In this blog we will be talking about sibling suicide survivors who are also known as the “Forgotten Mourners.” I will go deep into the world of sibling relationships and how suicide impacts the world of those left behind.
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Suicide-bereaved siblings suffer intensely. They also tend to suffer invisibly.
“So how many brothers and sisters do you have?”
I used to dread that question. I still do, if I’m honest, but it’s a quick, dull thud of emotion compared to the raging, blood-draining torrent it used to evoke in me.
The answer is always the same: four sisters. But whispering in the background are the ghosts of the other two answers that come to mind and the reasons why I can't give them.
“Four sisters, five brothers.” Nope, can’t go there—not technically true, even though that's how I feel. Besides, what do I say when the inevitable next questions come: How old are they? What do they do?
“Four sisters—and I used to have five brothers, but two died a few years ago.” Sure, if I want to make that person really uncomfortable, I can go there. I might even get to watch them visibly squirm if they ask how my brothers, yes brothers not one but two brothers, died.
As even this small exchange shows, it’s a lonely experience being a sibling bereaved by suicide.
In the aftermath of my brothers deaths, I waded through reams of information on suicide, compulsively searching for I-don’t-quite-know-what…
…Answers? Confirmation? Connection? Where were my siblings? Where were the others like me?
When I began to research sibling suicide myself, years later, I realized just how little has been written about us. Just 10 academic studies have ever been dedicated exclusively to the experience of sibling suicide.
Here’s what has been found so far about the experience of living through a sibling’s suicide:
It’s confusing, painful, and hard—with more challenges than "normal" bereavement.
Sibling suicide survivors have been found to experience a range of distressing and challenging phenomena. This may include:
A marked sense of guilt and responsibility around the death
Intense anger, stemming from a deep sense of rejection and abandonment
Feelings of shame and worthlessness
Overwhelming anxiety and fear
It’s also common for survivors to feel relief if the death marks the end of a long period of worry and uncertainty. This tends to fuel further guilt, creating an ongoing cycle of emotional disturbance.
As can be expected given this litany of psychological challenges, sibling suicide survivors are at particular risk of developing complicated grief reactions, depression, and post-traumatic stress symptoms. They’re also at an increased risk of taking their own lives.
Siblings suffer intensely—and they also tend to suffer invisibly.
In a family bereaved by suicide, each person becomes too preoccupied with their own path and pain to offer meaningful support to the others. Under these circumstances the surviving siblings “often find themselves not only neglected, but expected to put their needs aside in order to spare their parents further distress”.
Many grieving siblings try to appear "emotionally together" or even cheerful around their parents, despite their own intense pain. They usually experience a desperate desire to make their parents happy again, and the message to "be strong for your mom and dad" tends to be given by others implicitly, explicitly, and often. The siblings’ demeanor is then perceived as evidence that the surviving children have not been badly affected by the loss, making them even less likely to receive care and validation.
In addition, the presence of anger towards the dead sibling—let alone its expression—is usually viewed as highly inappropriate and unacceptable, even in families that can speak relatively freely about emotions.
There’s usually no space to talk within the family—and nowhere to talk outside of it either.
The sense of isolation siblings experience is exacerbated to varying degrees by the social stigma around suicide, which makes discussing the death with people outside the family very challenging. It’s still common for people who end their lives to be disparaged as "selfish" and "cowardly." Research has also shown that suicidally bereaved families receive less community support compared to families that lose a member to "natural" causes, and may be avoided and/or blamed for the death.
Many siblings described being extremely hurt by the actions of those they hoped would support them following the suicide. Some friends abandoned them altogether, while others silenced them with platitudes, told them they "shouldn’t feel like that," or acted as though the death had never happened. Some siblings spoke of friendships ending due to impatience that the siblings "still weren’t over it," while others said they deliberately withdrew from their friends. After what they had been through, they found themselves experiencing their peers as immature, unempathetic, and/or focused on trivial concerns.
Even when friends are available and supportive, siblings may feel pressure to swallow their hurt to avoid awkwardness. They may also stigmatize themselves negatively due to guilt, and self-isolate out of shame.
The loss can cast a very long shadow, affecting the siblings’ sense of security in the future, in relationships, and in life itself.
A sibling’s suicide can severely damage any sense of trust in the stability of meaningful relationships. If your brother or sister—one of your absolute constants in life—can leave like this, anything feels possible and very little feels secure. Research shows that:
Numerous siblings became preoccupied with the fear of losing other loved ones to death or being abandoned by them.
Many worried that the tragedy of the suicide would be repeated in their own future families. Two academics noted a deep sense of "maternal inadequacy" among some of the female siblings, who avoided having the children they longed for out of fear and conflicted feelings related to the loss.
Some older siblings felt they had relived the loss in their romantic relationships—entering unsatisfying or painful pairings which ultimately resulted in their being abandoned or let down again.
Many siblings eventually create meaningful, purposeful lives out of this emotional nightmare—with a greater sense of perspective and empathy.
During research interviews, many sibling suicide survivors spoke of experiencing a profound shift in perspective over time. Many became involved in suicide prevention activities, and some chose to become counselors or therapists, dedicating their lives to helping others survive their emotional struggles. They spoke of valuing the increased compassion and empathy their life experiences had given them, even though they had suffered profoundly.
This has been my own experience, though nobody could have told me at the time without getting their head bitten off. It makes writing about sibling suicide bereavement a tough ask, knowing that while you are in the experience—angry, guilty, isolated, broken-hearted, or just broken depending on the day—it’s so hard to take in even the tiniest sliver of hope that things could ever be better.
But in time, they will. Take it from someone who knows, who never, ever believed it when it was said to me.
Remember to be kind to yourself, give yourself grace and always always love yourself.
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