On March 22, 2017 in the still small hours of the very early morning, my sister put a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger. She was 45 years old. Her housemate/companion heard a sound, and assumed it was a problematic picture in the basement falling off the wall as it had many times recently. She found my sister’s body at 7am, and called me after dialing 911 to relay the news. “Chad, it’s Marla. Missy’s dead. She shot herself.”
My sister had her demons in the last couple years of her life. She had been obsessed with death and dark things ever since our cousin (her best friend in the world) had committed his own suicide back in 2001, less than a month before his wedding.
I suppose I feel survivor’s guilt. I suppose I think I’m selfish because I’m angry that my sister left me an only child (I turn 50 next month) who must deal with/care for two aging parents who are left bereft as a result of her selfish, stupid act. I suppose I feel guilty that I’m more angry than sad at this point, when I can manage to feel anything at all.
I suppose I feel guilty because in the last couple years of my sister’s life, I had lost patience with her. I was as absent as possible from her wreck of a life. The drug addiction, the joblessness, the self-imposed drama, the continuous hypochondria (every single medical issue with her was ‘special’; she didn’t have migraines, she had ‘triple migraines’, she had mysterious unquantifiable maladies too numerous to mention, always ‘special’ or ‘extreme’), the showing up at family functions (when she could be bothered to do so), rocking back and forth, staring at the floor as if she were not really present, looking every bit as clean and put together as a mad bag lady, always volatile and depressive. I never took her maladies and declarations of anguish seriously. My sister *always* needed a lot of attention. I needed to focus on more positive things in life. I had no time for self pity and hypochondria and drug addiction and drama.
I suppose I feel like a terrible child, because ever since she killed herself, I do not want to see or spend any time with my parents, other than the obligatory contact. My mother always encouraged my sister’s drama and defended my sister’s various ‘illnesses’. My sister found herself basically blackballed from every hospital and mental facility in the region, because she would show with one of her maladies and demand opiates or other drugs. My mother refused to hear it when doctors at endless emergency rooms and mental facilities would explain that it was obvious my sister had nothing physically wrong with her, and was obviously presenting in order to obtain drugs. She racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in unnecessary medical bills, and then didn’t make any attempt to pay. She declared bankruptcy no less than 3 times in her adult life as a result of this.
My father simply gave her money every single time she went to him with a sob story. She was ‘daddy’s girl’ of course.
So I suppose I’m having trouble forgiving my parents for enabling her.
I post here today, because I don’t know what else to do. I feel nothing. My wedding was one month after my sister’s suicide, and my husband and I insisted on going through with it, with the idea that grief would not hinder our happy day. My parents both dutifully showed up, ghosts of their former selves.
Again, I wish I could feel something real. I wish I could cry, or rant. I wish I felt something other than a vague sense of anger and (even more guilt) *relief* that she finally did it. I was not shocked. I was not surprised. I’d warned and tried to talk with my parents about it before she finally managed to do it, but neither would hear of it. They insisted she was just ill, just going through a rough patch. Their perfect little girl would never….
So I suppose I feel like an orphan at a crossroads. My family will never be the same again. We will never not have this hanging over us. What should be the happiest time of my life as a newlywed who *finally* found true love at 48 is forever sullied.
I don’t know why I’m posting here today; I suppose it’s because any ‘support’ I try to look up always leads back to a suicide prevention hotline, and that’s not what I need. I’m not suicidal. I think suicide is stupid, selfish, and irreversible.
I need to feel real grief. I need to feel real love and concern for my parents and myself. I need to feel happy. I need to feel it’s ok to vent, and to be angry and sad and not the perfect sole survivor who holds it all together. I need someone who really understands what I’m feeling to help me. I need to feel.
Thanks for your ear. Thanks for your concern. Thanks for any advice you can offer. Thanks for being you. Thanks for letting me be me.

So I am having a hard time coping. There is an 8 year difference between my sister and i, her being the youngest. My brother is also younger than i but has autism so i cant relate to things from his perspective. Due to the age gap, i feel i was not close to my sister at all. My family and i also had a falling out when i was 18, making her 10 at the time. I’m almost 25 now and have i guess reconciled with the family. But how does one mourn what they barely know? Is the detachment supposed to affect the grief felt? I’m just not sure about any of this.

I’ll never forget my dads scream. He’s a SWAT captain- I’ve never heard him cry. But I mean it when I say it- he screamed at the top of his lungs while I was swimming in the condo pool. I was out in an instant and approaching his locked car. He pried at the locked door, and resulting in smashing the window with his elbow. There I saw him feeling my brothers pulse. He was sitting in the front seat, leaning slightly forward. I walked around the front of the car when my dad told me to run and get my sister and to stay in the room for a long time. But I didn’t listen. I stared at my brother, 19, my best friend, and our thousands of thousands of adventures we lived- zip lining in Costa Rica or playing hours and hours of video games. But he just sat there, blood seeping from his forehead, my dad’s off-duty .45 in his lap. Hearing my dad’s sobs as he held his dead son is something I wouldn’t have had nightmares of. I miss you mckellar. Rest in paradise.

