“Do you have siblings?”
Whenever people ask me this innocuous question, my heart skips a beat. The 3‑second pause after feels like a suspended eternity— a moment in time I wish I could fast‑forward through— wrought with an onslaught of my own anxiety‑induced questions:
How do I answer? Do I tell them the whole story? Can they handle it? Do I say I “had” a brother, and leave it at that? Do I need to shield them from discomfort? Can I answer truthfully, and honor my brother’s memory?
For years, my answers varied. They ranged anywhere from, “I’m an only child,” to, “I have an older brother,”—present tense— as I held my breath and hoped they didn’t ask any follow‑up questions. My answers depended on who asked. While this question still gives me pause, after 20 years, I no longer hide the truth about my beloved brother. However, to know and to appreciate where I am in my mental health journey, and where other suicide survivors can be, you must know where I began.
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In January 2001, my older brother died by suicide at the age of 14. I was 10. His death catapulted me into adulthood, as I moved swiftly into my role as a parentified child. That night, my mother and I went to my flute recital. We stopped to pick up pizza on the way home. At home, my mother and I discovered my brother’s lifeless body. My big brother—my role model—took his own life. That night, I watched my innocent child spirit leave as it was carried away in a body bag with my brother.
Unequivocally, my brother’s suicide left me forever changed. I became a “survivor of suicide” in multiple ways. I was bereaved by suicide, and like many suicide loss survivors, I experienced my own thoughts of suicide and mental health struggles. This was compounded by the unspoken shame and stigma, whispers from students and staff alike when I returned to school, and the cruel rumors that spread. I felt like I had a plague, and these feelings of alienation were exacerbated by hormones, insecurity, and the ubiquitous adolescent poor self‑image.
In the flurry of parental grief that followed my brother’s death, my mother and father vacillated between organizing funeral arrangements and day‑to‑day survival. Unintentionally, I became the forgotten, surviving sibling.
At the wake and after, people offered me empty, placating condolences, trite sentiments about how loss “gets easier over time”; how things will “work out”; how my brother was in a “happier place.” My grief, my pain made people uncomfortable— it was almost palpable. Instead of being consoled by others, I found myself trying to console them, often by minimizing my own pain. I learned how to numb my feelings. I learned how to compartmentalize and suppress. This, combined with what I felt was a conflicting existence of being an Asian American, biracial child, exacerbated my grief, depression, and suicidal ideation. My racial identity and our implicit and explicit cultural norms like “saving face” (avoiding humiliation and preserving dignity) and “filial piety” (honoring your parents and elders) felt in direct conflict with the demands made by those who either wanted me to bare my pain to satiate their curiosity, or talk about what happened to work through it.
Being biracial, I never truly felt like I belonged. Most of my Asian peers called me a “coconut” and jested I was “Brown on the outside, but white on the inside.” I never felt wholly accepted by my white peers. I looked different, and compared to many, I had a vastly different socioeconomic background and upbringing. After my brother’s death, this made the stigma of suicide and mental health issues feel even more alienating. People didn’t know how to act around me. They avoided saying my brother’s name. Sometimes, I was told to omit the truth about my brother’s death. This only complicated things.
My brother was dead. My father, grappling with his own feelings of guilt, left. I became angry— I was full of seething rage. Anger felt easier than getting lost in the deep, dark chasms of my misery. I channeled that raging fire and stored it in the places where no one else would see. My child body was not meant to carry so much pain. I self‑mutilated. I cursed the higher powers. I was angry with my parents. Everything spiraled out of control. I panicked. I quit playing the flute. I quit eating pizza. I quit eating altogether, at times. I obsessed over my physical appearance. I started over‑plucking my eyebrows. Anything that I could control, because everything felt so out of control. I transformed. I felt unrecognizable. I thought about suicide daily. Back then, nobody really knew, or if they did, nobody thought to ask me about it. I think they were too afraid of my answer.
