Feeling shattered after a suicide of a loved family member

[Violinlady]

Recently our much loved son, nephew, grandson, husband and father committed suicide. It has been devastating and incomprehensible. My family has been ripped apart and are attributing blame to each other at a time that we should all be comforting each other. I sit at home every night and cry and drink. Has anyone else suffered a lose like this and how did your family cope and help each other. I am feeling so miserable and helpless - it's been three months and nothing is getting better. I never thought my family would behave like this during such a sad time.

[geoff]

Hello Violinlady, my heart felt sympathy goes out to you in every way possible.

No one can blame each other for this most unfortunate tragedy because grief that consumes you after you lose someone to suicide is overwhelming and everyone will experience their loss in a different way.

No one can know all the reasons for why this has happened, because many people who are suffering tend to hide their actual feelings and that's not their fault, they are frightened of how others will react.

You might mourn while holding your feelings about the reasons why, but no one knows what they were struggling with and no one should blame another person.

Bereavement can show different emotions by all concerned and it's best to talk about these with a counsellor and you can please talk to us as well.

I'm really happy to give you some phone numbers and online resources if that's what you might be after.

My kindest thoughts.

Geoff.

[Aaronsis]

Oh Violinlady

I am so glad you are here, you know why? see your post is essentially my post, my very first post, so from one broken person to another I am here for you ..you see..I lost my brother, who was 19 years old on the 31 of July this year to suicide. I found myself in the BB space and now with the help of an awesome counselor I can say I am..coping.

The heartbreak and the pain of this experience is not described with words, the pain is like nothing I have felt and I have another layer of pain in that my heart is aching for my father and my step mother who, will never be the same again.

I just want to address the blame and the "behaving badly"..see there are no rules to grieving and this is a particularly different grief. We as humans have a hard time with the concept of suicide so therefore there must be someone to blame....the actual fact is....the only person who is responsible for this event is your son. It is no one's fault...it is not your fault..it is not your families fault. However when we are struggling to put this into some rational and "acceptable" format in our brain, to point the finger and make the sum add up when at a time you are desperate for reasons, answers and have so many questions.

I know it is not for everyone, in fact my father has not sought counselling but I have and I found out so much information about suicide, facts about suicide and how to process this in my brain, how to grieve and how to be kind to my family when I too wanted to blame.

Family counselling would be awesome, but everyone has to be on board, so until then you could get some support and use these tools you learn to support your family....I know that at a time of grief you probably don't need an extra role.

People grieve in different ways and there is no wrong or right way, and we do need to be mindful that the way some are doing it does not align with ours, we need to not get angry at them, just acknowledge that this is how they are healing and to support rather than judge. I had to learn to stop projecting my "should" on them and what I mean is "you should be getting help", "you should be saying the words suicide, all this did was make me angry and put them in a position of not meeting my expectations...and who am I to be right...should puts us in a place of judgement and then give us the right to condemn.

running out of characters....

My heartfelt love and I feel your pain.

Hugs to you and your family

We are here for you

AS