I recently lost my dear big brother to suicide by hanging. I have looked all over the net and have found nothing to express the images that keep flashing through my mind. It wasn’t until I read of the account of this womans brother and the images she explained that it was extactly what I too am experiencing. I can not get the image of me dear sweet kind and gentle big brother, leaving behind his letter to me in his truck, getting out and locking the doors , making that lonely walk into the woods on the path, picking the tree, wrapping the rope around the tree and sliding it down over his neck. I can not stop thinking of whether he changed his mind and couldn’t go back, how long did he struggle as the life drained out of him, those kind eyes with the laugh lines around them going still, his musically talented and gifted hands slowly falling to his sides and then they are still…please please help me get this out of my mind. I am under a doctors care and he states that what I am experiencing is flash backs – almost the same thing war vets experience. It does not comfort me to know this when the images fill my head every second of every minute of every day. My brother was such a great soul, very funny, could play any instrument he picked up, was kind, and always always smiling. His wake brought out over 700 people. Children insisted on going to his funeral – he was their Little League Coach. Oh how he touched so many lives in such a bright and positive way. He was also very good at hiding behind the smile but I was the one to always see through it. I am his youngest sister and we share (unfortunately) a tendancy towards depression. I think that is why he left the letter to me. I spent my entire life trying to convince him that it was nothing he did – that it was hereditary and he should be treated for it like I was. He just couldn’t convince himt hat there was help for it. That it was a chemical inbalance and it could be treated. He just wouldn’t believe that it wasn’t him and that he was broken somehow. My older sister put it very well. She said “I always felt during his lifetime that we, as a family, were always holding on real tight and he was pulling to let go. I look at the pain on my dear Mother and Fathers face, the tears that my siblings shed and it hurts to see them suffering the way I am. Please – someone please tell me how to get through this. And please…be kind with your words. The grief I feel hurts so bad.

Dawn (stampoutsuicide.org.uk)