My Brother Killed Himself...

Now I know, it’s a drastic sounding title… But, when is this subject matter, well, not drastic… Plus, “my brother committed suicide”, just didn’t seem right, “my brother took his own life”… Well, again, wasn’t sure... This one says it as it is, and quite frankly, we all need a bit more radical honesty and authenticity in the world, so hopefully that’s what I can bring. The honest truth, is always the best way, it’s healing and expanding, even if it’s a little uncomfortable (that means there’s healing needed).

So, this actually happened 12 years ago on July 27th/28th 2012. Some people know some of the details and many of course don’t. I have often contemplated writing about my experience, but, was always concerned people would label it “self-centered”, “too much”, “inappropriate”, etc., etc… and does the world need, yet another story about this (VERY important) subject, (well, pandemic to me, as it’s serious, it happens multiple times a day to men and some women). There is also so much stigma around this, so much judgement, so hopefully the more of us that share our experiences the more non-judgmental people become and appreciate that it’s people suffering; not weak, not broken, just in pain and are seeking relief. It’s certainly crossed my mind MANY times in my life when I have been in pain or suffering.

Anyway, digressing… So part of my journey now as a spiritual coach, is getting my voice, essence and stories out there, because I believe and really hope it brings healing to those that read this, who share a similar experience. Because I get so much from reading other people’s stories, because we’re all important, our knowledge and experiences shared create great healing and expansion. Even if it’s just to feel “normal” (whatever normal is - in my opinion, your authentic-self).

So, let’s go back 12 years… I was in New York for the second time, I had been there for 3 months to do some healing from my many months as a Nanny under the roof of a Narcissist who had been gas-lighting me.
I woke up around 7/8am, I can’t remember precisely, felt a bit odd and checked my phone, to see MANY missed calls from my Dad and messages saying I needed to call ASAP. As you can imagine, the adrenaline starts pumping and it’s best friend isn’t far behind: cortisol… I knew something bad had happened… so I braced myself knowing this could be the end of something and the beginning of another…

I called my Dad. Dreading what was coming next…

Just for some context, it was the opening ceremony to the UK Olympics and I was going to call to my brother, Nathan, that night before I went out on a date with a nice chap to the cinema (little did I know the shit storm that was about to transcend over my life and the black hole I was about the enter for several years… ). I had the feeling I wanted to call Nathan, we messaged most days and spoke maybe once or twice a week. We did communicate a lot this trip, more than normal and he expressed a lot that he missed me, and I just put it down to us having a hard time with my Mum (post menopause psychosis - another blog for that one…). So I figured it was a lot for him to deal with on his own, as a child of the parents suffering. We always ended the calls with some great realisations and so had no idea there was more darkness lurking in the shadows of his life.
I didn’t like that I was so far away for so long, but my parents insisted I go and have a good time to counter my 9 months of hell (aka spiritual awakening/chronic stress) as a Nanny, the previous year. This was a time, looking back, that I wonder if my intuition was telling me not to go, but I was still in my “people-pleasing” phase, still traumatised from my mum’s hospitalisation, being gaslit (probably other traumas lurking just under the surface) and it seemed logically like a good idea to go, it was only for 3 months. It just didn’t feel right the whole time me trying to have fun (which I did to a point), but it was always tainted knowing the 3 humans I was closest too were going through a hard time without me supporting them. Only on the phone which just felt rubbish.

Okay, so back to the night I had a profound experience I will never forget…
It’s 11pm UK time and 5pm NY time, so I had a little while to wait until my date was arriving and was sat on my friends porch steps, thinking I might give my brother a call and see how he’s doing, even though I would be back home in 36 hours. I got my phone out, was about to call, then out of the blue, it all went very still and a voice said "“leave him be”.
Now, I have had many experiences around sensory gifts, but hearing voices has never been one of them. So I remember looking around very slowly to see if it was a neighbour or TV I was hearing. Alas, not, it was so eerily still that moment that I just accepted it was a being asking me to leave him be… Why those words, my mind could not understand, but my heart accepted it back then, as I was deeply connected with my spiritual beliefs and connection with my intuition.
Looking back during my dark days/years of grief, I hated myself and tortured myself for listening to that voice, because if I hadn’t would he still be alive…? Did I help kill him…? What if…? What if…? So, I just got on with my evening, feeling a little strange after that experience, but tried not to read into it, as I do have a wildly imagintative mind.

