Surviving multiple family member suicides.

In 1975 I was called to my parents apartment when my mother could not wake my beloved brother and best friend. We were 11 months apart in age (he was 25) and we had helped each other handle a neglectful, alcoholic upbringing. I tried to wake him, called the paramedics, and watched him pass away. This was the one event that caused me to reach out to Jesus for help. I began to go to church. I cried every morning upon waking for three years. At the end of that three years, I was called over to my parents apartment once again when my mother saw my father lying on the garage floor and ran back into the apartment to call me for help. I went over there and found that my father had shot himself in the head in the garage. Since I had prayed every day that something like this would not happen, I also felt the loss of a sense of God’s love and concern for my heart. I couldn’t tell anyone at my charismatic church (about my loss of my relationship with God). My major depression turned into major depression with psychotic features, and I began to hallucinate about the end of the world (at that time in the 1970’s, Hal Lindsey and others were focused on the Great Tribulation and the Mark of the Beast…all so scary for my vulnerability). It was horrible…but I will tell you that at that time, God did a miracle in my emotions and I recovered. Eventually, years later, I became a psychotherapist who helped others with suicidal thoughts. But…during this time of political weirdness and a world-wide pandemic, I find myself revisiting my grief. I realize that there’s no cure. I’m human after all.