how does suicide of a mother effect children later on?

[sailawaywithme91]

Please be kind. This is hard for me to write.

I am looking for any people that have lost a parent to suicide as a young child. To share (if they feel comfortable) their experience and how this has affected them later on?

I have a 9 month old. Who despite what many will think reading this thread, I love with my whole heart, I am to all intents and purposes a very good mother. Except I don't want to be here anymore, life feels unbearable. I am on medication, I am having therapy, I have tried and tried to change this feeling.

Life may feel unbearable now but now is not forever. Death is. Extinguishing pain by bestowing it on a baby isn’t the answer. Please look for help and voice your feelings.

To echo what Firefly has posted, the psychiatrist I saw after I was diagnosed with postnatal depression told me that the children of parents who commit suicide are more likely to commit suicide themselves. That stopped me in my tracks - as unhappy as I was, with this feeling that my son would be better off without me, I couldn't put him in a position where he felt as awful as I did.

She wasn't successful but my mother made several serious attempts on her life when I was a teenager. The knowledge that I or my siblings weren't enough for her to want to live were devastating and contributed to my poor mental health for years afterwards.

Please seek help OP.

It wrecks their entire life. They never understand why they weren't good enough. My cousins never got over it and have addiction issues, my friend who's in her 50s never got over it, she's never known well mental health.

Please reach out

https://giveusashout.org/get-help/issues/suicide/

Childhood trauma will lives with children forever.

My brother’s best friend found his dad dead from suicide when he was a child, and struggled all his life with mental health and drug problems. He took his own life a few years ago.

My niece and nephews lost their dad to suicide and have never got over it. They’re still heartbroken and write heartfelt facebook posts about how much they miss him (some 20 years later). It destroyed them.

My DM made countless suicide attempts when I was a child and it broke my heart that she didn’t love us enough to want to try to get better. We meant nothing to her. It’s a scar that never heals.

I have been through PND twice. I know you’re on your knees but I can promise you it does get better. You won’t always feel like this. Please reach out to a charity that can connect you with other sufferers. Your precious little boy needs you so much. Do it for him. Sending lots of love. x

No experience but your child needs you and always will. So will other family members you may have and friends.

My sister died of cancer in 2016 leaving 4 children. The youngest who was just 4 at the time has multiple problems with mental health and also her brother who was 6 at the time. This is despite a good father, siblings and lots of extended family. Then there's me..it was her birthday yesterday, she would have been 43. Not a day goes by I don't wish she was here.

Please tell your HV how you're feeling and be honest with everyone around you. Everyone cares about suicide even strangers on the Internet. Our train hit a person a couple of months ago and the whole carriage was shell-shocked. The staff were visibly upset. Just a stranger..but everyone cares. Your life is so important OP. Once you go you never come back, this is your only life and depression is something which feels all consuming and yet one day that fog might clear and you might just have a wonderful life. Don't deny yourself it. Please x

OP you clearly love you child so much. Statistics tell us that someone with a first degree relative who died by suicide are 65 percent more likely to attempt to end their own life than someone who loses a relative via other means.

I know you don't want that for your child. Please reach out to someone in real life.

Deep down I know no one can love them or do what I can as their mother.
You’re absolutely right.
Now is your chance to rectify what went wrong in your past. You know what it’s like not to have a mother. Opt to ask for support. Cry for help from your husband, from Samaritans, from professionals.
Suicide is not a solution.
It will leave behind a child who forever will believe he wasn’t good enough to have a mother go through life’s journey with him. He’ll see his own children when depressed and fear they’ll do what you contemplate. This will reverberate through generations, further than the family you currently know.
Do the opposite and fulfil him. He loves you as does your husband. They know your worth though you doubt it at the moment. This is a dark episode which can be overcome.
Be strong OP. Keep talking to us.

My DHs mum took her own life when he was a toddler with multiple siblings. He has no memory of her but deeply resents what she did and how it upended all their lives forever. He has extremely strong views on suicide due the devastation it leaves behind.

Please urgently get help, don't do this to your child.

Thank you for all of your replies.

I have sought help, HV, family wellbeing, GP, mental health services.

This situation is fainted by the fact that I myself am a mental health professional myself. It is very tricky.

I tried to end my life before I was pregnant. It didn't work. Everyone convinced me having my son would only make things better and in many ways he has changed my life in the most amazing way, I love him deeply and he is my greatest joy. Still doesn't change how desperately I just don't think I can do life anymore.

Losing a mother is the worse thing that could happen to a young child. They will think it was because of them being born and could well go through what you're going through because they can't understand why they were nt enough for you to live for.
Please contact crisis care now or get your dh to do it for you.

OP my heart goes out to you. I've been where you are and it it a very bleak and painful place. I'm sending you love and strength and understanding.

Another thing I have in common with you is an emotionally and often physically absent mother. It is bad enough to go through that as a child but I also found the postnatal period dragged all of this up. When you see grandparents supporting their own the kids the loss and abandonment is fresh again. It's a profound grief and anger to have had a mother not be there for you, regardless of the reasons. The postnatal period is incredibly emotionally vulnerable for all new mothers but I think if you have your own trauma about how you were (or were not) mothered, that makes things a million times harder.

