Support Thread for those bereaved by suicide

[ShirleyGunpowderPlot]

Hello.

I'm not sure if this thread will help anyone, or whether it will just disappear without a trace, but I'm willing to give it a go!

Recently I was on a thread (unrelated to bereavement) and another poster mentioned that they had lost their father to suicide. I have also suffered this loss, and suggested to the poster that they have a look in this topic for a place to explore their feelings and also to see if anyone could give any advice on how to speak to children about this sort of grief. I couldn't find anything in the Bereavement topic and so thought I might try and start a safe place where people can come and try to come to terms with this difficult kind of loss.

My dad committed suicide on the 16th April 2004; four days before my 31st birthday. At the time I had two children aged 6 and 3. I had split from my husband in the preceding June.

It was very very hard. Dad had suffered from depression a few times before, but this bout had been very aggressive, only starting in the January of the same year.

The last thing I ever said to him was "Dad, you need to sort yourself out, this isn't fair on mum"

So.

I am only now, 6 years on, starting to feel less angry. The anger has been a surprise to be honest, white hot and unrelenting. I feel let down by him; so terribly abandoned and let down.

After dad died I moved in with my mum, sold my house and here we all are still. Me, my mum and the boys - it's very difficult to explain to people that I live with my mum; it sounds so...pathetic, but it's not. It's really not, it's what we needed at the time, and I think we still need it now. Is that weird?

My children still don't know the truth. Dad hung himself off the staircase in the house where we all live. How do you explain that?

Anyway, that's a little bit of my story, you can come and share yours if you want; or not...I just thought that it might be good to have a place where people who need to talk or get advice or cry or scream could come.

Let's see...

My father took his own life when I was 18. My DD found out by eavesdropping on a conversation, I thought she was in bed. She was about 9 at the time. I can remember her being very upset and I had to hug her and tell her how depressed he had been. She very rarely mentions it now, after all she never met him.

I looked around and realised that two of her friends had grandparents that had also taken their lives. I didn't tell her this as she was too young and I expect their families wouldn't want me to.

My dad died a long time ago, I think about it often and would find it very hard to post how he died.

Good god, that is a difficult time to suffer this sort of thing abouteve.

I'm so very sorry.

You don't have to talk about how your dad died here. It's not necessary at all. I only did because I am trying, only recently, to SAY it, to acknowledge it. I try to shy away from it; but it's true. That is what happened.

Do you have any ideas how I can brach this subject with my eldest child who is now 13. I don't want Dad to be a dirty secret. DS1 loved him so much and was so close to him and I just can't hurt him by telling him this awful thing...but I'm going to have to face this soon.

I'm so scared I've done the wrong thing by lying about it.

Hi, I'm marking my place as I don't really have time tonight to talk properly but wanted this on Threads I'm On.

My Dad committed suicide in November 1992 when I was 18.

I have no idea how to raise the subject with dc's but have to think about it now that I have two children of my own. My sister was a baby when Dad died and my Mum has never spoken to her about how he died, she found out aged 14 when she found his death certificate. Mum still refuses to discuss it now and it is properly fucking my sister up.

Will be back tomorrow.

Hi Tigerfeet,

So sorry that you have to join this thread.

(Um, for anyone else reading this thread isn't intended as a place for just those who have lost their dad's)

I've just had a little cry - the first one in about 18 months - for my dad; although I think I was crying more for having to tell the children.

Mum says that I did the right thing; I gave them a childhood; but I know that they're going to be angry and feel betrayed by when when they know the truth.

Ugh

Shirley - thank you for starting this thread, I have also been bereaved by suicide and rarely talk about it in RL, as I find people tend to feel rather uncomfortable. My dad hung himself in our loft in May 1995. He had suffered from manic depression. I was also very angry for a long time, although my anger was mostly directed at his ex-employers and the mental health services. My mum has subsequently re-married and I am also wondering what to say to my DS when he grows up about his "other grandpa". It's hard to bring up the subject of mental illness, let alone suicide. My DS is only 2, so I have some time to think, but it is definetely something that is in my mind at the moment. Has your DS asked any questions?

Hello Shirley, I have decided that if others can be brave so can I

My name is jpg and I am a casualty of suicide

my dad decided to leave us when I was still in primary school, over 30 years ago, I still have major issues with it, the main one being that he obviously didn't love us enough

We have started to tell the dcs about how he died by the drip feed method, explaining that he was very ill - mental illness. and that he took too much medicine, that is as far as it has got at the moment.

