S-A-S: Sibling After Suicide

Between June and September this year (2019), I had 10 sessions of EMDR. I have written previously on why I opted to try EMDR specifically (to address the persisting vividness of my brother’s death by suicide) - what follows here is a little of what I learned from the actual experience of having this still-relatively-niche form of therapy. Firstly , it’s quite something to have someone look directly into your eyes and say without a shred of exaggeration, “you’re traumatised”. Not gonna lie, it made me uncomfortable. My face, I believe, revealed no real reaction to the therapist’s comment, but in my mind I pictured another me, head tilted, eyes narrowed, lips pursed, sarcastically responding “Am I, though?” Middle class, white woman, good home, family, job etc. etc. “Am I really ?” My first feeling was fraudulence, a lacking of justification to ‘own PTSD’ - I’m no veteran recovering from horrific conflict zone experiences or victim rebuilding after living through natural disaste...

[Originally posted 15th December 2017] Mrs Higson was a fearsome woman to behold. At least to me. With Margaret-Thatcher hair, heels and handbag (and a personal vendetta against the word ‘nice’ because “it is a word that means absolutely nothing”), she was an English teacher and a half. I don’t remember the specifics of the task set, but when I was fourteen or so, for homework I had pilfered the characters of Pride and Prejudice to write ‘a next chapter’. I also don’t remember the specifics of the text I produced; but I do recall that after hearing the work of others in my class, during an unexpected ‘read your work aloud’ session, I panicked. I subsequently didn’t read mine out as written because, basically, it to me sounded nothing short of diabolical. Consequently, I stumbled all over my words and all I really remember is mumbling something about Mr Darcy getting run over by a horse-and-cart, and standing isolated as my classmates, leaning back in their chairs behind their individ...

At the beginning of August 2017, I came across an article by Poorna Bell (author of the brilliant Chase the Rainbow ). In it she discussed the issue of ‘name’, specifically surnames, their meaning and the circumstances under which they are or can be changed. Name-changing is not necessarily an unusual topic for discussion, especially for women, given the still-relatively-normal-for-many action of changing surname to indicate marriage (see Finch, 2008: 712). But Bell’s piece was particularly interesting because it raised the issue of name changing after the loss of a spouse to suicide: “It’s a question I was asked a lot in the first year after Rob died. Was I changing my name? Vehemently I said no, but it was also complicated. It was my married name, and I was no longer married…but my maiden name was like a stranger’s house and the locks were changed. I am no longer that person anymore. And I felt by changing my name, I was erasing him from my life, when the absence of him was already...

[Originally posted on WordPress 11th May 2017] *contains programme spoilers Pre-viewing background I first became aware of 13 Reasons Why in 2014. I was in the midst of motherhood year one, and attempting to locate any story-book that portrayed sibling suicide loss that I could read during nap times. I ventured into my local bookstore and asked for advice on any fiction books that dealt with the subject, and 13 Reasons Why was the first to come up. I discounted it because a) it was a ‘young adult’ text (and I did not want to know about teen experiences being not one), b) it is set in America (suicide may be a global issue but cultural contexts and references do come into play and matter ), and c) it appeared from the blurb that the bereavement focus was on friends, not the relationship I wanted to read about. Fast forward to 2017, and the television adaptation has received a lot of coverage, reportage that someone personally touched by suicide would be hard pressed to avoid...

My brother and daughter painted by a friend. [originally posted on WordPress 10th Aug 2017] Tomorrow is my brother’s birthday. Having mentioned this as a little reminder at the family dinner table, my four-year-old said “But Martin can’t have a birthday because he is died and lives in the sky”. Yes, but…. What followed was a discussion that connected her uncle ‘being died’ with Inky the nursery fish also going to ‘fishy Heaven’… Just the latest in a string of scenarios where my daughter has begun to show how she is making sense of death in general, but also a conversation that tells me she’s growing older and sooner or later questions about the nature of her uncle’s death will be asked. My daughter never met her uncle, but through me entered ‘suicide survivordom’ even before conception. And from my perspective this adds another facet to the suicide bereavement experience and process (as in many respects I must manage it for her AND me). Consequently, herein lies an issue that I be...

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...