LIFE AFTER LOSS BY SUICIDE
Learning to live without my sister
Becky Noblet
O
n October 27, 2007, Becky Noblet’s life was forever
changed. That was the day her older sister Jodi died by
suicide.
The years up to her passing had been characterised by the
instability that is a common pattern in Borderline Personality
Disorder, the disease Jodi had been diagnosed with three
years earlier. Despite the chaos that had preceded her
passing, there was no way to prepare Noblet, her family or
her friends for the loss of her sister, an experience which she
explains as the most painful thing she has ever gone through.
Noblet would enter the complex world of grief that this type
of death brings. The grief that comes from losing someone to
suicide is often complicated, and as individual as the person
experiencing it. “The first feeling I felt when Jodi died – and I
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was so mad at myself for feeling this – was shame… And then
I almost had this feeling of relief for her, that she’s okay now,
she’s no longer in pain. And then, I almost felt kind of happy
for her, and then felt guilty about that. And then I felt angry,
and I started to blame people in my life. And it was so many
emotions that I didn’t understand and I couldn’t control it.”
“I just need to talk about what happened to her,” Noblet
explains.
“I don’t know why, but I needed to tell people, ‘She jumped off
a bridge, and she jumped off this bridge that my family used
to walk under, and this bridge is really high, and I wonder
what she was thinking when she jumped off of it.’ But I would
never say that to anyone because it was something I didn’t
think anyone could hear.’”
Canadian Mental Health Association – Calgary Region
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