After my brother died, my parents divorced, my father left, and I tried hard to put on a happy façade for my mother, who was consumed by her own grief. People called me “strong”, which I loathed. They did not know about the crying spells, the panic attacks, the suicidal ideation. I couldn’t shed tears in front of people, not sober, anyway. I thought that crying was weakness, and that people needed me to protect them from my pain. I feared becoming too burdensome. I never felt strong inside. If only they knew. I was briefly homeschooled in 8th grade because my depression worsened, but otherwise, I managed to keep myself together enough to scrape by.
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At 17, I struggled with my sexual identity and lived “in the closet.” I was severely depressed. On the surface, I got good grades, had friends, and appeared fully functional. My façade crumbled. I struggled internally, especially in completing “normal” teenage tasks. I couldn’t concentrate. Things spiraled. Though my mother tried her best, I lacked the parental guidance many of my friends had due to my immigrant mother’s English proficiency levels. She didn’t understand things like “FAFSA” or “college applications.” My suicidal ideation overcame me. The pressures of working late nights to help support both my mother and me, juggling AP courses, thinking about imminent college applications, and trying to stay afloat as my depression and substance use worsened broke me. I succumbed to my suicidal ideation after being plagued for 7+ years. I attempted suicide. This time, I meant it. Prior to this, there were non‑lethal suicide attempts I never disclosed to anyone, even those closest to me. As a survivor of suicide, who also suffered from her own suicidal ideation, I was constantly conflicted: I desperately wished to die, but I’d subsequently feel guilty about subjecting my mother to more grief. I didn’t want her to find my body, and I knew what that loss felt like. This time, though, I went too far. Going in and out of consciousness, the guilt of leaving my mother seized me. In a moment where I briefly came to, I managed to dial my mother’s work number. I don’t remember much, but she rushed home, and an ambulance transported me to the emergency room where they stabilized me. A couple days later, I was admitted to an inpatient adolescent unit.
Though I struggled with being stripped of my freedoms and belongings, in hindsight, being admitted into an inpatient unit was the only way to force myself to pause and get my mental health in order. I ran from my emotions for so long, but they inevitably caught up to me. They put me on antidepressants, properly diagnosed me with Major Depressive Disorder and told me about Post‑Traumatic Stress Disorder. I finally had words to describe what felt wrong with me all those years— it was equal parts validation, relief, and terror. Being hospitalized was transformative in many ways, but I told myself that I would never end up in such a place again— that I would never do that to my mother again. It’s been almost 15 years, and I have not made an attempt since. Though the suicidal ideation may wax and wane, I remain afloat.
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Trauma, suicide loss, complex grief, and mental illness do different things to people. I was 10 when my brother died, but I formed unhealthy coping mechanisms that evolved and followed me into my early twenties: self‑mutilation; heavy alcohol use; incessant smoking; putting myself in dangerous situations. My mother tried to put me in therapy, but the first person I saw after my brother’s death was an old, white male therapist who yelled at me and threw me out of his office when I wouldn’t speak. I imagine he saw me as a rebellious, angsty teenager rather than a traumatized, depressed child. A properly trained and competent clinician would have seen through the tough exterior I exuded for self‑preservation. My father was a retired service member, so under his insurance we only had access to military therapists with limited clinical experience with children. The same barriers to mental health treatment from 20 years ago continue to exist today, reflected in problems with health insurance, affordability, accessibility, and availability of a diverse set of properly trained, culturally aware clinicians.
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Following my first negative therapy experience, my aversion and avoidance grew. I feared therapists would instantaneously hospitalize me if I told them the truth about my unrelenting suicidal ideation. I turned inward. From adolescence to young adulthood, I never truly engaged in therapy. It was just my mom and me— I lived for her, and only her, for the next 13 years of my life. Shakespeare said it best: “As two spent swimmers that do cling together/And choke their art.” For so long, we were drowning in our grief, and we were drowning each other.
