When Your Child Commits Suicide

Hi, my name is Sarah and I’m a suicide survivor. Not a suicide attempt survivor. That’s an entirely different animal. I survived (so far) the suicide of my 17 year old son. I don’t pretend to be a consummate writer or even a mediocre one. Indeed, you will definitely find far too many commas in the wrong places and most likely a dangling participle here and there, but my purpose here is not academic or even financial. I’m not going to beat myself up trying to come up with engaging content or compelling storylines. I’m just going to recall the whole journey to the best of my ability. I’m not really interested in this being a source of income. It’s more like free therapy… for me. My hope is that by sharing my story I might somehow help someone else… somehow.

It’s been almost three years now. I’m just now catching myself being happy about something or other, then fighting off the guilt for being happy. How very dare I, right?! Well, I must find my happy again, and it is something I work on every day… every moment.

I suppose the best place to start is with the message. I slept late that morning, like every morning. I’m a night owl by nature… up to 3:00 a.m. and sleep till, well whenever (yes, my husband is a marvelously benevolent man). Anyway, I picked up my phone to check messages and emails like I normally do and there was an inordinate amount of unrecognized numbers… one message. I clicked. “Sarah, it’s Brittany. We’ve been trying to reach you all morning. It’s Robbie… you should call dad.”

Brittany is my stepdaughter. I hadn’t spoken to her in a good fifteen years at that point, her father and I having separated long ago (she and I facebook, of course but not much more). My heart dropped. I called my ex, Robert. He answered. In a garbled, broken voice he said, “Robbie is gone.” I froze… dumb but all too aware of what he was saying somehow. I said, “What? No! Are you sure?!” He said, “He’s gone, Sarah.” I screamed, “NOoooooo!” and sank to the floor. My husband came running from the front room and I somehow forced out the words. He held me and we cried… all of us.