Seven Years

The 15th December 2018 marks 7 years since my brother, Martin, died by taking his own life.

7 years is a weird space of time - short yet long, not recent enough for grief to be thought of as fresh, but not so long ago in my life to feel far in the past. 

I’ve taken some time to think about what I’ve learned about being bereaved by suicide over these years. I speak for no one but myself - these are my own thoughts and experiences. 

1. If a person dies, they are lost to many, to a community, but the individual experiences of the loss are so important. One person does not have to, indeed can’t, feel the effect of a person’s death in exactly the same way as others (others who have their own memories and thoughts). On the Christmas Eve after Martin’s death, his friends invited my Mum and Dad and I down to his favourite pub, to join in reminiscing. There were so many people there, the majority of whom I did not know very well (some not at all), yet here they were talking in most detailed ways about my brother, mostly in stories I didn’t recognise, in scenarios of which I was clueless. I learned a lot about my brother that night; school situations, Venezuelan-travel tales, how the little pain in the bum had invited mates to stay in my London flat for a music recording session whilst I was out of the country... But what it showed me mostly was that my brother wasn’t just mine - he, as a person and an idea, belonged (belongs) to so many others. It is easy to let such an idea swamp you, to make you feel lacking in rights in grief or think there is certain way you should behave in loss. There becomes visible an unavoidable hierarchy of grief at play, in terms of whose loss is judged the most significant/important/in need of acknowledgment - first the parents, then the siblings, then other blood relatives, then friends and on and on. And I hate that. A suicide loss is beyond horrendous for all, only in different ways. I worry about saying this -“how can you say losing a friend is harder than losing a child?” - but I have too. If the last 7 years have taught me anything, it is that grief entirely depends on the relationship that was had, its quality, its meaning for those left behind. No suicide bereaved person is more important than another to me; no suicide loss is more heartbreaking than another (they all should not have happened anyway). I thankfully have parents that understand where I am coming from on this, and we manage to talk and respect our differing ways of grieving, not always fully sharing thoughts or perspectives, but always respecting the individual needs and wants (thanks Mum and Dad!). Your grief is yours to experience as your own.

2. To the outside world it looks like a suicide loss is a singular event, that it’s about the(extraordinary and shocking) loss of an individual through one act. But losing to suicide is so much more than that. It was not just Martin that died on 15th December 2011 - a part of my parents and I also died that day, changing them, me and our relationships as well. And the manner of his death meant the loss of even more - I lost my identity; the security of the idea of my family; confidence in my own history, in my own memories of, and ideas about, my childhood and adolescence; confidence in my own abilities and behaviours in relationships; faith in health services; enjoyment in things that I’d previously loved and lived for (because ‘what was now the point?’); the ability to live life without fear of another imminent, unexpected disaster. All the way down to little losses like being unable to stomach playing hangman with my daughter as she learns to spell or watching films or programmes involving sibling characters without experiencing some kind of trigger. The outward ripple of a death by suicide is Caspian Sea-sized, and if you are affected by one (or more), you have to learn how to live a completely new life, find a new normal. Your foundations are utterly rocked and cracked. The totality of this type of loss cannot be grasped all at once. Quite simply, there are losses resulting from Martin’s death that still appear out of nowhere, losses that I didn’t know I would experience or feel until, suddenly, I do. So, for example, until about a year ago when a friend cooed to her new baby ‘Say hello to auntie Heather’, I hadn’t really realised, oddly as it may sound, that in losing my brother I’d also lost the possibility of being an aunt. That simple, natural, logical comment induced a new sadness as another reality of the loss of him hit - Martin will not have a partner or have children; I will be no aunt and my daughter will have no direct cousins on my side of the family. My daughter’s new losses of her uncle are also mine. This is just one example of how suicide bereavement can surprise. I don’t know if a new effect of this loss will appear today, tomorrow, next week etc. I probably won’t really understand the full effect of the loss by Martin’s suicide on my life until my own final days. And this is one reason why I think suicide loss is different, set apart from the conventional ideas about bereaved people needing to ‘achieve closure’, ‘deal with’ and ‘move on’ from the death – none of those things will ever completely happen for me. It is such a unique type of loss, life-long, continual and consequently without time-limit for the griever.   

3. In terms of an emotional experience, losing someone to suicide is liked being forced to ride The Smiler for, like, a decade, on a full stomach, in the dark and torrential rain. Nothing short of horrendous. The range of emotions that you can feel is extensive and exhausting. I usually find it’s helpful to talk about the emotions experienced in terms of waves I’m riding on a raft, each crest bringing a new primary feeling for a time then dropping into its trough before a new build up of the next, different affect. Some waves are bigger (scarier) than others. Take for instance the tsunami of anger I’ve experienced. I struggle to be open about it but I have to admit there have been times since his death that I have hated Martin. There have been times when I’ve wanted to absolutely forget his existence, times when I simply don’t want to know about him, about depression, about suicide. I know he was ill, I can appreciate how hard he found living, but the fact remains that his actions blew apart my life as I knew it and left me with an unresolvable problem and pain that periodically leads to anger of the type I physically feel from my gut to my fingertips. But then comes the fall and the anger wave subsides, giving way in its aftermath to one of equal strength but in love - I loved my brother.I miss him. Reminders of him are literally and continually everywhere, especially in songs, books and films, and I ache and would give anything during these swells to just have his presence, be in his company, to talk with him, walk his dog with him, hear his opinions and sarcasm. Waves in the sea of grief are each of a different character - the guilt ones; the shock and disbelief ones; the anxiety and fear ones; the desperation and sadness ones; the forgetfulness and can’t-concentrate-on-anything ones; the grief-coming-out-in-physical-ailments ones; the darkness and depression ones....This probably makes it sound as though I have been (am) all lost at sea in a perfect storm as it were, but there are respites. Wavelengths do vary (anything from a day to a week to a month) and there are long and short periods of calm - the winds abate, the waters flatten and lap, the sun shines and life becomes lighter, more serene, enjoyable and essentially not all that hard - or at least ‘my brother’s suicide’ as a ‘thing’ does not steal from my present or rob me of appreciation for life. It’s just that the prospect of a murkier, turbulent swell is always there. All there is to be done is to go with the flow. Fighting the darker waves is pointless - arguing with grief tempests means instant drowning. It is enough to have your head above the waters, even if your unseen arms and legs are flailing. I have learned to simply breathe deep, accept stormy periods will happen and hold on to knowing that winds drop and waves pass, giving way to more tranquil moments.    