Back then, I really trusted those signs, but the following years, in total 10, I then distrusted all signs, the divine and myself. How on earth could I trust any of it and myself if it means that someone I love will die… So for that decade with all the trauma, grief, disconnect and self-rejection I fell into a dark void, became a shell of a person, my false self, where something was always missing: Me... And when I say “Me”, I mean the authentic me, my light, the self-loving me, the connected with my soul and the divine me. The happy me, because I had no reason to be happy, I told myself I had to suffer like my brother did, I failed him…

So, I call my Dad, and he begins to tell me the worst news of my life to date: Your Brother has gone… My heart knew what he meant, but my mind was scrambling to find meaning in what he said, what do you mean gone, gone on holiday, gone to somewhere we don’t know.
Two aspects of me severed that day, my heart and my head. A deep painful, empty hole was now in the centre of my body. It felt like the floor underneath me had been ripped from under me, everything become a blur, a fog, just a place in time where I crumpled and cried, knowing I was alone in this world, the one person I would call, was no longer at the end of the phone.
How the f*ck do I get through this…

I somehow pulled myself together, my friend’s partner saw me first and was very kind and gave me a hug, I contacted my other NY friends, not really knowing what I was doing, but knowing I needed to tell them. I think I even announced it on FB a few days later… tasteless on one level, but it got it done in one go, rather than loads of messages… The thing is, you want people to know, yet, you don’t want to do it multiple times.
One of my friends was kind enough to drive me to JFK, as I was going to get the train and subway, as I was flying back that evening… Oh the irony… If he could only have waited just a few more hours, the timing of it all, was beyond surreal, yet a part of me felt as if this was all part of the divine plan, I just had to go through the human motions. It was like deja vu… like this was meant to be happening… So it was as if I was experiencing the same situation but able to feel 2 different states/reactions to the situation…

There was the most horrendous storm driving to JFK and I arrived, in the end, with about 2 hrs until my original flight, as I had decided to just get home asap and get an earlier flight, but as it turned out I didn’t.
I said goodbye to my friends and embarked on my journey home. I was going to get the train from Heathrow as well, but my aunt and uncle kindly picked me up and took me home. I didn’t fancy the train and had asked a few friends, knowing I was asking a lot, so I was grateful I got picked up by someone and could just collapse in a car. The flight home was an interesting experience, sadly I was not seated alone as I had done going out… so there was a man (poor guy) sat on the aisle seat, me in the window, crying my eyes out - silently…, the whole flight. I rememeber listening to Enya on repeat and writing pages and pages to my brother while I was 35,000 feet in the air, trying to make sense of it all. WTF, WTF, WTF, but also feeling this peace at the same time… WTF…
The air hostess asked me if I needed anything, I just asked for tissues, and kept crying silently. She asked the last time”are you sure you’re okay?” and I said “I’m fine, just some tissues, please”. In the true British style… what I really wanted to do was scream at the top of voice that my brother killed himself and I am not okay, WTAF!!!! Is this actually happening…
In hindsight I could have just mentioned it… maybe got upgraded to 1st class… Oh well…

So, I arrive back home to see my parents in a state I had never witnessed, my mum was still on anti-psychotics and a bit numb to it all (maybe a saving grace), until she came off them, then it hit her, but I still wonder if they softened the blow… As it was a long time afterwards, a couple of years I think… My Dad was, well, there are no words. That part is all quite blurry, interesting how the brain/mind stores some and not others.

I had no one… We all 3 were hit with the same loss, but in totally different ways.
I didn’t have my brother to call for support, I didn’t have my parents to support me, I couldn’t support them… It was a shit show…
The pain I was in and witnessing the pain they were in was just unbearable… Dad was amazing and dealt with all the legal shit and continued to look after mum, he sort of looked after me, but couldn’t. I helped where I could… I was in total shock…
I just, well those first few weeks were awful, but to be honest that first year was just a mess… I had a small circle of friends that were brilliant in their love and support, two of which had lost their mums young, so understood grief and were able to normalise that for me.
The first month I couldn’t sleep in the dark, I had to have a light on, when normally I like it pitch black. If I didn’t it felt as if Nathan was right next to me on my left and it was so intense I just freaked out and kept the light on as I was in fear of it being something evil… or that was I loosing my mind. In hindsight I wish I leaned into it, but it was just too much at the time. I was in shock.
I drank a lot, to fall asleep, I was so traumatised I couldn’t sleep (sleep had been a challenge since then, but hopefully turned a corner recently), I had valium for a while too, but the doctor stopped giving me that, so my dad gave me some of his, the same doctor seemed happy to keep giving my dad valium… My nervous system was a wreck… I was a wreck internally. Amazing how we can still “function” as humans depsite internal turmoil, never judge a book by it’s cover.
So for ab0ut 8 months give or take, alcohol and valium were my companions, along with a broken heart, depression, fatigue and anxiety, oh, I mustn’t forget anger too. Wow, the anger! I never knew grief could be so consuming, exhausting, I spent hours, days in bed, absolutely exhausted, but perhaps it was also healing, of my other traumas… who really knows. No doubt a cocktail of things but mostly grief. I was not myself… Who was I… I was lost.

