"My daughter, Lynn, killed herself in 1979. I have been where you are now; I know how badly it hurts. I know that you feel the most terrible aloneness of your life. It is normal for you to feel desperately unhappy, angry, guilty frightened, and out of control. You wouldn’t feel so awful if you hadn’t loved so much.

Most people who kill themselves have major depression – usually unrecognized and undiagnosed. People who have depression have a real physical illness. Chemicals in their brain that regulate how they think, feel and behave get out of balance. No amount of love and caring or trying to build up their self-esteem could have altered their misconception that their situation was hopeless.

Please don’t let anyone tell you how you should feel. People will say that a suicide death is the “worst” thing that can happen and that you will “never” get over it. Don’t believe them; these are the voices of the taboo and stigma on suicide. This is part of the extra burden you will have as a suicide survivor. Other survivors don’t hear gasps of shock when they tell how their loved one died. Other survivors don’t hear gross jokes and ridicule about the manner of death. These are extra for us.

You may feel bewildered and stunned; going over and over the events leading up to the death; feeling that somehow – if you had done one last thing – you might have saved your loved one. You may be fearful and anxious about yourself and the rest of the family. These things, and more, are normal reactions after a suicide death.

You will survive the suicide death of your loved one because you have to, but you have the choice of how you survive. You have gotten through the days since the suicide – the worst that can happen already has. It cannot get worse. You have been through the worst and you have survived.

The next several months will gradually get easier, but it probably won’t feel that way day by day. It will be up and down. It helps to look back over a week or a month and compare. Recognize your small victories. Death leaves a scar that we will always have, and you will feel the pain of it throughout your life. But the intense pain you feel now will gradually get better. Ultimately, for suicide survivors, it is not so much how they died, it is that they died.

Keep in mind that you are a good person, and you deserve to be happy again. You are going to be all right, but it will not be easy, especially at first. I still miss Lynn, but I know she went as far as she could, and she would have stayed with us if she could. If life were a play, then your loved one and my Lynn had to leave the stage before the play was over.

Be good to yourself."

ADINA WROBLESKI