4. Other people. The thing about suicide is that everyone has a view. Some think that they can judge, say what they want about suicide, in seriously negative tones. It may be taboo, but it remains a publicly-talked-about taboo sometimes, thanks to its historical criminality connections. A couple of Christmases ago, I awoke excited - my daughter’s face at this time of year is something I adore and fills me to burst - but I made the mistake of looking at my phone before rising. I had a direct message via Twitter: ‘If I were in your family, I’d have killed myself too’. No amount of blocking and reporting helps to un-see words like that. I’ve always felt a need to be honest about the manner of my brother’s passing - I would like there to be a rise in awareness and understanding regarding the reality of suicide bereavement as well as mental ill health. But there are some people who simply can’t be reached - no amount of honest talk will persuade them to be kind. On the flip side some people can be very sympathetic, regardless of whether they knew the person or not. Because of the public nature of the suicide, many think they definitely know and understand how they would feel, how they would react if it happened to them and they sympathise. I felt the same as this before my brother died by suicide. But sometimes sympathy can morph into assumptions that, although obviously meant well, are not helpful - for instance, not all suicide bereaved want counselling immediately; for some it simply does not help in the way that’s needed, because the forms of therapy offered aren’t tailored to, and therefore don’t interact with, the specifics of their suicide loss. As with childbirth, you simply don’t and can’t know what your response will be until you’ve lived it. It is empathy, rather than sympathy, that is truly valuable, and finding those who can give this, who can truly hear when listening is worth its weight. After my brother’s death, I came to feel extremely isolated for almost 3 years. I had not met anyone bereaved by suicide outside of my own family. There had been no support from the NHS whatsoever, and I had to just deal with it by myself. Then, my Mum went to an event in London where she met a lady who had set up a charity in the North East after the loss of her son to suicide. I contacted them and the next thing a full of life, petite, pink-haired lady rocked up outside my house in a ginormous car. Her first action was to give me a hug. I didn’t know her from Adam, but here she was giving me a hug and asking if I was ok. That first meeting she asked me about my brother, his name, his interests, what he was like, how things had been for me, what I felt I needed and it was like a huge weight had been blown off my shoulders - no one had talked or listened to me about Martin and the effect of his loss on me alone in this way in 3 years. She got it, and just like that I didn’t feel so solo. Since then, I have been to a group called ‘Facing the Future’ (run by the Samaritans and Cruse Bereavement Care), and I’ve met some other wonderful people who have all lost to suicide - sons, brothers, cousins, husbands, mothers - upon whom I know I can call if things are rough, and they (hopefully) vice versa. Meeting others who deeply understand how it can feel in the waves, who allow an environment where it’s not awkward to mention the departed’s name(even just in passing), who don’t flinch when you talk about how dark your own thoughts at times can be, or freak and demand you get help if you say you can empathise with your lost one’s reasoning is beyond valuable. It brings normality and space to speak freely without judgement. People who enter this club no one wants to join really, really need more specific, reliable, easily-accessible spaces for support like this.   

5. And the last thing I want to talk about here, in terms of this 7 year learning curve of suicide loss, is about myself. Suicide loss can give you a sense of being broken, that there is nothing that can fix and fill the void, that you are stuck in an existence rather than really living. I have had points of feeling this acutely. But as I look back now, I am able to see how much stronger a person I have become. It would have been so easy to fall apart, to let things in life slide, to follow Darth Vader or Sauron-led rather than Jedi or Gandalf and Frodo-headed choices, but, quite simply, I’ve not. And honestly, I’m proud of myself. It has not been easy and it will remain difficult because Martin’s death is not something I will ever ‘get over’, but if I’ve got through these 7 years with minimal scratches, then a longer life devoid of complete disaster and without my brother feels more manageable, achievable. I have to thank him, in a way, for showing me through his loss how I can battle, how I can be tough and determined and stand up for what is right for myself (and my daughter). And there are certainly reasons to enjoy life in the present - family, friends, travelling, making new memories, damnit even food (oh I do love Yorkshire Pudding and cake…) Martin's death is in my life but it will not engulf it. A few years ago, I felt very uncomfortable about the use of the word ‘Survivor’ - people bereaved by suicide are often referred to as such. I felt the use of the word did my brother an injustice (insinuating he had inflicted something on me) and also made me a victim of something, which I both didn’t feel and didn’t want to have the sense of being. Now, though, in looking forward as well as back over the time since Martin left, I think, I am now experiencing survival, on my way to acceptance of that label. After suicide loss, it may take much time and endurance, but there is hope. 

Thinking of you, my brother, and wishing you a Merry Christmas.