Brothers Lost: How I Found Meaning After Tragedy

By Emily Alvarez

Dennis Gillan

Stories of lived experience can be used to fight the stigma of mental illness and suicide and to help get people involved in the movement. These journeys humanize the suicide prevention movement and help other people seek help. This series on lived experience is a great chance to highlight a loss survivor’s story and the search for meaning after loss.

Dennis Gillan is a mental health advocate and inspirational speaker as well as a friend to our organization. He lost both of his brothers to suicide eleven years apart. This November, we want to focus on lived experience and share stories of finding meaning from loss and despair. This is his story:

I lost my older brother Mark in 1983 and my younger brother Matthew in 1994 (insert curse words here!).  Mark could fix almost anything.  Neighbors would drop off electronics and he would repair them.  I really wish he could have hung in there to see the computer revolution come along. 

Matthew was the punk little brother we all loved.  He was seven years younger than me and only 13 when our older brother died.  Mark was 21 when he died and Matthew was 23….too young.  Mark and I had our sibling rivalry going and were often tangled up in some sort of mess, while Matt was the one I could transfer all of my knowledge to---and there was really not much to transfer, but we shared a love for sports especially lacrosse.  I used to put him in the goal and shoot on him---no wonder he became a goalie for the team. 

Mark on the back porch

With my older brother, Mark, I was at college over 8 hours away and I came home, did the funeral, and headed back and pretended nothing happened.  

Bad move. 

I kept all the emotions in and drank heavily…horrible combination. And the fact that we were not talking about it may have cost us Matthew.  The entire family should have sought out some form of therapy to help us cope with this loss, but we just went on.  

When Matthew died I was married and still drinking a fair bit.  That all stopped with his loss and I have been sober for 22 years.  And after Matthew’s death I sought out counselling through an EAP and that made a big difference.  Sobriety and counseling is what I preach today when dealing with any loss. 

I have done a couple of things to help me make meaning from this loss. I worked on the 800-273-TALK line while in Batavia, IL under the tutelage of Stephanie Weber. This was very helpful for me and for the people calling in.  Someone who knows what a loss due to suicide feels like is the perfect person to answer the phones!  

Matthew in third grade.

I am now involved with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention here in South Carolina and this alliance has enabled me to lobby at a federal and state level for better access and more money for mental health and this has been really enjoyable.  We are making headway and hopefully this will help us make a dent in the number of completed suicides. 

One is too many----over 42,000 is ridiculous and we ought to be ashamed at this number as a country!  

The final and most impactful way I take meaning from this loss is to take my story on the road and share it with anyone who will listen!  The talk is great, but it is the conversations afterward that often blow me away.  Everybody is going through something…..we just need to talk about it more! 

After years of sitting on my hands and doing absolutely nothing, I started to talk about my brothers and my experience of trying to get back on my feet.  Every time I speak about them I feel like I honor them and the last school I visited had over 800 kids show up for this talk!  It helps me to remember them by sharing this story in the hopes that no one else will go through what I went through----twice. 

Mark and Matthew on the porch

Mark and Matthew would be most proud of what happens when I walk off stage and the real conversations about mental health start!  I’m not an expert on mental health issues, but I am a pretty good conversation starter and when I get done showing people that I am vulnerable, the temperature drops in the room and people start to share their stories. And when this starts to happen, the healing starts to happen too for all of us! 

My advice to give someone who has recently lost someone to suicide is to hang in there, sober up, and go see a professional.  There is no stigma in asking for help and there is strength in vulnerability.  Everything you will feel will be normal and it will range from intense anger to deep sorrow and everything in between.

The effects of a suicide loss are long-lasting and far-reaching. Many survivors look for ways to make meaning out of their loss and celebrate the life of their loved one. There are many wonderful organizations that provide life-saving suicide prevention programming. The Carson J Spencer Foundation elevates the conversation to make suicide prevention a health and safety priority. Through a variety of prevention programs, Carson J Spencer Foundation is changing the face of suicide loss. Whether you partner with our organization, or another, we encourage you to get involved. Giving a gift, in memory of a loved one lost, can help create the meaning that so many seek. For more information, please visit www.carsonjspencer.org.