Dear Reader,
This post is the first hand account of my experience with suicide. This may be a tough read for some so read with caution. This is my experience and how I dealt with it.
I am hoping to reach you with words of hope and of advice when dealing with any of life's challenges. I am not searching to create negative or sympathetic feelings. I simply wish to share my story of adversity in hopes that it might reach the people who need to hear it most.
Thank you for reading.
My brother committed suicide on April 2, 2014. This was not expected by anyone, not any family member or dearest friend. There were no warning signs. Life hit my brother's loved ones harder than most of them have endured. It was the hardest challenge I have yet to experience.
My mother called me with the news of my brother's actions around 6 in the evening. I had just dropped a teammate off after practice and was heading out of the parking lot. My mother's voice and words stopped me in the parking which left me shocked, hurt, and sobbing. The world seemed to speed up and stand still all at once. On one hand I just wanted to sit, cry, and feel sorry for myself. On the other though, the rest of my family needed me.
My mental battle through this challenge began at this moment. My whole world was rocked to its very core. However, the love I had for my family set me to action after the initial shock of my mother's phone call. Two things I decided right then and there were to be there for my family and to face this challenge mentally head on. I have never experienced such a sudden loss nor one where the person lost chose to take their own life. I could not pretend this was not real.
I arrived to the house where my brother's body lay and found my family all sitting around the outside of the yellow tape the police had placed. I was informed that my step-father was still inside the tape. He had found my brother after work. I rushed to meet him but was promptly stopped by a Sherriff Deputy. I had to wait for the officials to process the site which seemed like an eternity. From there, my eldest brother and I went to my step-father. We stood together as they carted my brother off and walked together to the site where my ended his life.
This moment was the hardest part of the whole ordeal and led to many future challenges in the weeks to come. This was the moment where I could have hidden from it all and denied that it ever happened. I could not allow myself to do that though. I felt the deepest pain and deepest love ever in this moment. Sure, I was had the wind knocked from me but I loved my brother and had always been there for him., the good and the bad. To hide from the situation would be to hide from my brother and to not be there for his worst. His worst, hurt my family so for me to be there for my brother in his worst I had to be there for my family every step of the way. My pain did not matter at this point.
In the days to come, the funeral arrangements were processed as a family and the grieving began. I traveled most days to visit family and attended memorial services. It was not until the week after when I was left with myself did I began to decompress from what I had experienced.
During this time of decompression and grieving I appreciated my decision to face the challenge. I knew exactly what happened and there was little room for the imagination to take hold to spin me in a downward spiral. I had been brought low enough with real life. I went through the steps of mourning like medical doctrine indicates. I was angry, depressed, and shocked. By facing this head on I never had any trouble accepting what had happened. I never blamed myself or regretted not taking action to save my brother from his choice.
The reality is, my brother chose to end his life. He did not reach out to me or any other that we know of for help. I could not and will not blame myself for his choice. However, I had to deal with the stress left afterwards from the memories that are forever seared into my head.
I began to have symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress. I had flashbacks to the scene and a few nightmares. The flashbacks were the toughest to overcome. My mind would play the phone call as if it were happening right then and there, next came the scene of my brother being taken away, and then the scene of where he committed the act. Finally, my brain pieced together the in between from the details I had heard which allowed my imagination to visualize my brother doing the thing he did.
I would come out of this flashback with a lack of situational awareness and a shiver down my spine that would make me shake. I thought nothing of the first couple but after driving down the road and coming out of this state of mind it was endangering my life. I could not afford to wreck or do something stupid because of my lack to manage stress. This was another thing that had to challenged directly.
I overcame this by playing the sequence over and over in my head until the shivering stopped and the trance state ended. It took a few days of mediating on it. I purposefully took myself to the dark places I had been and stayed there with a will to bring light to them. I would breathe slowly and calmly every so often and focus on the scene and began to see the things that bothered me the most. It was the imagination of my brother committing the act that bothered me most. I slowly began to reinforce to myself that it was imagination and, though the scene was probably accurate, that it was a thought. In fact, the entire flashback was a series of thoughts that I created. If I created the thought then I could stop it from bothering me. I can relate it to watching a scary movie repeatedly. After watching the movie a couple times you can build courage to open your eyes during the scary parts. Once, you begin to watch it with your eyes open it no longer becomes as scary even if it is just as disturbing. The reason why I those flashbacks bothered me so was because I had not fully faced them yet. I was still scared of what happened. I had build the courage to face the fears in my mind before I could overcome this.
Overall, what I have learned from this portion of my experience with my brother's suicide is that you must face any challenge with courage to overcome it. It does not matter what it is. You will never be ready or prepared enough. You have what it takes though. The courage is there but you must bring it out. You have the audacity to act but you must bring it out. We bring these tools out by thinking about using those tools. We act upon our thoughts. Fearful thoughts lead to fearful actions. Courageous thoughts lead to courageous action.
Good luck to all who are experiencing a tough time. I hope this helps.
