My brother's suicide

On December 3rd 2014 my brother, at age nineteen years of age, used bed sheets as a device of his own self destruction, placed the bed sheets around his neck and jumped off a bannister. This apparently happened from 1 am to 7am in the morning.

He was found in the morning hanging from the bannister dead. My brother was a different person to I. We both liked exercising but he was an extrovert whilst I am an introvert. He enjoyed going to parties and was the soul of a party.

Reactions to the death have been unable to understand, sadness and anger in some aspects.

I've seen tears from people I know and I have seen someone who did not know my brother cry his eyes out. It has been a strange and disturbing experience. People say " I'm sorry" which I do not understand since what is there to be sorry about? The person saying" I'm sorry about the death" has not done anything to be sorry about.

The death was a bit of a cliche in certain respects in that it may have possibly enough been over a woman. This certain woman, the girlfriend is now currently on suicide watch. My parents have had some ill will towards her, I suspect that they need someone to blame, personally I have no ill will towards her since she did not force my brother to kill himself and even if they had a huge argument over whatever one does not commit suicide over it. I suspect it was a moment of temporary insanity and emotional overwhelming that made my brother kill himself. The woman is obviously in a state of torment considering that her boyfriend has killed himself and it has been only twelve days since it occurred.

My brother had no religion, no political affiliations, no spiritual links. He was in essence a sort of hedonist and materialist.

I for one am non-political yet I have an interest in political concepts as an observer and not as a activist, If i were to label myself I suppose I would be considered a sort of Libertarian. I have an academic interest in dark totalitarian ideologies such as Jihadism, Nazism and dictators. I have a fondness for B-Movies and horror movies. I have an morbid interest in certain things. In essence maybe that is my self-defense mechanism.

I as a person would say that my personality is 70% darkness and 30% light. I have an interest in dark things but enjoy light things as well. I can watch Hellraiser, see Hobo with a shotgun as a masterpiece yet I can watch light movies such as Austin Powers, Wreck it Ralph and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

There was no indicators that my brother had anything like depression, he had never attempted to kill himself before or anything like that. Personally I believe his personality was 99% light and 1% darkness. When dark elements such as work, university and other pressures combined with an argument with his girlfriend it became overwhelming and self-destruction was the only way to feel no pain.

Maybe he needed more darkness like I have. The darkness in my personality makes me read about horrible things thus I am more ready to deal with pressure.

I have not cried about his death, maybe that is due to my mind not having fully accepted it and grief not having strucken me fully or maybe it will affect me in a few months time. I suppose I have dealt with the death by writing my plays. The plays are my release.

Maybe I have dealt with it so well due to being a fatalist. It was his destiny to kill himself in such a way. It has all been predetermined and that is how it is.

I saw the body on the day he killed himself at his student housing at university. I travelled to the city he lived at and his face was bluish like a blueberry. His lips were blue as well. Obviously that was due to the lack of oxygen going to his brain when he hung himself.

The funeral I have seen to be a bit like some sort of a sick party. The whole ritual of everybody wearing expensive suits and ties and having some service and food afterwards is disgustingly theatrical. It brings home the fact that people cannot accept their own mortality. It also beings the point that the funeral was not for my brother but for people who knew him, they wanted a theatrical ritual to deal with their emotions and released it at my brother like he was some sort of emotional vacuum cleaner.

I found the service to be insulting due to it being a Christian service. My brother was an atheist yet they give him a Christian service and a Anglican priest speaks about my atheist brother?

To me a funeral is the end. There should be no hymns, no music, no fuss, none of the expenses such as buying the wreath, the huge costs of the undertaker etc. It should not be some sort of other side of the coin to a marriage.

When I die, I want it to be very simple, dig a hole, put my corpse in a sheet or cheap box, put me in the ground and cover the hole with soil. No expensive suits, no undertaker, people in normal clothing and for crying out loud no hymns!

The thing I find ironic is people saying my brother is in heaven, now i'm no religious fellow but a suicide going to heaven? I know what christianity thinks about suicide and it is not positive, I also find sentimental crap such as my brother being with us like some sort of invisible Casper the Friendly Ghost irritating and I have no time to listen to nonsense such as him being reincarnated.

He is dead, he is a corpse. I have accepted the fact and now is the time to move on. This may sound very harsh but quite simply the living are more important than the dead and money should not be wasted on the dead.

I have no anger at him for committing suicide, in this world of commercialism, materialism and soaps people's lives are empty and things become overwhelming. If he had a religion he could have released his emotions through prayer, if he had been political he could have dealt with it though activism but when the empty things in his life did not help him he destroyed himself. It is sad but in the end he made his choices and that is the end of him. Maybe the reasons are unclear as to why he killed himself but his motive for his suicide makes no difference to me. Whatever the reason, a woman, terminal disease, car crash, robbery gone wrong or whatever, in the end the result is the same he is dead.