. We were in a really bad way (cheating, alcohol abuse, endless fighting), had split, were in the process of tentatively reconciling (or rather I was trying very hard to forgive and forget, but not quite succeeding), and then, just like that, it all ended. No note, no explanation, no good bye, just gone. Like you, it affected every single aspect of my life. In many ways my life ended on that day too, or rather the person I was or would have been was buried along with them. I was utterly and irrevocably devastated and altered after that. I spent a very long time trying to recover; I was like a ghost haunting my own life...nothing could really penetrate the haze of despair, guilt, and grief I was shrouded in. Sometimes I think you don't ever truly recover from something like this...you just survive it. And even though it was long ago now...like you, I still remember the loss and shock, it stops me cold, and I give in to it sometimes and still mourn.

As you know, only the passage of time lessens the immediacy of the grief and sorrow, although it never really goes away. But I like to believe that even time itself is humbled by the love and memories we carry in our hearts...because we live, so do our loved ones who are gone. 

Again, I'm sorry for your loss and I pray for your continued strength and recovery.


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## Curse of Millhaven

Cee Paul said:


> Sorry for your loss; and me personally I only knew one person that did that and it was a long time ago and it was my best friend's brother, and it still bothers him somewhat nearly 20 years later from what he's told me.
> 
> My mom died from brain cancer 3 years ago and suffered badly on the way out(she was 5'6 tall and weighed only *72* lbs at death)and I will always miss her, and I hated seeing her have to go through all the chemo and weight loss in the end.


I'm so sorry for your loss too, Cee Paul. Words can't describe how awful it is to watch a loved one succumb to cancer. My father died of liver cancer a little under two years ago and I miss him everyday. I cared for him as he passed and it was one of the harder things I've ever had to witness. He was always so strong and stubborn (ex-military, ex-law enforcement) and to see what it reduced him to in the end is something I will never get over. I would've never believed in a million years that I would have prayed for him to give up the fight and just let go, but that's exactly what I did in the last days of his life. Just soul crushing.


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## unbelievable

I'm sorry you're dealing with this. I've investigated hundreds of them but, thankfully, no one in my family has taken their own life...so far. One of the great thing about kids is their resilience and the best thing about love is that it can come from all sorts of sources. Your mom is gone but the world is chock full of older folks who love to spend time with you and your kids. I don't run the world but I do believe things happen for a reason. Sometimes very great things are born out of our deepest tragedies. There may be some older person near you who needs exactly what you have and you or your kids might need exactly what they have. On the way to America in 1806, my ancestor was shipwrecked. Over half those people died. Due to the shipwreck, he ended up hundreds of miles from his original destination and moved next door to a woman named Fannie Garrett. She had an abusive, useless, mostly absentee husband and a 5 year old son. My ancestor was a preacher and had a few grandkids. Fannie's kid started playing with my family's kids and began attending my ancestor's church services. That 5 year old kid was William Lloyd Garrison, the father of the abolition movement in the United States. Had he not had an abusive drunk for a father, had the ship not wrecked, maybe his life would have taken a completely different direction and slavery might have continued decades longer. I think you get the point. A loving mother is never really gone. The lessons and love she gave you, you're giving to your kids and they will give to their's. I don't know what your belief system is, but I do believe there is a Planner and a plan. We don't write the script and we don't even have to understand it. Bees know nothing about agriculture. They don't have to. Their job is to just eat. God arranged it so they'd pollinate other plants in the process. You and your kids have some special, important role to play and believe it or not, the loss of your mom doesn't cripple you. It is part of what makes you uniquely qualified to do whatever it is you're supposed to do. I've been around over 50 years and some pretty ugly stuff has happened to me. Over time, I've come to clearly see that every bit of it was necessary to prepare me to give something that someone really needed, whether it was to interview a victim of child sexual abuse or to talk out an armed suicidal person. Without the influence of the bad things that happened to me, I would be a completely different person and maybe some of those kid victims wouldn't have talked to me or maybe some of those suicidal folks would have killed themselves. I'm so far from perfect but on occasion, I've been exactly what someone needed. I'm just as confident that, as awful as your personal tragedy was, it's helped make you exactly what someone needs.


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## Cee Paul

Curse of Millhaven said:


> I'm so sorry for your loss too, Cee Paul. Words can't describe how awful it is to watch a loved one succumb to cancer. My father died of liver cancer a little under two years ago and I miss him everyday. I cared for him as he passed and it was one of the harder things I've ever had to witness. He was always so strong and stubborn (ex-military, ex-law enforcement) and to see what it reduced him to in the end is something I will never get over. I would've never believed in a million years that I would have prayed for him to give up the fight and just let go, but that's exactly what I did in the last days of his life. Just soul crushing.


My mom put up one hell of a fight too(she was a stubborn Irish woman)and kept hanging in there with hospice at her side, and even though she had gotten to a point where she could no longer eat and hadn't eaten for 10 days because the cancer spread to her stomach, she kept asking everyone at the house to make her a plate of something and leave it on the stove for later.


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## Curse of Millhaven

Cee Paul said:


> My mom put up one hell of a fight too(she was a stubborn Irish woman)and kept hanging in there with hospice at her side, and even though she had gotten to a point where she could no longer eat and hadn't eaten for 10 days because the cancer spread to her stomach, she kept asking everyone at the house to make her a plate of something and leave it on the stove for later.


Oh, bless her, that's heartbreaking. My condolences again.


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