Seven Years Later: A Therapist Losing a Sibling to Suicide

Seven years.

It’s such an oddly weighted amount of time accompanied by a life-changing experience. Character changing. Long enough for some wounds to graduate to scars, and short enough that I can still vividly remember the tone of my mother’s voice at 3 AM. She was worried about me. I was worried about her. As a therapist, I’ve evolved alongside many others through grief, trauma, and the unyielding gnaw of loss. No one could prepare me, personally or professionally, what it was like to lose someone you love to suicide. It broke down barriers of what I thought and I knew and the reality.

Grief in its purest form is not linear. Grief because of suicide lives in a horror story of its own. There are no answers. There is nothing to compare or rhyme with it. There is no way but through. It is a grief that erodes what you thought you knew about love and loss and transforms it. For seven years, I have been both the grieving sister and the therapist, an AAMFT Approved Supervisor, and a mentor to others in this field. I’ve sat in my therapy office, virtual and otherwise, helping others walk a path I now intimately share. After seven years, there is still survivor’s guilt. It isn’t filled with torment anymore. It has become familiar. It doesn’t bounce off the walls in echo format in an empty room where no one is there and no one can answer the, “Why?”

In the Early Hours

Three hours after I found out my brother died by suicide, I went to work the next day. Yes, as a therapist. And not because of what you would think like denial. I had been grieving Luke’s potential loss for years, so it was more complicated yet crystal clear of one thing. I needed something to feel normal. I have since received my Grief Specialist Certificate and learned about something called instrumental grief. Utilizing a loss, processing it primarily through cognition, and channeling it. The ethical guideline for care to patients is we are human and things happen yet those cannot spill over into the therapy room or to our patients in a way that steals from their care in any capacity. Oddly enough, from 8 AM-noon, I still think that is the most present and mindful I have been with patients in my entire career of almost 2 decades. Those 4 clients got the best of me that morning, when the worst tragedy had just struck.

In the Early Years

The fog is something no one tells you about. The anxiety from your core beneath your skin that cannot be touched. I petitioned my nervous system to regulate and focus yet this experience: No skills worked. Time became something I held onto with my being. I wore my professional identity like armor. My inner perfectionist performed, what she does so well in times of chaos. It gave me something to do when I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The random surges of emotion that tidal waved into my brain and body, I had to accept it like an automatic habit. Feel it, let it happen, sob, and move on. My successes in the years after the loss, gave people around me a way to see me as "strong." I was tired. There was no amount of specialty training that protected me from the truth that my brother was dead by his own hand.

In the Later Years

Seven years later, it still hurts. The best advice I received from my cousin, “It never gets better. Don’t let people lie to you.” What he meant was that the frequency shifts and changes, yet the intensity never gets better. When I miss Luke, I relive that same pain as when I received the call. I no longer double take at the word “suicide.” Although, I still pause in memory when friends or clients share they lost a sibling, or a family member close to them. I rarely explain what happened, just that I lost my older brother. Yet seven years later, if people ask, I share. If they say, “I am sorry,” I no longer get upset with that. I just say, “Me, too.” I am unsure if I share for them or for me, though. I point less fingers at the causation and see correlation. I don’t make excuses for the impact things had on him like trauma, substance use, the high IQ that got him caught in his own thoughts, the failed legal and mental health system, or the people he surrounded himself with in his final months. Because? He’s still gone. Some days, I let the truth become raw, real, and unadorned. Other days, I soften the edges. Evolution after losing your sibling to suicide, I’ve learned, is less about “getting over it” and more about learning which version of the story your heart can hold today. We don’t move on. We adapt.

There are unpredicted moments of grace now. I see him in clients who are fighting for another day. I hear his humor in my nephew's voice. I get to spend time with him every June 19th to celebrate his life as I am eating sushi. I adopted his dog, Friday, as my final promise to him. She’s 15 now and I can hear her snoring as I write this. I see his joy in her hops and ear to ear smiles. I have a deep conviction to do well by my clients and their families more than ever before. I still don’t work harder than they do, yet I have a deep understanding when a family member wants to. I have a keener intellect in seeing pain in people who “have it all.” I hold space for people like golden layered narratives. And most of all? I say no so much more. I prioritize my nervous system. And nothing will come before my loved ones at home. These things are such easy choices now.

Someone asked me recently what I still grieve most. Growing old with him. National siblings day. People who laugh like him. Losing his dog, my dog, Friday.

If you’re researching how to support someone you love who lost a sibling to suicide: Here are some helpful hints from one person on this globe. There’s nothing to fix because death is unfixable. They will not go back to who they were, it’s impossible. We don’t move on, we adapt. Ask them if it’s a day to celebrate or a day to mourn. Both of those are forms of grieving. And please don’t forget to check-in with them. We understand it’ll be less frequent yet there’s something unsettling as rarely anyone reaching out after the first couples months. There’s no way but through, so sit with people. Yet if they’re sitting in it so long they’re not eating, drinking, or finding a will to live? Go bring them dinner and sit in silence. If you’re far away? Buy them a gift card for delivery.

If you’re researching this topic because you lost your sibling to suicide? The above still applies. The fog and anxiety are as real as your fingertips. Anniversaries and birthdays are forever changed, but they’re not as hard. That ache is less sharp. It’s definitely a scar rather than an open wound. And the most important: It’s okay to laugh again. It’s okay to evolve. It’s okay to say you became a better person from a loss. A better therapist. A better sister. A better daughter. A better friend. Most importantly: A better you for you. It doesn’t mean you’re thankful for your sibling dying. It means you’re grateful you see there is life beyond tragedy. Please try not to lose your faith in people. Because during tragedy? People need people.

Seven years later… I still miss him. I always will.

We are never the same having known that kind of love, and forever changed because we lost them.

In Honor and Memory of:
Luke T. Pavilonis
Adventurer | Son | Brother | Best Friend
11/12/1979 - 6/19/2018

My entry in his online obituary page from 2018 and it still holds true today: “Anne Totero says To my brother and my soulmate. My best friend. My book end. You lived life to its fullest and showed me what true love and respect is. You loved vulnerable beings and loved so hard it hurt. And you loved harder. The world will never be the same. You were and forever will be one of the good ones. I’m so lucky to have known you.

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If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, please call 9-8-8 or call someone for help right now. Don’t wait. You matter. Reach out.