What I also l know is that as hard as it is, this can and will get better. And you have to be here for that to happen. You deserve to be happy and enjoy being a mum. You deserve support to get you through this dark time. I bet you're an amazing mum to your son. And he deserves to have you here and to him noone else will ever compare to you.

The next thing to say is I think you need to reach out to your perinatal mental health team or health visitor and GP if you are not already under PMHT. Tell them the full uncensored situation of how far your thoughts are taking you. They won't be shocked because this is much more common that any of us realise. There is more support available to you than you are currently getting and the reason these services exist is because it is well knows how vulnerable women are at this time in their lives. You deserve this support and I promise things will get better and you will look back at this time when there seemed to be no hope and feel so much better.

If you can reach out to a friend or a helpline this evening it would be really good for you to have a spoken conversation as well as on here. You're not alone and you will get through this.

I’m sorry you are feeling like this OP.

From experience of losing a parent this way, it, it changes the course of your life irrecoverably. I was messed up for many years and just don’t feel joy as easily as other people. There is always a weight. My mental health has been poor my entire life. My sibling is an addict and lives an awful life. We had very involved grandparents.

Having a nine month old is bloody hard some days! Please get all the help you can and fight as much as you can. You deserve to be well as much as anyone. I had similar thoughts some days at this stage. He’s now 7 and I adore being his mum. I now feel more peace and contentment than I have ever had .

Your child doesn’t need a perfect mum, or someone’better’. You are enough for them. Wishing you all the best.

How would you feel if someone hurt your son? Like truly hurt them enough to leave them damaged for life? How do you feel at the thought of someone being horrible to your child and making them cry?
Or someone telling your child they are worthless?

Don’t be that someone.

I am so sorry you are feeling like this, as unfortunately, I have had similar thoughts both as a teenager and now more recently due to family circumstances. Can you confide with someone in real life? Call Samaritans? Try not to be on your own. Have a shower when those thoughts are too intrusive - old psychiatry techniques, water has a calming effect. (Come from a family of neurologists and psychiatrists).Your GP can prescribe some antidepressants and mild sedatives to take the edge when you are feeling very low. I really wish I could give you a hug in real life. Sending you strength. 💐

Doing this will cause ripples big and small in your childs life forever even if they have other amazing family, money, whatever. You decided to have children, don’t bring them into this world and then fuck them up.

I also echo what Oreoqueen has said: you don't need to be perfect. You are already everything your baby needs. Hope you manage to get some rest tonight and feel a bit better tomorrow.

Resign and retrain. Change this life which you can’t do any more. Start afresh.
Your baby and your husband underpin your reason to live.

My mum is now dead but that was only 10 years ago, but she left when I was about 2. From what I can remember and have pieced together she had awful PND and her marriage to my dad broke down.

i have never really recovered from it, I too had horrific PND/PNA and was suicidal several times, it was only the fact that If promised my DC when they were born I’d never leave them/their dad like I was left.

They seem unaffected by my early mental ill health, and I am so glad they have grown up in a much healthier environment than I. That they berate me for not getting enough ice cream, rather than abandoning them.

i still struggle a lot with my own birthday/mothers day as don’t feel worthy of the attention.

I too felt I couldn’t cope with life, so I set v short boundaries. Survive an hour. Then another one, then a day. You just need to get through the now, the not yet will take care of itself.

You are the best mum for your DC, don’t ever forget that

That's the most common error people who want to commit suicide do: they think others will be better of without them. It's not true ! You tell yourself that because you are so low and have no self-worth. Please accept that you thinking is skewed due to depression. Don't trust these negative feelings and thoughts that want to lead you astray. Please accept that right now everything is difficult but there is hope. I have been where you have been. I dreamt of swimming in the lake and just let myself sink. It would make it so much easier for everyone. Luckily there were other people at the lake every time I went so I couldn't do it. And I feel so much better now in my forties than I did in my twenties. Still on medication though because my brain doesn't produce enough serotonine.

Your daughter will think that either you didn't love her enough to stay or that it's her fault that you didn't want to live. Don't leave her with that. Please seek help, be patient and know that things can get a lot better.💗

My friend lost his Mum to suicide a couple of years ago. He’s mid-30s and it utterly destroyed his own mental health, career path, relationships and happiness.

My DH lost his Mum age 9 (not suicide) and it has dictated so much of his life. There’s just a big missing hole.

Please reach out for help and don’t do this.

I urge you to get the help you need, and I really wish you well.
my husband lost his father to suicide at a very young age. He’s in his 60’s now and the scars are still here. He has turned his life around, it could have gone so many ways. Luckily he managed to get past this but it hadn’t been an easy road.

This feeling you have now is not permanent. It may feel like it is right now for you but I strongly ask that you seek help and this can pass. There is so much out there for you. PM me if you like, I would happily chat to you. You can get past this.

I felt like you OP for a year after my daughter was born, maybe more,
i’m so glad that I stuck around my DD is now 20 my God she needs me,
please seek help time heals,
you’re not well and honestly that can change,
bless you

Thank you for posting and being honest.

I can't add anything but truly hope you get the best help available and survive. ❤️

It has been incredibly, incredibly painful to mother without the support of my own. Who is alive and awful. My DH is amazing but we are the village. It's so hard and an added layer to my deep depression.