An Empty Chair: Living in the Wake of a Sibling's Suicide

My 23 year old brother killed himself in October and completely threw my family into chaos as it was the last thing we expected at the time. In the first 48 hours, with lots of tears and feeling sick to my stomach, I looked for any kind of book or product or SOMETHING that could help me ignore or process what I was feeling. I immediately ordered this one and started reading it right when it got to my house.What I love about it:-it is RAW. The depth you can feel from the author, during her intro as well as throughout the book chiming in about other peoples' stories, is something I really admire. She talks about things with such gentle objectivity, which is exactly the way I have approached this situation since it happened.-There is a story for everyone and it helped me recognize what support my other siblings might need. Reading the different reactions, ages, relationships, methods, etc. of the different story submissions was eye opening. There were people like me who were very empathetic to their siblings, and people like some of my other family members who felt anger and frustration. And some who were indifferent. Every feeling is valid. It made me able to put aside my anger at others' reactions because even if they felt different than I did, I know that's just part of their journey.-It was written beautifully. I kept a pen as my bookmark so I could highlight anything that stood out to me or I related to (or things I didn't understand). Recently I needed a good cry so I sat down and read through all of my highlighted quotes. It took me 45 minutes because I had highlighted so much.I immediately wanted to share this book with my remaining siblings, but none of them were interested in something this "sad". I don't think it's sad, but there is an extreme depth to it that I don't think I would have even grasped before this all happened. I think if you're coming across this and interested enough to read any reviews, you should go ahead and read it.

This book was very helpful when I lost my twin brother to suicide,A must read for those grieving.

This book was okay. It was helpful because it told real people's stories that were easy to relate to. The writing was bad, there were a several of typos, but the author's intent was good. And it was interesting to read so many people's different reactions to a siblilng's suicide.

It is a very comforting book to read about others that have experienced a similar loss of a sibling to suicide.

After losing my brother, I felt the need to look into suicide and most books tend to be clinical and advisory but just reading these stories and the feelings involved, as everyone is different, I felt the connection to almost all of them and it gave me food for thought in reference to my own brother and his actions of choice. I miss him terribly and this just had so much insight just with feelings alone. That's what I was looking for, not clinical advice and the such.

I purchased this book after my siblings suicide. It helped me to get through the grieving process when I realized that others were also dealing with the myriad of emotions that I was experiencing.

I strongly recommend this for sibling survivors. Will help you cope with your grief.

This book provided good insight into how siblings deal with suicide. It did not leave me with a "feel good" feeling and I hoped for more encouragement. I have not lost a loved one to suicide and I do pray it touches the heart of those who have experienced it.

When I started reading this book I was just very grateful to have the opportunity to read the experiences and feelings of other people who had suffered such a huge loss in their lives. It soon became apparent that I might struggle to find a story that I could relate to my own experience.There seems to be a theme in this book of people who suffered from long standing mental illness or repeated suicide attempts, with the survivors often feeling no great sense of loss or even relief that their sibling is no longer suffering. Relationships are often strained, with sibling in fighting and competition and the siblings perhaps not having a close adult bond. My own experience does not fit into this theme at all. My brother was a healthy, happy, intelligent, successful, charismatic, well loved and highly sociable individual, who was much more socially relaxed and capable than the rest of our immediate family. While he sometimes suffered from dark moods and conflict, we definitely did not see this coming.By the time I finished the book, I wondered if the author had presented a truly balanced view or if her points and conclusions were somehow unconsciously biased due to her own experience and that her own agenda in writing this book may have overshadowed the potential benefit to its readers. However as it is only 3 months since I lost my brother I acknowledge that perhaps my own bias has affected my view.I am glad that I read this book, and while I am not sure if there has been an immediate, conscious benefit to me reading it, I expect that subconsciously it has helped and will continue to help me in many ways.With such a shortage of literature on this specific subject, I would recommend that any sibling survivor reads this book as they may well find it more relevant to their own experience than I did.

My sister died from a deliberate overdose 3 months before I read this book. It helped me not to feel so alone, and every person who has lost their sibling by suicide should consider reading it. Of course, everyone's story is very different but the devastatingly complex and confusing emotions that stay with people even more than 20 or 30 years later after a suicide cannot be underestimated, particularly with siblings, as this relationship can be a lot more complicated than others. This book would also be good for those close to the 'survivor' to try to understand what they are going through. The only disadvantage I felt was that the cases given are all in America and similar books seem to be written in the US so it left me longing to meet with these people and talk about how I felt with them but this would be highly unlikely to be able to happen. It is a shame that similar books are not written by UK authors and then provide details of support groups that perhaps the people featured in it may use.

was ok,but not what i was expecting.