Survivors Of Suicide

[Guest ~Brenda~]

Dear All,

To any of those of you who have contemplated suicide or even attempted suicide, please hear my story.

My brother committed suicide when he was 20 years old. I was 22 at the time. The devastating effects on those who are left behind from someone who suicides is beyond anything you can possibly imagine. My parents, my sister, cousins, uncles, aunts have never been the same since. There is not one day I do not think about my brother. The guilt, and emptiness never completely goes away. I always wonder if there was somthing I could have said or done to prevent his suicide.

If anyone out there is thinking about suicide... please, please get help!! Please, please understand that those who love you will be emotionally scarred for life. I know you are suffering, but if you suicide, you will inflict pain and suffering on a scale you don't even realize. Please talk to someone if you are feeling suicidal!!!

I would like to hear the stories of other survivors of a suicide. We need to get the message out as to the effects suicide has on the people who remain.

bernie

[Sally]

I lost a younger cousin to suicide, he was only 19 and I was in my 30s. He wanted to do everything that I did and was learning to become a photographer, he went to work for the same record store chane that I worked for to pay for his camera gear. He was accepted to a prestigious photography scool, but his parents told hiim that he could not go because they could not afford it and would not allow his Great Aunt to pay his way even on a loan. He had worked so hard to get into that school and now those dreams were dashed and when he got to work that Saturday, his girl friend had broken their date so she could move in with a friend of his. He had been living in his own apartment but he went home to shoot himself in the head - he wanted his parents to suffer, but he forgot about his little brother who found him and his Great Aunt and his cousins, he was always such a great guy and there had to be so much more than just that to cause this. I still wonder if he had worked in my store instead of the one across town if he might have talked to me, at least I would have known that something was wrong and I could have tried.

I still miss him and wonder what I could have done and his little brother may never recover fully, ten year olds should just never have to find their brothers like that.

Sally

[Guest Alyssa Leigh]

Hi Bernie and Sally

Both of your storie have brought tears to my eyes because i hear about people that have talked about suicide or have commited suicide i never really realized the affects it could have on someone like their families and friends, But i now know that it leaves great pain on the people they leave behind. When i was 11 i contemplated suicide and told my school counselor that i was and asked her not to tell anyone but she couldn't she called my parents immediatly. When i got off the school bus i was greeted by my parents and was taken to see a proffessional counselor because they thought that they would be able to help me but every time i had an appointment i just sat there and said not one word. Eventually my parents got tired of spending money on that. I am glad that i had not killed myself because i care about my family very much and for them to have lost me to slicing my throat on a barbed wire fence would have devastated them.

[Guest ~Brenda~]

Dear Alyssa,

Thank you so much for shareing your own suicide story. This is exactly, what I wanted to see... the realization for those who commit suicide, what happens to the family and friends. I think that the poor soul who is suffering so much and commits suicide does not realize the aboslute devastation that they leave behind. Believe me, it is like surviving a thermonuclear blast. I am so glad that you did not commit suicide and I am glad you are here talking to me and us.

With much love,

bernie

[Guest Alyssa Leigh]

Dear Bernie

I think everyone needs to reallize that also and to get the help needed to cope thru the hard times that they are having before its to late.

Because once you take your life theres no getting a second chance. One of the best things i did was to decide to live because i feel everyone has a purpose in life whether they know it or not. It is also good to know that there is someone out there that cares.

Alyssa ( Hugs )

[Guest mia 1]

Yes I know what it is all about ....But I must stop and thank Bernie for telling us her story...it is never easy to bring that story to the public eye...even when we are all held together by a common thread,,,..so THANKS BERNIE....and God Bless You.

Now for my stiry...my brother committed suicide when he was 23 yrs. old hooke on drugs and thought he was leaving the world so it would be a better place...Well the devestation that he wrought is still going on 38 yrs. later.....After my father and Mother died I said to my surviving brother...at least their hurt and pain is no longer with them..

That's a pretty tough thing to say to your brother, but that's how long the pain lasts....your own lifetime......

So thanks again Bernie Try this web site ..http://www.psycom.net/depression.centalsuicide.html

[Guest Kelly Ann]

thanks Bernie...it's the survivors that suffer. I am having to pull paper by the handful to dry MY waterworks. There are NO easy answers...just difficult questions. Those answers are always easy...just not necessarily accepted...because the questions are generally wrong. There is little else but to question that which causes self-denial regarding self termination. This somehow escapes me even now with the wisdom of the years. Why? I will never know...it's my hand squeezing yours right now sweetie. Hugging you tight, Kelly Ann

[Guest Zack L]

I have no experiance in being left behind...but I have some in trying to get out.