I was lied to for 10 years until my late teens when I was told the truth by my mother - not in a gentle way, more in the your dad wasn't the marvellous man you think he was type of way, bitch!!

there you go, sure more will come out later

Mummy2Robbie - Gosh, such a similar tale to my own...

It's so terrible isn't it, and yet so...almost freeing to type those words.

I understand what you mean about discussing it in RL - I say "My dad died and now I live with mum" and they say "oh, was it cancer?" and I say "no" and they say " oh was it a heart attack, how awfuul" and I say "no" and they say "oh, was it.." and I think "oh god, here we go, I have to say it again...I have to say those words," and sometimes, I think I'd like to tell them the absolute truth and say "yes, he killed himself, he used a belt and he hung himself on the banister and my mum found him and went screaming into the street, and if I had stuck to my plans and gone to the house that morning, with my children, we would have found him; me and my little babies and I hate it, I hate it"

Maybe I'll say it one day - but why? It's not their fault for wanting the answers to the innocent question of how my dad died is it?

Jeez, sorry, I started this thread thinking that I could help and instead I'm ranting and crying and shouting again.

whoops x posted with jpg

Hello darling.

I'm so proud of you for coming here.

I wanted to pick up on something you said about your dad deciding to leave you.

I had a tump of therapy after my dad went, and I have to tell you that IMVHO, your Dad wasn't making a decision to leave YOU or your mum or YOUR FAMILY. He was dreadfully, dreadfully ill.

I am angry with my dad too - so angry that he left me and the boys, and my mum "knowing" we had nowhere to turn...but, intellectually, I know that Dad wasn't Dad at that moment.

I like to think that his brain sort of..cut out..you know? like snow on the TV just a crashing noise and nothing else in there and then the deed was done.

He didn't leave a note. Sometimes that comforts me. sometimes it tortures.

I'm glad I started this thread. I think maybe I needed to

My DD is older now and she says that she wished I had told her myself instead of overhearing it. She was angry at me for not telling her gently. However, I do think that there is no need to tell a pre teen.

My neice found out from outside the home and was also upset that she had to find out from acquaintances, she was about 14 at the time.

I just can't believe that there are 4 of us that this has happened to that are all on MN at the same time. I guess maybe it shows that suicide is much more common than generally realised. My dad didn't leave a note either. I believe he did it in a moment of despair when he really, truly believed that we would be better off without him. I know he really felt he had failed us by losing his job (it didn't matter how much we all told him that wasn't true) and he knew there would be an insurance payout which would be something he could do for us. I wish I could tell him that I'd swap all the money in the world to have him back happy. My mum quite often talks about how difficult he was to live with. I do understand, but I wish she would remember the good times too.

Thanks for starting this thread. It's such a taboo to talk about in RL. SGP - totally know what you maen about people asking was it cancer, was it a heart attack etc.

My father killed himself in Jan 1992 when I was 22 and my brother was 18. I can't write the rest of what happened, just can't get the words together.

Still angry all these years later. such a slefish thing to do. Obviously my brother and I weren't interesting enough to stay around for.

We never talk about it in our family aprt form my brother and I making dreadful jokes about it if we are alone. We only joke because we can't discuss it properly; we both make out we don't care.

I am angry also because this is such a hard thing to tell my children about. DS1 (13 now) knows because i told him one day when I was in a temper about something else and it all just tumbled out. wish i hadn't done it so crassly i expect it overwhelmed him. I have never mentioned it since. God, it really fucks you up doesn't it.

Can't type for crying.

everlong - I am so sorry. Your beautiful son, how dreadful. Worse than losing a father, I would say (not that there is a 'worse' with grief, it's all bloody awful, but you know what I mean)

Sodacrystal - there's no need for any of us to talk about the method our loved ones used - none at all.

The anger is utterly normal, and exhausting. I have literally worn my poor old teeth away by the grinding that I do. WHen will it end?

Everlong - welcome to this thread, I'm glad you found us but am bitterly sorry that you had to.

I cannot for a moment imagine your pain. I hope that this thread will be of some tiny comfort and if not then I urge you to visit the bereaved mummies thread here although I have a feeling you may already be there. (I'm in no way saying you're not welcome here, you are absolutely welcome, I am just giving you additional avenues of support)

Suicide is such an unremitting grief. such guilt and anger and sorrow mixed into the horror of loss.

I am in equal parts glad to be here with you all and horrified that we have suffered this.
x

my mum died 10 yrs ago tonight actually, not strictly suicide but she was caught up in a whirl or drinking and abusing prescription painkillers and had wasn't trying to prevent her own death. i was 27, my brother and sister 15 and 17.
my ds's close friend committed suicide in september this year, he is still finding it very tough to deal with and so death and the unfairness of suicide has been very much an almost daily topic of talk or thought.
i actually attempted suicide as a teenager, woke up on my 18th birthday in the hospital. ashamed and unhappy to still be here. so i have a slight understanding of the frame of mind one might be in where dying seems the answer.
but it's all horrible from every angle isn't it?

countless - welcome.

