How do you deal with someone's suicide?

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Rajaah

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I know we've got people on here who have had to deal with this.

My long-time best friend (and ex-GF, almost married her back in 2016) killed herself. I'd been out of touch for most of the past year and now I feel terrible like I should have been more present for her. I had no idea what a tough time she was going through.

I think I went through all the grief stages in one night, mostly anger, now I'm just flat and dumbfounded. I'm guessing tomorrow it'll hit me again, the grief seems to be in waves where I go from feeling nothing to feeling terrible.

Also she shot herself in the head. Does this mean it has to be a closed-casket funeral? I know it depends on a few things, I'm just hoping the answer is a "not necessarily" and that there's a chance I can at least see her.

I'm mostly pissed-off that she'd do this to the people who care about her (her mom found the body). Not sure how I should be feeling or thinking otherwise. This feels so much worse than losing someone to natural causes or forces out of your control. Everything screams that I "could have done something"

Thanks for listening. Shit fucking sucks.
 
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moonarchia

The Scientific Shitlord
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1. It's not your fault.
2. It's not your fault.
3. Probably closed casket, but it depends on how good the funeral home is.
4. It's not your fault.
5. It's OK to be pissed off. Suicide is a very selfish action, whether it's justified or not.
6. It's really not your fault. This was a force out of your control, so let that part go. Feel your feels. She's gone and not here to care one way or the other anymore. After the grief has subsided you will still have your memories of her, and that's all our loved ones leave us with that matters anyways.
 
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Rod-138

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Lost my buddy that brought me into MTG, Eq, and Diablo a few years ago. Agree it’s not your fault bc you’ll naturally feel guilty about reaching out before, but you can’t go back. I know I’m better than most about reaching out to friends to check in on them, but after my bud’s death I told myself I’d do even better.

sadly, I’ve probably gotten worse, but it’s never a bad time to check in with the pals still with us
 

Burren

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1. It's not your fault.
2. It's not your fault.
3. Probably closed casket, but it depends on how good the funeral home is.
4. It's not your fault.
5. It's OK to be pissed off. Suicide is a very selfish action, whether it's justified or not.
6. It's really not your fault. This was a force out of your control, so let that part go. Feel your feels. She's gone and not here to care one way or the other anymore. After the grief has subsided you will still have your memories of her, and that's all our loved ones leave us with that matters anyways.

Those are some pretty solid pieces of advice.

Its most definitely not your fault, or anyone else's. People make their own decisions and sometimes we'll never know why. You have every right to feel how you feel - anger, pain, confusion, etc. - and you're welcome to feel that way as long as you need to. But, I implore you to not take anything out on yourself or others. Talk to others, share stories, share grief, but don't attack, accuse (even yourself) and lay blame.

Sorry man.
 
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Cad

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I know we've got people on here who have had to deal with this.

My long-time best friend (and ex-GF, almost married her back in 2016) killed herself. I'd been out of touch for most of the past year and now I feel terrible like I should have been more present for her. I had no idea what a tough time she was going through.

I think I went through all the grief stages in one night, mostly anger, now I'm just flat and dumbfounded. I'm guessing tomorrow it'll hit me again, the grief seems to be in waves where I go from feeling nothing to feeling terrible.

Also she shot herself in the head. Does this mean it has to be a closed-casket funeral? I know it depends on a few things, I'm just hoping the answer is a "not necessarily" and that there's a chance I can at least see her.

I'm mostly pissed-off that she'd do this to the people who care about her (her mom found the body). Not sure how I should be feeling or thinking otherwise. This feels so much worse than losing someone to natural causes or forces out of your control. Everything screams that I "could have done something"

Thanks for listening. Shit fucking sucks.
I had a person very close to me commit suicide as well. Back in the 2000's.

At first I wanted to blame myself - could I have done more, could I have talked to her, could I have reached out. What if she felt really alone in the world and I could have alleviated that? Etc. But when I thought back about it objectively, there really weren't signs, and even if there were, there is only so much you can do. SInce suicide is an inherently irrational act minus specific circumstances like terminal cancer or alzheimers or something else that deprives you of quality of life, you can't really examine the "reasons." They won't make sense. It will always be wrong, at least from the outside point of view.

The important thing to realize is this person made their own choice. You were not complicit and it is not your fault. However, that person is still gone and grieving them is normal and important. In addition, the pain they must have felt to feel compelled to do that must have been intense. Looking at the bright side, one could say it is a relief that the person is free from that pain.

There's no magic bullet here but I'd try to free yourself from the guilt that you didn't do anything. I think in a lot of cases, there's not really anything anybody could have done.

Keep your head up.
 