I attempted to kill myself in 7th grade, when I was about 12 or 13. I took a lot of pills, and then realized that if I died now I would never see the good things life had to offer, so I made myself throw most of them up and only got a bad stomach ache. That was my only real attempt, but I was suicidal from age 11 until about a year ago, at 17. I was in so much pain...but I'm glad I survived it, because now when I try to see myself in the future...I actually see someone there, a guy I'll be able to be proud of. Before I realized transgender existed I could never see anything. I was never able to even pretend to see myself as a grown woman, and no one had ever told me that I could ever be the man I am...so I just saw nothing.

Here, I'll share this. I wrote this essay for a college application -- it was supposed to be like, page 77 or something in my autobiography, and I write it on my teen years. Since it was only one page it's fairly short. My english teacher who I submitted it to for an additional assignment gave it a perfect score otherwise I wouldn't bother posting it. XD

Teen Years

Looking back at my teenage years, I find myself both in awe and pain. Even after all this time I still find myself amazed that I survived all that happened, and I feel a shadow of the old pain clutch my heart. No, ages fourteen to eighteen were not a happy time.

To someone who has not suffered from depression, this section of my life may seem strange and illogical. But I did the best I could, and here I am writing this, on the other side of all of that, so I guess I did okay.

When I entered middle school, I was already trapped under a blanket of despair, and as I went through the motions of a normal life it was all I could do to keep from letting that cover suffocate me. I lost all my friends at the start of that hellish school, either distance or cruelty keeping me away. I’m not sure, even now, if having no friends was better than having abusive pretenders; but I chose to be alone instead of endure what little comfort those people I had known before had to offer. But the price of my solitude was high: having no one to talk to or distract me from all that was going on I fell deeper into my depression and turned to self injury on a regular basis. I often felt that my blades were the only things keeping me here, and that they alone knew what I was going through.

At this time, my Mother had become unbearable, cursing and insulting me nonstop. I had no peace and no where to recover from all that was spinning out of control. Caught between my hellish home, the loneliness at school, and my own growing self-hatred I was trapped. No safety zone, no refuge from the storm outside or the pit of darkness that had become my mind, I began to seriously consider suicide.

As the months wore on I became more and more convinced that my only way out of my situation was to end my life. I began making plans, collecting pills that were being shoved down my throat for various mental conditions the doctors supposed I had. Everything was all set, I had a note to leave behind, and was so relieved to finally be able to rest from my nightmare. I took the pills; I took a lot of pills. But as soon as I was finished swallowing, I suddenly had a moment of clarity come to me – if I continued to live things could eventually get better, but if I died now, everything was over. I rushed to the bathroom and made myself throw up as much as I could, and suffered only a stomachache.

The light that had shone so brightly for that instant began to dim as I went back to my daily routine: Be screamed at to wake up, screamed at to get ready, go to school, receive failing marks for not doing my work, go into the bathroom to self-injure, go back to class, come home, get screamed at about my grades, isolate myself in my room and lay awake all night thinking about all the terrible things I was called. That light had disappeared before very long, and I lost hope of getting better.

The summer after seventh grade came, and went without me seeing anyone.

[Guest Little Sara]

My escapism was through games, or I would not have survived. I was emotionless from 11-23, but suicidal from 17-23. Well, almost 24. Depressed a lot as well 11-23.

I didn't make specific plans, but I knew I would not last past 25. I knew I would end it at some point. Like Zack, I also didn't see a future ahead of me, couldn't see myself there.

[Guest ~Brenda~]

Dearest Zack,

Thank you so much for sharing you inner most thoughts. That took a lot of courage. But we are not strangers nor uncaring. We are of your cloth. We are you. Let me say this to you and all young transgendered souls. When you are young, life seems unbearable, and slow. It seems like you are going to be in the darkness forever. Remember this... the corner stone of life is change! As each year passes, you will have changed and will be in a different place than you were before. Believe me, it gets better (a whole lot better) as you get older. What happens is this... you understand yourself an others more and more on a profound level that I cannot begin to describe to you yet.

Continue to be yourself! All the pain will eventually go away!!

With total love

bernie

[Guest ~Brenda~]

Dearest Little Sarah,

Please read my response to Zack

bernie

[Guest Zabrak]

My bio mother tried to kill herself when I was very small. However, the cops stopped her from jumping off the bridge. I was then taken away to foster care.

[Guest ~Brenda~]

Dear Zabrak,

Thanks..... That's intense.

bernie

[Guest Zack L]

Hey man that's...wow. Um...want a hug? *hugs*

[Guest Zabrak]

It's alright, thanks bernie and Zack.