I found my own personal reasons for living around age 23. I officially “came out”, but I experienced extreme rejection from my mom, whose esteem I had held with the highest regard. She avoided me, wouldn’t speak to me, sent me information on religion and conversion therapy, attempted to “pray the gay away,” and didn’t call me on my birthday. This was the first time since my hospitalization that I seriously considered suicide. The woman I had lived for, for so long, told me I was “disgusting” and that she didn’t need me anymore. I broke down again, but this time, I chose life— for myself.
In graduate school, professors encouraged us to seek therapy to better ourselves as social workers. I experienced one more negative interaction with a therapist here, when I went to the university clinic. I was finally honest about my suicidal ideation, and the therapist looked visibly uncomfortable when I cried and disclosed. Clearly unable to deal, she gave me a list of different therapists and told me to call them to make an appointment. She referred out, immediately. Her rationale: She was a short‑term therapist. She offered no intermediary sessions. Her negligence and rejection may have once sent me over the edge, even a month earlier. Someone experiencing active suicidal ideation and incredible emotional pain likely doesn’t possess the energy or mental fortitude to go through the complicated logistics of finding another therapist. We must do better.
Luckily, I felt well enough to continue searching. I found the right therapist and, despite initial apprehensions, the right type and dosage of antidepressants. As a teenager, they overmedicated me in the hospital, and I eventually stopped taking antidepressants because of the adverse effects. In my twenties, I found a nurse practitioner who actively listened, gave me the proper dose of medications, and helped me gain some feelings of normalcy. I remember the relief and awe, thinking, “Is this what I’m supposed to feel like?” I also rediscovered my love for running and cycling, and I finally felt some reprieve from the shackles of my own mind. Suicidal ideation stuck with me regularly until I began exercising and did intense trauma therapy to rework my maladaptive coping mechanisms and cognitions, and mitigate the guilt I still felt from my brother’s suicide.
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I could write books about my journey. Loss is a universal experience and feeling, but it can feel so isolating. Isolation exacerbated my suicidal thoughts, and trauma affected my brain in many ways. Some vivid, traumatic memories are seared into my brain, but there are also vast periods of time that I can’t remember. My child brain knew it had to protect me, even when others wouldn’t. I understand now that this is how trauma operates.
I could write pages about my guilt, shame, alcoholism, self‑injury, suicide attempts, suicidal thoughts, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and control issues. But those issues don’t feel as pressing anymore. They are still a part of me, but I started swimming again. My brother’s suicide was the catalyst to my career as a mental health social worker, my involvement in suicide prevention advocacy/research, and my work with people experiencing suicidal ideation and crises. I believe that we can shape our own destinies when it comes to grief. We experience loss, but eventually, we can take the loss and make meaning out of it. In this way, my brother is still very much with me.
My story is not extraordinary— it reflects many shared themes, pain and lived experiences of both the suicide bereaved and others who are living with suicidal thoughts. I see you. Despite what your brain might say, even in your darkest and most alienating moments, you are never truly alone. Keep walking through the inky‑black darkness of your immense pain and sadness. I promise the light will inevitably shine through. I’m so glad that I chose life, and though I wish my brother did, I’m no longer angry with him.
Over 20 years since my brother’s death, I’m happy and not just surviving, but thriving. I started my first semester as a social work doctoral student at a prestigious university. I’m researching mental health, intersectionality, and disparities to bolster suicide prevention efforts for our adolescent youth. Combined with training, my lived experience and identity as a “survivor of suicide” guides my work. My ultimate hope is that we, collectively, will create better, more culturally relevant ways of screening for suicide risk, form diverse, effective interventions for individuals in suicide crisis (including the suicide bereaved), and discover ways to treat suicide risk without separation from community.
I wrote something once, about suicidal thoughts and traumatic grief, that still rings true sometimes: “Grief is a strange beast / Whenever I think it’s nocturnal / It springs forth on me during daylight hours / During all hours.” Regardless, I’m better today because of my grief and depression. Not because I ignore it or try to quash it, but because I faced it, embraced it, and wrestled it. I tamed the beast— I made it manageable. My pain no longer consumes and debilitates me. It’s still with me, but dulled, and charging me forward. Yours can, too. Because we are resilient. We are warriors. We are survivors.