I found this site and reading everyone’s stories and words are so very sad. I’m so sorry to all of you. I have realized we are a community bigger than I ever knew.
My 24 yr old baby sister commit suicide by firearm in January. She just finished her Masters. She was the most beautiful woman I ever knew. We were not super close due to age and distance. I cannot deal with the guilt. I missed 2 calls months prior and idk what she needed. I failed her. I got the text at 136 am from my mom that she was gone. The whole family is no longer speaking and I feel so very alone. I moved to Texas a few years ago and no one really knows me but they all know about this and I really feel closed and I can’t show anyone my pain bc they don’t care. I need support and don’t know how to ask for help. My tears don’t stop. What could I have done? I tried to see her last year and she couldn’t make time bc of work and we were fighting bc of it. I have to hold onto this now knowing she died thinking she didn’t have a caring sister and I really did love her. I tried herapy it didn’t change my thought process and pain. I want happiness again. I went to see Luke Bryan in her honor bc she loved country and it was painful. I told friends it was hard and no one ever responded to me when I told them I’m sad. I have 2 young kids and I’m trying to live for them and be happy as best I can. This is tragedy and I’m suffering in silence.

Yesterday would have been your 61st birthday, and the 1st anniversary of of your suicide is in October. Why am I still so angry? I’m more angry now then the days following your stupidity. Although not just at you and Karen, but mad at mom, dad and Jan. God knows Kris tried, but he stays out of my face now. Jodi is Jodi, but Jan is simply mean. Very mean. Which of course mom and dad dismiss as that just being who she is. You always said there was no excuse for bad behavior, but you left me here with them by your own bad behavior. I don’t know why this is hanging on so long with me.

Today is my brother’s birthday..I am just overwhelmed with emotions. But mostly I just miss him.

August 20th, 2017, I woke up thinking it would be another normal day. Little did I know I’d find my 20 year old brother laying on the ground next to the back deck with a noose above his body. My brother and I were close, I’m 19, having us only be a year apart in age (aka Irish twins). My fiancé tried cpr on him until emts and police arrived, my heart still sinks thinking about it. I’m an LNA and CPR certified myself, but I knew he was already gone. Not to mention I was 32 weeks pregnant at the time. This all happened less than a month ago, I’m still processing it all. I’m still waiting for it to feel real and it doesn’t. I feel like there is something I could have done, something I could have said to prevent all this. He didn’t leave a note, so all that runs through my mind is “why”. I wish I could just have one more conversation with him, I wish I knew where his spirit lingered or if he was ok and at peace. I miss my big brother, he always had my back, he even got into fist fights when we were younger and boys were picking on me. He was my best friend. I miss you, Nicholas Stephen Drohan. I would do anything to bring him back. 🙁

It has been a year and a half since I lost my only sibling, my older brother. Who had hung himself on the back porch of my parents house. We worked together, helped me run my business and were best friends. March 11th, 2016, my best friend, Corey and I saw our favorite comedian together. Dropped him off at my parents house that night and said goodbye and I remember looking into his eyes as I said it and he smiled. The memory is so vivid. It was that same night that he took his life…. I laid awake till 2am at my apartment alone, feeling “weird”. Woke up March 12th to a phone call from my uncle who was at my apartment to pick me up, he stated “you need to come outside and go to your parents with me….its your brother”. That is when my gut twisted and panic set in. Arriving to my parents house and hearing the truth on what happened, I lost myself in that moment. I can remember every detail of the drive there. Being with my grandparents, parents and uncle, just trying to take in the shock…. And the emergency respondents that came but were far too late to do anything, awkwardly standing around as we sob and share our last moments with him. Here I am, a year and a half later and most of the days I get by, just trying to feel normal and some days are normal but there is that part of me that is still lost. Tracing back to the steps on the last night I saw him. It is hard for my boyfriend and friends to understand why I act like I do now and I don’t even know how to explain it either. I feel alone, not wanting to tell people how deeply I still hurt. This is why I am typing this…..hoping that someone feels my pain. As a 22 year old in college, owning an auto detailing business, I feel like I am suffocating in this pain. I just miss him, as we all miss our siblings that have left us.

Creeping up on six years. I hear the songs I listen to after your death and they still make me sob. I drink pbr alone and cry. I want to say it gets better, but the reality is you just get better at hiding it. It fucking tears you up. Let it out because it will choke you. I used to black out for minutes, coming to sobbing. But now I just get drunk and cry. I listen to Sail or Little lion man and cry. I want to create a place for us. If you are on the Olympic peninsula, email me and we can create a group.