So, it got to about 12 months and I realised I couldn’t keep drinking myself to sleep, I had to find another solution, not just for my one kidney, but for my sanity and general health. So very reluctantly and after many conversations with my therapist and doctor I went on anti-depressants, Mitazipine to help me sleep and stabilise the tormoil in my body. Funny looking back as I needed a reminder on my phone to take the tablet as I would easily forget, as if part of me knew even that wasn’t my answer. I hated being on them… It felt like I had admitted defeat… I was not happy.
They bloated me terribly in the first 3 months, I was on them for about 5-6 years I think and it took me 3 goes to come off them, always waiting for the “right” time, when life was stable. But, sadly I dated someone for many years, who also hadn’t healed from trauma, so stability wasn’t really my friend, however I did wean myself off them, it was happening, I was determined. I did it my way(doctors and nursese weren’t happy but what did they know, they were me, I needed to do it SLOWLY) over 6 months and haven’t looked back. The stigma and shame around anti-depressants is insane, I was beyond embarrassed at the time, I had so much shame being on them. Thankfully now I have none, becuase needs must sometimes, they are needed for certain times and certain situations. I just hope that people really think about why they are taking them, have they tried other tools or modalities. I apprecaite for some it is a chemical issue and needs must.

My parents and I had such a close bond before he died, then we were a bit distant for many years and then moving back to theirs in 2020 was interesting. I could feel a healing take place between us during the lockdown, we talked a lot, we still talk about Nathan, but we definitely reconnected that year, so I am grateful for that. As it is such a painful experience to loose a loved one in a family to suicide, not many people get it or know how the dynamics change and how others do or do not deal with it.

With all my years now of healing I realised a lot about my relationship with my brother, yes we were close, but due to my parents being emotionally absent, he did become like a dad figure when I was a teenager, so a sort of enmeshment happened, I become emotionally depend on him while they were absent, not healthy, but it’s so common. I and many children are often not given the right, guidance, support, tools to develop and know how to be in this world. We as adults often have to face those childhood wounds and traumas, heal them, transmute them and this takes work, incredible effort. Healing hurts, sometimes more than the trauma, but the other side it brighter, fuller, lighter and it’s worth it. We gain courage, wisdom, we meet our selves, our real selves, we have better relationships with others and ourselves, we lead better and more meaningful lives, looking in the mirror and making friends with our shadow parts.

So I encourage you to take steps, even if they are small and see about reaching out for help, for healing, you deserve to be you, there is only one you and you are awesome!

Thanks for reading, until next time…

Much love to you,

Elisha 💖

Epilogue

One can never know 100% why someone is driven to suicide, other than the want to end their pain and we will never know why our loved one was in so much pain and from what, all we can do is surrender to the fact that we will never know and that’s okay. I wanted answers but never really found hard proof. There was no letter… The police couldn’t find much on his laptop or his phone, other than evidence that my brother was not in a good place. My parents, mainly my Dads accounts of his last 2 weeks on this physcial plain that he shared me with, screamed it was on the horizon and he was definitely not himself, but my brother didn’t share that with me, I was thousands of miles away over text and on a screen. I knew in my heart he was having a bad time, but who doesn’t and he like me had many, and I thought once I was back home, I could see more details, but it’s easy to think because our parents weren’t in a great place, that was bound to be affecting him. I also saw just a few days before he went on our Skype call, that he had lost weight, and again, I had thought once I was back in a few days, we would have a good heart-to-heart, as we did and I would see what was truly ailing him.
I will always remember his last words on a message to me were: “I can’t wait to see you sis” and leading up to that: “live from the heart”, which we both believed and got inspired by a meditation I had shared with him, I often thought… had that meditation finished him off…? Was that my fault? So, I had a lot to work through, because I will never truly know the truth and we have to accept that. It took me 10 years to return to living from the heart, it was the perfect message, yet in reality one of the hardest things I have had to achieve, because our mind and society are built to live and survive from the mind, from logic, not the heart, but living from the heart is the right way and for me the only way. My heart is my portal.

There are many things in life that we just have to accept them for what they are and how they are, we have to make peace with so much, most of all ourselves and those around us. Be gentle with yourself and those around as you never truly know what’s going on inside.