Every survivor is uniquely affected by their loss(es). There isn’t a map to navigate the pain, as everyone’s pain is different. We posted the below picture on social media a few weeks back and asked our followers to respond to following statement, “Suicide left me behind….and______. We wanted to share a few of the comments that were made. It speaks to the depth of the pain that one faces in the aftermath of a loss to suicide. It also demonstrates how different each journey can be. Is there something you wish others knew about the hidden survivor journey? Please feel free to leave your own response in the comments below.
Becky: “Suicide left me behind…and I’m scared to let my guard down to comfortably embrace true happiness again. I was blindsided. ”
Jessica” Suicide left me behind…and it has taken a while to get to know the new Jessica.
“I’m constantly afraid when someone I love doesn’t respond to me, like right away. I always expect the worse…”
“And left me feeling worthless as a mother who lost her 19 year old son 7 weeks ago. Left me feeling like I failed him. Suicide left me behind broken, devastated and destroyed, but has left me behind with a mission to do what I can to help others and make sure his life, and death was not without purpose.”
“Suicide left me behind… and when I am feeling really happy, I feel guilty and sad – a sad that goes to your very core. His last words to me, “be happy”. (Almost 5 years on).”
“Some days are easier than others.. I’m 50 shades of emotions.. One day I’m as close to peace as I can be and some days I feel like I’m so bitter and angry.. Some days I wonder if my brother really knew what he was doing and the pain it would cause.. Some days I am dazed and going through motions.. I try like hell to stay focused.. I’m not sure how I’m ever gonna be at peace with his decision..”
“I’ve learned that you can’t always help people. I knew, I tried, I begged, I dragged my husband to get help. Six years after I had to leave him, he was gone. It’s been seven years now and I can finally say, there was nothing else anyone could have done. Depression takes hold and changes the core of the person. We need to attack the disease in children and give them the coping skills to live through adulthood. My children will live with grief every single time something wonderful happens in their lives.”
“Lately, it’s anger. Disappointment in what true friendship I had with the one I lost and expectations that others can fulfill that void. It also can be very isolating. We all grieve, but I don’t think people understand the daily pain one experiences from the loss. With that comes frustrations. Some days I wish I had not experienced the trauma so I wouldn’t feel everything else that is now so complicated.”
“I was angry at my brother because he didn’t leave us a note telling us why. I eventually had to forgive him for that and I had to move on beyond that note issue for my own peace. I am not one to visit cemeteries because for me my loved ones are not in that ground they are in my heart and memories.”
“Self care & Counseling has helped me focus on their memories (mom 4 years & brother 2 years) not the how or why.”
“Left me with so many questions. Why? How could you leave us? How did you think this was the only way? It left me with so many “what ifs” that it nearly kills me every day. “What if I had called him that day?” “What if I was a better sister?” “What if I had answered the phone every time, instead of letting it ring?” Not a day goes by where I don’t think of my family. Months go by and suddenly one day, it hits me like day one again.”
“My life will never be the same. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”
“I fight to ensure I take this as a lesson to live each day to its fullest. Yet it holds me back too. It’s been two years and hoping time will help me look forward, not back and I learn to shake off what happened. It is not that simple for sure. Wish people understood.”
“It changed my life forever… unglued.. unplugged… overwhelmed at small things now…abandoned…fear… haunted … guilty…empty..lonely… blindsided by so many things including how I was treated by some people… I didn’t expect that …”
“Suicide left me behind and I still struggle with the “what if’s”. What if I had said (or hadn’t) said this, what if I had done (or not done) that.”
“The grieving process is completely different from any other. Two months later and I still feel completely blindsided, so many questions, so much anger, and absolutely no closer to peace.”
“Through the pain that it has left all of us, encourages me to continue getting help so I don’t make the same choice as well.”
“And I feel so lost in this world my questions like, was our love not strong enough to keep you here, what should i have done differently, or i should have come in and talked to you like you asked me to minutes before you did it after the little argument questions like that running through my head 100 times a day or what i should have done differently. The guilt of a laughter or smiling.”
“That the memories are sometimes all you have. The things you didn’t say will haunt you. Wishing you could have stopped them.”
“It hasn’t gotten any easier; I have gotten stronger, though.”
“Suicide left me behind 15 years ago, but I feel I have come back a different person and am finding joy in life again.”
“And a part of me died that day too.”
“…and the pieces of me don’t fit back together.”
“No one ever really asked how I was doing. They never used the word suicide around me.”
“So did people I thought were friends.”
“Guilt, Wishing I would of took his crying more seriously.”
“I’m overwhelmed.”
“And left me paralyzed emotionally.”
