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...

During the first half of this year, I had a fair few, more than usual, trips to my former city of residence, London. On one of these jaunts southward I experienced a sort of pang of realisation - Tottenham Court Road tube station made me sad. ‘But it has that effect on all, dear’ might be a natural response to such a declaration, but the sadness I felt, I realised, moved beyond the location’s inner-city-inherently-dull nature.   Rather, the flash of melancholy I experienced came from the memory that was prompted - the last time I had oyster-carded my way through the barriers, I had been with my brother. I don’t recall why we were there or why we ultimately separated at that particular station, but there we indeed had been. I remember I handed Martin a tenner to enable sustenance for his stomach and nicotine-need for the afternoon before we headed for our different exits. I can still sense in my body the people who bumped into us both as I rummaged for my wallet. At the time of o...

In the near seven-and-a-half years since my brother’s death by suicide, I’ve had counselling on 4 different occasions, with 4 different counsellors. The first bout of sessions began about 14 months after his death (after I sought it – it has never been offered to me). All of the session-groupings have opened with ‘we’ll have 6 sessions and see how it goes’ - ultimately I’ve ended up attending at least double that amount on two of the runs. Accessing these counselling sessions has involved being patient on waiting lists ranging from around 20 weeks (NHS) to 6 weeks (university student support) to 2 weeks (charity-provided). In my quest for relief, I’ve also had a series of aromatherapy massages and attended a Cruse/Samaritans ‘peer support group’ , both of these also assigned a 6 week timeline (6 is apparently the magic number). I’ve been prescribed anti-depressant medication on two different occasions, (without wanting to use tablets, might I say, as I think having a non-judgemental s...

[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...