I wish you didn't have to be here, but hopefully we will be able to support one another and this thread will become a small light shining brightly in the black hole of grief.

10 years is nothing in the grand scheme of things and I wonder how you feel? you don't mention whether you feel angry or sad or...nothing?

As to your DS's friend committing suicide? How old was he? how old is your son? can we help? (he needs counselling, honestly)

It is awful. The problems of mental health support are myriad and unsolvable IMO. The main problem is the ancient belief that "madness" = "hopeless"

My family were let down horribly by the mental health support agency.

I don't think we're unusual

thanks for reply shirley, i'm immensely sad about my mum. 10 years and it still hurts. to be honest for the first few years i was quite relieved in one sense to be free of all the bad stuff, but the finality is so sad. i was looking at her photos today and it's unbearable to think she's gone and has left so little imprint

my ds is just 18 so was his friend. he had just split up from girlfriend. I'd like ds to talk to a counsellor at college, he applied a few weeks ago but hasn't had appt yet.
It's hard to talk to him as he often doesn't want to. I recognise some of how he's feeling, the constantly thinking about what's happened and replaying the conversations and thinking of the horrible details whilst walking about trying to act normal.Feeling detached from the world around you, feeling everything is trivial. Anger and fear too.
I'm so sad for ds, and his friends family, so sorry for the pain they're feeling. I look sometimes at his facebook page and it's hard to believe that cocky tough lad has gone.
The finality, the loss of them, the nothingness that remains of them really drives me mad. I'd like to help ds more. I found a website offering some answers about suicide but he said he didn't want me to send him link he would look himself he felt like it.

I'm so to read all your stories.

I haven't any immediate experience of suicide, but my SIL's sister's husband committed suicide a year or so ago, and it has been devastating for the family. The children were 15 and 13 at the time, and it was truly dreadful.

MY SIL's sister discovered him - he had hung himself from the bannister - but only because she went home unexpectedly early. On any other day, it would have been one of the children coming home from school who would have found him.

It seems such a selfish act - yet those who commit suicide must be in such a desperate, desperate place.

My mum died on 10 April 2004, so only a few days before your dad, Shirley. But at least the circumstances of her death (cancer) are more fathomable - which must make it easier to deal with.

countless - Such a pointless waste. (of both your mum and your son's friend)

It's just unfathomable, I hope someone will come along with some advice on how to help your boy cope with this; I know that I felt irritated when my mum or anyone else really, tried to get me to look at stuff online or read a book about grief. Don't know why that was TBH.

soda - hope you're feeling ok this morning, I had a bloody good sob myself last night. I wonder whether this is such a good idea.

BIWI - Your poor SIL's sister. It does seem selfish - I know that I called my dad a selfish fucker for a long time (and I still think it now and again - how could he have done this to us? How could he have left my lovely boys and mum...and what about me?) It's not true of course...but it's an entirely justifiable way for those left behind to feel.

Shirley

I am sorry that this thread hasn't continued, it is a very tricky subject. people don't want to know about it and it is much easier to ignore it

There is also the point - ime that you can only say the same thing so many times and then I/they get rather bored of the same old same old............... no one can change the fact that suicide has changed your life for the worse, however much you talk about it

sorry if this is incoherent - the joy of too much alcohol

My experience of a relative who died from hanging himself is I told my children he had hurt his neck badly, we added to the detail more recently & explained how difficult it was to explain when they were younger (and still is). It is not easy to explain but lets them know the information gently. I have no idea if this is the 'right' way but wondered if it may help somebody else

namechanged because don't wish my true identity known.

7 years ago iwas very ill with depression and tried on more than one occassio to end my life an action which would have left my beautiful dcs motherless

i loved dearly my children but at the time due to my illness i really felt like the worst mother in the world and that if i died my children and everyone else who loved me would be so much better off without me . in my very unwell mind i believed that by dying i was doing what was best for them. thankfully i was kept safe and have now recovered fully and thank god i didn't leave my dcs alone .

i wanted to say this to give comfort to those who feel that those who committed suicide didn't love them or were cowards etc.
it is not necessarily the case depression is cruel and twists the truth to achieve it's own ends . your loved one will have loved you deeply and not meant to hurt you or cause you pain they may even felt they were doing what was best for you etc