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Big Phoenix

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Really only thing to know is its not your fault, what she did was her choice and her choice alone.
I'm mostly pissed-off that she'd do this to the people who care about her (her mom found the body). Not sure how I should be feeling or thinking otherwise. This feels so much worse than losing someone to natural causes or forces out of your control. Everything screams that I "could have done something"
That anger is very valid. Suicide by gunshot to the head is a rather gruesome way to go so to do that for a family member to discover is a pretty fucked up thing to do.
Also she shot herself in the head. Does this mean it has to be a closed-casket funeral? I know it depends on a few things, I'm just hoping the answer is a "not necessarily" and that there's a chance I can at least see her.
Depends on the firearm and where she shot herself.
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Rajaah

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I was right about the grief hitting me harder the next day, it's been a rough one. Trying to figure out if I should message some of her old friends on Facebook and let them know, since she was so out of touch with people and there's nothing on there letting anyone know. Course I'll leave out the details and just say she passed on. TBH I really don't feel like doing that, like, at all.

Cad Cad Thanks, that does help a lot.

Big Phoenix Big Phoenix You should edit your post cause I can still see the comment you're quoting. Yeah though, she went over to her parents' house, went up to her room, and did it. Her mom and brother were home so maybe the brother found her, I just realized I don't actually know for sure. Her mom is ancient and in poor health and this is going to completely fuck her over.
 

Rajaah

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A new spin on this, turns out the guy she was with now was really toxic and verbally abusive to her and went out of his way to make her feel miniscule. So now I want to put him in the hospital. But I only have one side of it and for all I know she was toxic to him too. Now knowing that her last few months were miserable, cooped up with this guy (both working from home) who put her down all the time, just makes it that much worse. Sounds like it was very preventable but nobody was helping her. All I can say is, keep an eye on the women in your lives, especially the slightly-mental ones...which is most of them. Nothing wrong with checking on people, in general.
 

Cad

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A new spin on this, turns out the guy she was with now was really toxic and verbally abusive to her and went out of his way to make her feel miniscule. So now I want to put him in the hospital. But I only have one side of it and for all I know she was toxic to him too. Now knowing that her last few months were miserable, cooped up with this guy (both working from home) who put her down all the time, just makes it that much worse. Sounds like it was very preventable but nobody was helping her. All I can say is, keep an eye on the women in your lives, especially the slightly-mental ones...which is most of them. Nothing wrong with checking on people, in general.
Yea, but you can't beat yourself up in hindsight. All you could know is what you knew at the time.

As far as the guy who was with her, surely he could have been toxic and contributed. She could have left him, too. Remember that he didn't kill her, she killed herself. I know it's tempting, but don't do anything rash.

Be strong and keep your head up. The world is a harsh place at times and some of us are not cut out to handle it. We should grieve them and miss them and honor their memory, and do better by the ones that are still here.
 
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Gavinmad

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I know I'm gonna sound callous but you should be thankful you were out of touch because you don't know that having been a more active part of her life would have led to a different outcome, but you'd definitely be going back over every interaction you had with her in your head and beating yourself up for missing signs that most likely weren't actually there to be missed. You aren't a trained mental health professional (I assume) and people who are genuinely suicidal don't generally give off obvious signs like attention seekers do.

I'm sorry your friend wasn't who you thought she was.
 

Rajaah

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I know I'm gonna sound callous but you should be thankful you were out of touch because you don't know that having been a more active part of her life would have led to a different outcome, but you'd definitely be going back over every interaction you had with her in your head and beating yourself up for missing signs that most likely weren't actually there to be missed. You aren't a trained mental health professional (I assume) and people who are genuinely suicidal don't generally give off obvious signs like attention seekers do.

I'm sorry your friend wasn't who you thought she was.

You're right. There's a good chance that if we were in touch, I could have helped, since I was the only friend (then boyfriend) who was ever successful at helping her. When we broke things off a few years ago she was in the best state of mind she'd been in for a very long time. She was one of those people who loved/care about everyone and took things too hard, especially people not returning her caring.

Talking to her friends, it's been apparent that the guy she was with did not know how to deal with her worse personality traits, addictive personality, etc. She suffered from body dysmorphia, and while her weight did fluctuate a bit as a lot of women do, she was usually in very good shape. I wouldn't wish body dysmorphia on anybody because it made her miserable and it was so unnecessary because there was nothing whatsoever wrong with her body. I looked at her figure and saw one thing, she looked at herself and saw something else. Over the years I got good at dealing with this and knowing how to talk to her, one of the reasons we worked so well as a couple. If she was looking at her great 'bod in the mirror and complaining, I'd say "I'm sorry you feel that way". One thing I'd never do, ever, is confirm something she said. The guy she's with now, apparently, went ahead and criticized her physique and basically confirmed everything she believed about herself, and the fact that she actually had gained some weight in the last couple of years just compounded it.

