How Suicide Bereavement Changes People - The Two Faces of Annie and Madz
- Annie
- Jan 1, 2021
- 6 min read
Not long after Madz's death, I watched a video named "Please don't kill yourself", created by a YouTuber named Anna Akana (*). In the video, Anna talks about her own experience with her younger sister's suicide in 2007, how it has affected her and her family and completely changed her as a person. Watching the video for the first time was a very emotional experience for me: I could feel Anna's pain, her devastation and her anger very intensely. It made me think about how Madz's death has already completely changed me as a person, as well as changing my relationship and emotions towards Madz.
Before Madz's death, I had never really considered how it would feel to be bereaved by suicide. In terms of mental health awareness, a lot of focus tends to be around suicide prevention (and rightly so), but what about the people who are left grieving after the suicide - the survivors? If our stories were told more often, wouldn't this raise awareness of just how devastating suicide can be to those left behind, therefore helping towards prevention efforts?
About a week or so ago, I saw a post on the suicide bereavement section of Reddit (now deleted) from a suicidal person asking us: is the pain from suicide bereavement really that bad?
The answer to that is yes, 100%. It is the most horrendous pain imaginable - any physical or emotional pain that I experienced before Madz's death all feels completely insignificant now. If a person that you love deeply kills themself, they kill a massive part of you too. The pain may be more intense at certain times than others, but it never goes away. The person that you used to be, and the relationship that you had with your loved one, cease to exist.
This post will be difficult to write I'm sure, but I think it is an important one. This is Annie and Madz, pre-suicide and post-suicide.
*Anna Akana's video can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvkbHIrrrvU
Note: I started writing this blog post in October 2020, I took a long break and finished it on New Year's Day in 2021. I lost much of my motivation to write towards the end of 2020.
Madz before her suicide
Madz was the kindest, most beautiful, funny and generous person I had ever known.
She was my big sister and my protector, I always looked up to her.
She had lots of friends and was said to have had a knack for bringing people together.
She was the only person I wanted to text or talk to every day, even if it was just to send her cat pictures.
We had our own way of talking to each other (kind of like a special sister language) that I never used with anyone else. Madz invented most of the words.
Madz was my partner in crime and my rock when our parents separated.
She loved cats, Britney Spears, hiking, watching drag shows and musicals.
But she always said that she loved her little sister Annie, more than anyone or anything in the world.
Madz after her suicide
Madz is the most selfish person I have ever known. Even if she never intended to hurt anyone, her actions have caused me excruciating pain and trauma.
Her final action was not one of protection but of causing me to lose my innocence completely. The world has suddenly become a much darker, bleaker place.
She has made me feel more isolated and detached from the world around me than ever, as I have now suffered a traumatic experience that not many can relate to.
She is the person that I send angry, resentful Facebook messages to nearly every day, knowing that I will never receive a response again.
She is the person that has taken the most important relationship in my life away from me, and I will never have a relationship like that again.
She is the reason that I will have to deal with our parents' deaths alone when their time comes, and spend many unhappy Christmases and birthdays without her.
Her final action has made me question whether I knew the "real" Madz at all.
She is the one person that I loved more than anyone else in the world, but also the person I have hated more than anyone else in the world.
Annie before Madz's suicide
She was quiet and a homebody, but came to life when she was around her big sister. As long as she had Madz, everything seemed ok.
She loved musicals, cats, Disney and the Eurovision Song Contest, but loved her sister Madz more than anything or anyone in the world.
Although she really loved her sister, she was jealous of her for being smarter and prettier than her and having a lot more friends.
She was a workaholic and cared deeply about her work performance. She had recently taken on a technical manager role at work and spent many evenings and weekends taking courses and completing research to improve her technical skills.
She was a gentle, laid-back type of person. It took a lot to make her angry.
She cooked her own meals nearly every evening during the COVID lockdown and went on regular walks - her health seemed important as she wanted to live a long life and be around for her sister.
She had hope for the future and was sure that her relationship with Madz would last many, happy years.
Annie after Madz's suicide
I am a completely different person since Madz died. Most days I am so consumed with depression, anger and guilt over her death, that I don't recognise the old version of myself. I don't even know who I am anymore.
I have lost interest in the things I used to love, I haven't truly felt any joy since Madz's death. I bought a Nintendo Switch shortly after Madz's funeral, and often spend many hours of the day completing monotonous tasks in Animal Crossing. Living on a fake island definitely seems preferable to living in the real world right now.
I am very much the definition of green-eyed monster - I can find a reason to be jealous of anyone. I am jealous of anyone who still has a sister, and I am jealous of everyone who hasn't lost someone close to them to suicide. I am extremely jealous of Madz, because she hasn't had to deal with the mess she has left behind for those who loved her, and I completely resent her for all the pain and trauma caused by her death.
At work, I pretty much do the minimum that I have to do to get by, but I have lost the motivation and enthusiasm that I had before. On more than one occasion, I have felt that I am going so crazy over Madz's death that I will eventually have to quit my job.
I am angry every single day. I am livid at Madz for dying this way, for leaving me feeling abandoned and betrayed, without closure. Which then makes me angry at myself for feeling so mad at her, when I loved her so much. And beating myself up over and over again for not saving her the day she died. And then I get angry at Madz AGAIN for making me feel this way about myself - and so the cycle of anger is never-ending.
Most of my meals now are unhealthy, I think I must've tried almost all of the takeaways in my town since Madz died. Also most days I don't even have the motivation or inclination to leave my flat. Sometimes dental hygiene goes out of the window as well, as disgusting as that sounds. Why should I strive to live a long and healthy life, when the most important person in the world to me is no longer around to share it with?
Thinking about the future is overwhelming and depressing, so I try to stop myself from doing it. All I can see right now is years of painful grieving, and further deaths of older family members, with very little love and happiness in my life.
Where I am right now
Right now at the start of 2021, I am not in a good place at all. I have actually accepted (on some level) that Madz is dead and can never come back, but I am still constantly in the mindset that I just want my old life back and my sister back, and I am too angry to make the best of this "new normal" that I was suddenly thrown into last August. Deep down, I know that I am not doing myself any favours in thinking so negatively - the only person that I am ultimately hurting is myself. But I'm finding it very difficult to get out of this negative mindset and to find any hope and beauty in my current life when I am essentially having to live through my worst nightmare every single day. Sometimes I try to tell myself that I deserve happiness and am worthy of love, but my brain never seems to listen for long.
I will try to keep writing in 2021 and update on how my grief journey is going. Hopefully, 2021 will actually be a better year, even if that seems impossible to me right now.
If any fellow sibling survivors are reading this, I love you all, and I wish you all the strength in the world in this horrible journey. If any suicidal people happen to be reading this, I wish you could know just how much the people in your life love you, and how you mean the absolute world to them. Madz meant the absolute world to me, and no matter how angry and hurt I feel at her death, I will always, always love her.
Annie xxx
Comments