“And with eternal grief that is so entrenching compared to any other death of a loved one that I have ever endured. I often wonder what path my life would have taken if my brother hadn’t have taken his life. I watched my Dad age 10 years within a day. Such a heartbreaking way to die.”
Suicide left me behind the day it took my husband of 24 years. Leaving me to see it over and over in my head. Leaving me to to figure out how I’m going to tell our 13 year old son one day. Im hurt, sad, anger, trying to understand why. And knowing I never know why. It will be a year on Aug. 23. My love Kennie Hendrix 10/20/1960-8/23/17
After my ex-husband, the father of my son committed suicide in front of our son the comments were awful. Not to my son but to me. My ex left me twice, once when he walked out and the 2nd time when he committed suicide. We were together 24 years. His death affected me deeply. I loved him dearly. Yet family & friends can’t understand that. One family member told me to have him cremated and throw his ashes away. Did they not understand the pain my son was going through? How it also affected me? He was someone I loved & he will always be in my heart. I just don’t understand how outsiders can be to quickly to judge. Don’t they realize he was in pain & depressed inside? Don’t they realize the pain we, my son & I carry with us?
Suicide left me with a heart shattered and a son gone. He was a son, brother and dad…… my shoulders are very heavy as I grieve not only for myself but for his 6 year old daughter and sibling (24,22 & 13). It left me with PTSD, chronic anxiety and panic attacks. Once a strong independent woman, now a fragile girl afraid of so many things. It’s been 1 year and almost 2 months …. I still can not believe this happened to him…. to his family. Guilt that I didn’t pick up every phone call, that I didn’t get him more help, that I didn’t take him in my arms and tell him how much I love him, while he was still alive. I will never be the same person. I miss my forever 27 year old son💚
And lonely, a loneliness in my thoughts that never stop. It’s been 6 months since my boyfriend did the unthinkable. He left me with so many thoughts about what signs I missed and what I should have or could have done. Months of therapy have helped me realize there isn’t anything you can do when someone is determined to end their pain. He left behind so many shattered hearts because so many people loved him dearly. My life will never be the same.
Suicide left me behind ………. and left behind also is my belief that I was a good mother.
Now I am filled with regrets…….1000 and 1 regrets.
If only I had told him more how loved he was.
If only I hugged him more.
If only I expressed more often how proud I was of him.
If only he knew how important every moment with him meant to me.
If only I had been trustworthy enough for him to share his disease depression.
If only I had instilled in him the knowledge I now have of mental illness.
If only I hadn’t raised him to be independant, perhaps then he may have reached out to someone….. anyone, instead of so successfully hiding from the world what was going on inside.
I was his Mother, the one who knew and loved him most.
How did I not see he was unwell?
Why didn’t I see through his facade?
There are an endless stream of ‘If only’ and ‘why’s’ and regrets.
When I close my eyes at night I lay these thoughts at the Saviou’rs feet and let him carry them.
Then I say to my son… I miss you and I love you so very much, Knowing that now he is at peace and free from that awful disease he can hear and truly feel those words .from his Mum.
I LOST MY SON 6/29/2017. LEFT BEHIND.. A MOM .. AND A DAD.. AND A SISTER AND A WIFE AND TWO GRANDCHILDREN 10 & 12. A MASTERS DEGREE NURSE ANESTETHESIST. BATTLED DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, INSOMNIA MANY MANY YEARS. I CAN RELATE VERY WELL TO THE BLOG BY GAIL.. I FEEL EXACTLY LIKE THAT.
Suicide left me behind with a broken heart and my world will never be the same. You replay it over and over and wish you could go back in time and change things to make the outcome different. It’s been 13 years since I lost him, I don’t feel as broken but I’ll never forget him.
Suicide left me behind and feeling guilty, hurt, angry, sad, confused….but worse is the constant “what if”
What if I just dropped my sister off at home instead of running insdide to say hello to my niece and nephews? I would have been home 15 minutes sooner. Would he still have done it? Would I have been there before it did it? He left me behind after 27 years of marriage with our 20 year old son and 19 year daughter. How could he have done that to us at our home for all of us to find him? My anger comes in waves still even after 20 months of him being gone. I have a harder time trusting people and worry if I don’t hear right back from my kids. I wake up each day thankful that my kids and I communicate so openly and they know that there Dad had depression his entire life and what happened had nothing to do with them. I knew in the back of my mind that it wasn’t IF he would do it, but rather, when he would. He talked about it out entire time together. He was in therapy and on medication, but unfortunately, all the love I had for him and all the love our kids had for him wasn’t enough. I have many more happier days now but still miss him terribly.