He did the absolute last goddamn thing anyone should have done with someone who has body dysmorphia. Now I hear he did a lot of good things as well, like trying to get her to treat her alcoholism and things like that. But he wasn't equipped for someone with her kind of problems, wasn't able to put his foot down the way I did on alcohol, and with their toxic relationship I think he lashed out and told her things that he shouldn't have.

And all of that said, you're still right. I wasn't there, and there's only so much I could do at a distance if I had even known what was going on. And I 100% would be going back over our interactions trying to figure out if I'd made anything worse. Now one could argue that if we'd never broken things off over work or whatever it was, none of this would have happened because she wouldn't have spiraled back into alcoholism and wouldn't have been in an abusive, or at least toxic and controlling, relationship where she had access to a gun safe. And that's probably true. But that isn't how it went. Being out of touch also probably makes this easier, though I still feel gutted and it isn't getting any better four days later.

I've lost a few friends and family members, none ever hit me half as hard as this though, because of the person and the method.
 

Chukzombi

Millie's Staff Member
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I know we've got people on here who have had to deal with this.

My long-time best friend (and ex-GF, almost married her back in 2016) killed herself. I'd been out of touch for most of the past year and now I feel terrible like I should have been more present for her. I had no idea what a tough time she was going through.

I think I went through all the grief stages in one night, mostly anger, now I'm just flat and dumbfounded. I'm guessing tomorrow it'll hit me again, the grief seems to be in waves where I go from feeling nothing to feeling terrible.

Also she shot herself in the head. Does this mean it has to be a closed-casket funeral? I know it depends on a few things, I'm just hoping the answer is a "not necessarily" and that there's a chance I can at least see her.

I'm mostly pissed-off that she'd do this to the people who care about her (her mom found the body). Not sure how I should be feeling or thinking otherwise. This feels so much worse than losing someone to natural causes or forces out of your control. Everything screams that I "could have done something"

Thanks for listening. Shit fucking sucks.
there is no way to get over the loss than to just let time heal and move on. i lost somebody very close to me who committed suicide. i told myself, they died of sadness. which isnt a lie, but it softens the reality of what did happen. if you do that and try to forget the suicide part, then you can start moving on to coping with the actual loss.
 

Hateyou

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I’ve had several suicides throughout my life in very different circumstances.

One as a teen, and it was a friend I hung out with all the time. There were zero signs at all, he was always happy, high spirits, life of the party kind of guy. Something happened with his GF and he hung himself. His poor grandma found him in the garage. That one I mulled over a lot if there was something I could have done to prevent it, like was he lonely and I had no idea? Would hanging out with him a little more have changed it? Ultimately no. His knuckles were all busted up when they found him. All signs point to he was really pissed at her for something, punched the shit out of a wall of something, then hung himself as a fuck you to her. I’m sure she thinks about it a lot. I mostly just feel “what an idiot” about that one now that I’m older.

Another was a good gamer friend. He had some signs of being a little off but he was just always that way his whole life, it’s what made him great. He was always fun to hang out with, fucking hilarious. Always making fag jokes at the expense of his brother. His suicide was weird. They looked at video footage at his work, he went out for a smoke break and got on his cell phone and talked for a minute. Abruptly left work, then went to a fast food restaurant parking lot and shot himself in the head in his car. They found him a day or two later. They checked his phone and phone records and he never received a call that night, nor made one. That’s always bothered me. He was someone I sporadically hung out with a bunch then didn’t for months. So I’ve always wondered if he was just lonely and if I had hung out with him right before that (we were chatting and going to meet up and game sometime soon) if he wouldn’t have done it. Still miss him.

Most recent was a cousin I hadn’t seen in years. Hung himself when he found his long term GF cheated on him. Pretty sure he did it as a fuck you because he timed it when she was supposed to come home, only she didn’t. His sister went to check on him after not hearing from him for too long and she found him. I didn’t think about that one much cause I wasn’t in contact with him. I also heard at the funeral he had been suicidal for years so, I guess I’m just kind of happy he isn’t suffering that mental state anymore.

Ultimately suicide just fucking sucks. And every one you think about what you could’ve done, and unless you were abusing someone and drove them to it, you weren’t really the cause and probably couldn’t have prevented it. Don’t dwell on that part if you can…I know it’s hard not to though.
 
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Gavinmad

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Ultimately suicide just fucking sucks.
One of the worst things about suicide is it makes you realize what a profoundly shitty person your friend/family member/whoever secretly was on the inside and you just never knew.
 
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Hatorade

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Not sure how to deal with it. One of my close friends killed himself the day my daughter was born, this is almost 16 years ago and I still hate him for it. Fuck that guy.
 
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Hatorade

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Called him three times and texted a bunch his last and only response that day was "its whatever..." then shotgun to the face. No sorry, just fuck that guy.
 
