My brother reached out and called me the day of his suicide. I ignored his call because I was out with someone and thought only about myself. I was the first person he had called and the closest to him and I did not pick up. I was always by his side when he needed me and I loved him more than it is humanly possible. We were inseparable. Yet he passed away broken hearted and alone thinking he was a burden to me and I did not love him. I replay that day in my head a million times over. I know for certain if I had spoken to him it could have been different. Instead I’m stuck here in the bottom of a black hole. Unable to crawl out of this deep guilt and despair that’s been clinging on to me for years. On the exterior I appear the same as the person I was before this, but inside I feel completely and utterly hollow. Numb at the new reality. How does anyone have the will to live with this type of insurmountable guilt?
You can’t fault yourself for living your life. You can’t always live for someone else and you can’t save someone from themselves no matter how much you may try. It is not your fault. Even if you had answered, you don’t know what would have happened. It wasn’t about you. He knew you loved him.
I’m so sorry that this is something weighing on you. My little brother killed himself this past April. He was 17. I feel immense guilt, remembering how he came home from school one day- shortly after I briefly moved back in with my parents before finding an apartment this past winter- and he was being SUCH as a**. He was mouthing off to my mom and just being an angry teenager. He went up to his room, and my mom said something about him being rude, and I said, “well obviously he’s upset.” And she told me to go talk to him then to see what was wrong. And I didn’t. Not right away. I did a little later, and he just yelled at me to get out of his room so I forced a hug on him and left him to play his video games.
Why didn’t I think him being upset was important enough for me to talk to him right away?
It was maybe a month after this when he killed himself. And I know that wasn’t the tipping point. But I still wonder if something would be different if I would have just been more interested in talking to him when he was upset.
A lot of the people in my family feel guilty about one thing or another with my brother, Jake. I know you must feel horrible, and I understand why. But, if he wouldn’t have called you beforehand, your brain would find something else to feel guilty about. Your brother knew you loved him. He STILL knows you love him.
How does anyone have the will to live with the level of guilt you have? Think of your brother. Live for him until you feel like you’re worthy of living for yourself.