Personal Development for Smart People Forums - View Single Post - Dealing with the death of my brother...how?!

Elise · 03-01-2010, 06:40 AM

Lynae,
I know you're probably at a much better place with this right now, as your original post was almost two years ago, but I am going through the same thing myself and I just felt like posting what I'm going through to help others who may too come across this feed.

I am 24 years old. Almost three months ago my baby brother was killed in a car accident on his way to school with his best friend. His friend died immediately, my brother was airlifted to the nearest hospital and fought aimlessly for his life. There was nothing the doctors could do. He had irreversible brain damage and too much internal bleeding. I, with my family, spent the worst two days and nights of our lives crying, questioning, getting angry, and feeling hopeless in that small hospital room. We didn't get to say goodbye, he was the baby of our family, he was such a good kid. These were all "rational" questions we had and could never have answered in a rational way. There WAS no answer. He was gone, and there was nothing we could do.

The initial shock was a very tramatic experience, I think for my entire family. We had our share of ups and downs, mostly economic downs in recent years, but there was no history of tragedy, and we were mostly lucky that we lived the lives we did. This was so hard for any one of us to handle, and my father took it the hardest. It was tough to see him break down.

I surprised myself at how quickly I was able to pick myself up and see the positive in the situation. I rationalized it with three beliefs to how the situation was not as bad.
First: my brother had a very short death, and as far as deaths go, it was painless because he didn't have to survive a terrible car crash or say goodbye to the people he loved.

Second: He lived the best part of his life and very happily. He died at 18, but he also will never have to go through the struggles that adults have to go through, and my brother was sort of a late bloomer, so to think of him as forever young was somehow a comfort.

Lastly: There was nothing I could do by being depressed. It was not going to change anything anyway, so we might as well be happy for him, because that's what we would have wanted. Live and let die, I guess.

Those rationalizations lasted me for about a good month. For the last couple of weeks I've slowly been loosing this hope I once had, that things were going to be OK. I'm finding myself becoming more and more depressed. I don't want to be social. Everything around me makes me angry and frustrated. People's problems and complaints seem so petty and trivial and I can't help but be angry at them for their stupid complaints and jealous that I can't have a life with problems as trivial.

I really need some suggestions on what I should do at this point of grief. I have been trying to stay really busy to get my mind off of the situation, but the more I exhaust myself the more susceptible I am to having mental and emotional breakdowns when the grief becomes too strong.

If you've been in this situation before, please let me know what helped. And Lynae, I hope that you are still there, and healthy and that you have managed to move past the death of your brother. My heart goes out to you.

03-01-2010, 06:40 AM	#14 (permalink)
Elise Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Posts: 1	Feeling the same, Lynae, I know you're probably at a much better place with this right now, as your original post was almost two years ago, but I am going through the same thing myself and I just felt like posting what I'm going through to help others who may too come across this feed. I am 24 years old. Almost three months ago my baby brother was killed in a car accident on his way to school with his best friend. His friend died immediately, my brother was airlifted to the nearest hospital and fought aimlessly for his life. There was nothing the doctors could do. He had irreversible brain damage and too much internal bleeding. I, with my family, spent the worst two days and nights of our lives crying, questioning, getting angry, and feeling hopeless in that small hospital room. We didn't get to say goodbye, he was the baby of our family, he was such a good kid. These were all "rational" questions we had and could never have answered in a rational way. There WAS no answer. He was gone, and there was nothing we could do. The initial shock was a very tramatic experience, I think for my entire family. We had our share of ups and downs, mostly economic downs in recent years, but there was no history of tragedy, and we were mostly lucky that we lived the lives we did. This was so hard for any one of us to handle, and my father took it the hardest. It was tough to see him break down. I surprised myself at how quickly I was able to pick myself up and see the positive in the situation. I rationalized it with three beliefs to how the situation was not as bad. First: my brother had a very short death, and as far as deaths go, it was painless because he didn't have to survive a terrible car crash or say goodbye to the people he loved. Second: He lived the best part of his life and very happily. He died at 18, but he also will never have to go through the struggles that adults have to go through, and my brother was sort of a late bloomer, so to think of him as forever young was somehow a comfort. Lastly: There was nothing I could do by being depressed. It was not going to change anything anyway, so we might as well be happy for him, because that's what we would have wanted. Live and let die, I guess. Those rationalizations lasted me for about a good month. For the last couple of weeks I've slowly been loosing this hope I once had, that things were going to be OK. I'm finding myself becoming more and more depressed. I don't want to be social. Everything around me makes me angry and frustrated. People's problems and complaints seem so petty and trivial and I can't help but be angry at them for their stupid complaints and jealous that I can't have a life with problems as trivial. I really need some suggestions on what I should do at this point of grief. I have been trying to stay really busy to get my mind off of the situation, but the more I exhaust myself the more susceptible I am to having mental and emotional breakdowns when the grief becomes too strong. If you've been in this situation before, please let me know what helped. And Lynae, I hope that you are still there, and healthy and that you have managed to move past the death of your brother. My heart goes out to you.