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Rajaah

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I need to correct something. I thought she went over to her parents house to do it. Turns out, they were actually LIVING with her parents because they got evicted. And it was a miserable situation for everyone involved. She kept trying to end the relationship but couldn't because this guy was living under her parents roof with her, and apparently him being abusive/intimidating played into it because he'd lose his temper at her.

So she had this heavily-armed guy in her parents house with her that she wanted to break up with and couldn't because of the safety of her family and whatever else.

Sad thing is, she could have shown up on my doorstep at ANY point and I would have looked out for her. I've done that with her before. But after 2019 or so I was so out of touch with her that she wasn't sure if I still cared or what.

And I can't be angry at her because even though what she did was stupid and selfish, she was suffering on so many levels. I didn't even know the half of it when I did the first post, but I've been talking to her family and friends all week so I know a lot more now.

Sorry for your loss :\

Are they sure the bf didn't do it?

As was already mentioned, yeah, that was ruled out.

He fuckin' might as well have though because he had his guns unlocked. She was apparently wildly depressed for the last year+ and an alcoholic, and this guy kept bringing alcohol into the house, then LEFT UNSECURED GUNS AROUND A SUICIDAL PERSON.

At this point I'm just wondering how she didn't off herself way sooner with him doing such a piss poor job looking out for her. He kept bringing alcohol into the house and hiding it in the basement since he'd turned into an alcoholic too. She'd find it, of course. Her mom had repeatedly banned alcohol from the house for her sake, and the rest of the family stopped drinking. Except her guy, who'd sneak it, and then she'd sneak it when she discovered that.

Her poor mom told me it was horrible and that she did everything she could to get this girl off the alcohol and get her some help, but it was "impossible".

Her mom told me not to blame the boyfriend. Says that what killed her was alcoholism, and the timing of COVID (she means the response to it, not being allowed to go to work or see doctors).

She was also the worst kind of bipolar, full-on manic-depressive. And it got MUCH worse in the covid era. According to her mom, she fought and fought and fought and eventually lost the fight.

The guy had gone to work (night shift). She told her mom that night that she needed for her mom to get her boyfriend out of the house so she could end it, then she was doing the laundry. At some point in there she got into the guy's latest basement alcohol stash and was drinking, then found the unsecured gun while she was down there, then immediately went outside and shot herself. Was about midnight. Her mom found her and tried to revive her, apparently she might have still been alive for a little bit but by the time they got to the hospital she wasn't.

Guaranteed she was mixing antidepressants and alcohol that night and it ruined her impulse control.

Also the mental health community was completely out to lunch. She called FIFTY PLUS places looking for a therapist she could talk to, and everyone was like "sorry can't, covid"

Fucking hell.

Police took the guy's guns away and suspended his license to carry.

Her brother wants to kill the guy.

I looked out for her for years and years and years, whether we were together or not, and when her current relationship started I gave the guy a bunch of info of what to look out for and what not to do (mainly, keep her away from alcohol). And he disregarded all of it and instead ran to her about it to make me look bad for warning him about stuff. She called me up and wasn't happy that I did that. She knew what I was doing, but still, it was me giving him a lot of info that she might not have wanted him to know yet. But I knew what I was doing.

Instead of trying to score some fuckin' points over the "competition", maybe he should have taken the advice of a guy who'd known his new girlfriend for like a goddamn decade. I was the only guy who was ever successful at helping her get out of her depression and alcoholism, then she back-slid when I was out of the picture.

Also a few mutual friends of ours never told me how badly she was doing, which pisses me off at them on top of everything else. I made myself scarce to not mess with their relationship (because I easily could have). I was "the good guy" being all honorable and shit, thinking she was doing well while nobody told me anything.

I can't believe how much everybody failed her. I can't even be angry at her because she was battling a mental illness and addiction and she did the best she could, but what the fuck was she supposed to do when somebody kept bringing alcohol into the goddamn house?

She meant more to me than any other girl in my adult life and it isn't even close. I was friends with her from (her) age 22 onward and with her romantically on and off from like age 24 to 31 or something. I wish that, at any point, I'd let her know that I was still there if she needed me, instead of doing that guy a favor and disappearing. The last thing she told her mom was that she didn't know if any other guy (meaning me, maybe) would take her and that she was afraid of being alone in her current state. She was also pushing 35 and felt like her looks were rapidly going away. All the negging from the guy she was with probably made that part a lot worse.

Fuck. I can barely deal with this right now.

I asked a couple of my more religious friends to say a prayer for her because she doesn't deserve to go to Hell or any other bad outcome souls might go to. They said that if she's to be judged and go somewhere else, it's surely going to be taken into account that she had a mental illness and fought it for such a long time.
 
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