It's a mixed bag for me.
My Sister in laws BF commited suicide about 5 years ago.
They had a fight and she left with a friend to get their nails done and cool off.
She found him hanging in the garage when she got back.
My wife and I meanwhile were having one of the greatest days ever being married, when we got the call at 11pm.
Besides ambulance, we were the only family there.
So i had to call/wakeup a bunch of people I didn't know to tell them my SIL wouldn't be into work and why, then call my brother in law and his wife wake them up and tell them. So after they roll him out, because he was in there the entire time,
at about 2am we had to drive my SIL down to his parents house so she could tell them the news while my wife and I awkwardly sat in another room, listening. Oh yeah, it gets complicated because he and my wife worked together, she actually got him the job, so then she had to deal with it not only on the family side, but on the work side too. We had to clean out their house(with help, of course) and had a memorial for him and then his parents with my SIL buried him in their own private thing.
Was I mad? Oh Definitely, he did this 4 months after my wife and I tied the knot in Hawaii, in a ceremony he attended, we even danced together(I led) and it still blows my mind that there's pictures of that and then 4 months later he's gone. I remember after they were done crying in the other room.
His dad came up to my wife and I and apologized for how selfish his son had been. I kinda agree with him. Especially when it comes to how my wife was affected, how my SIL found him and will be changed forever and how it kinda just threw everyone else off its axis.
Some of that responsibility has to fall on the person. I mean I tried to reach out and hang out one on one, he had interesting hobbies and I was interested, and was brushed off.
Being in sobriety has taught me to speak up, I had 10 months sober and then relapsed, now I have a year and 8 months, still going strong.
the difference? I'm extremely more vocal about how things and situations and people make me feel. I do my best to not compartmentalize any type of way I'm feeling. It's extremely important that I communicate.
Then I see the other side of the coin and where I was and how hard it is to admit you have these problems, and how at one point I would've rather have died then to admit that I have a problem. It's not the easiest thing, its actually really hard and something I still struggle with sometimes. The important thing is I have a great support group, but I wouldn't have had that, if I didn't communicate.
You know at the end of the day, I don't know how he was feeling or what he was going through. I just wished he reached out, because everyone has problems regardless, everyone does. It's just a shame that we are conditioned that we need to hide them to our peers and more importantly to ourselves, or we will be condemned for them(at least that's the perception)
Nobody should have to live like that
