brother attempted suicide, i need support badly

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I got back yesterday from a wonderful trip in idaho to see my long distant boyfriend only to find out on my return home that my younger brother (17) tried to kill himself, for the second time. I didn't feel anything, nothing. I was still happy from my trip and didn't want to come back down. I want to ignore it, i want to believe it didn't happen. I don't know what the hell to do and i've been through too much hell for years to want to deal with it anymore. I'm pretty down today. I'm sad that i won't be seeing my boyfriend till march. I just spent a week and half with him by my side nearly every minute and now suddenly he is not here. It's hard to adjust to that. And to come back to this... I finally spoke a little to my brother and it seemed to be going well so i brought up what happened and he seemed pissed, then he relented and wasn't quite as mad at me for talking about it, bc i told him that mom had to tell me or i would've have known when i walked in the door anyway. I don't know what to do. I've been where he is and he knows that. There's absolutely nothing i can do. I just know that one day i am going to come home and it won't be just an attempt. I am a sick person bc i would be relieved. maybe part of me wants him to die bc then at least i wouldn't be wondering anymore, i wouldn't be afraid of it happening anymore, of the not knowing. That makes me a terrible person, who in their right mind would be relieved at their brother's death. I cried and cried the frist time he attempted and i came home to find his slit wrists. I cried for years. I had a break down myself and ended up seeking psychological help bc of the tremendous stress i had been under bc of it, bc of all the problems it had caused for my family, bc i tried to shoulder it all myself and kept everything i was going through all to myself and let no one help me and ended up trying to end my own life bc i just couldn't take life and all the sh** anymore. This time coming home and finding him on the couch passed out from overdosing on acetaminophen, i felt nothing. I don't think i can feel anything anymore. I've had too many years of suffering to deal with this anymore. I don't know what to do. I can't talk to him, I can't make him feel better, he won't seek help, and I can't help him. I can't even sort out my own feelings....

I think the first thing you should do is take him to the ER and 51/50 him. He needs to go to a Psych Ward right away. He may try again and succeed.
You are not a horrible person. The truth is it would be a relief, but it would also be a relief if he got help, and got better.
I think you really need to get him help, even if he refuses it.

We, my parents that is, tried to get him help the first time he attempted a few years ago. It did no good. He hated us, abused the medication, and refused to talk to a therapist (he just sat in her office each time he went and took a nap, to her full annoyment). By the time my parents found out about the overdose this time it had been in his system for a full 16 hours, so they decided that at that point there wasn't much a a hospital could do for him medically. Luckily he survived (hallucinations, loss of memory for awhile, and upset stomach for the afternoon but he is fine now, back at school and functioning well). My family is at a loss as to how to get him psychological help. I know from my own experience that it is nearly impossible to help someone who does not want to be helped. I eventually sought out the help i needed and learned to function through it, but i couldn't be forced to before that.

Hmm...

Jnet, here's the short version: If he has problems with his family, most likely his family has caused problems for him. If you want to save his life, you have to get at the truth about this, because some strange alien organic cause of his mental breakdown isn't nearly as likely as having been abused.

Or he could just be doped up and warehoused.

I won't go any further with this unless you ask me to. This is the Haven, we are supposed to be safe here, and I don't want to be the one who abuses that. The answers that you are looking for are not easy. They will not make you feel safe or comfortable.

I don't know y i even bothered posting this. There's no way anyone here could possibly understand. No one here knows me, my brother, nor my family. No one in my family was EVER abused. We may have our share of family problems, sure, but this is a good home, good parents, who try to be supportive as they can. But who could possibly have the answers in situations like this. There is no f-ing simple answer, and i think there may be no answer at all. To suggest that anyone in my family abused him really PISSES me off. He abused himself for godsakes. He cut himself over and over again on his arms for years, still does, and i had to walk into my bathroom and see the blood on kleenexes in the trashcan. He hurts HIMSELF. And that HURTS ME. It hurts EVERYONE in my family. We want the best for him, but i am so f-ing helpless to do anything even though i want to so bad. I can't fix this. And shouldering this pain, this burden hurts so bad. You have no idea how many times i have just collapsed and sobbed for my brothers. I love him. And so does the rest of my family. You have no idea what it is like to see your mom cry bc she cannot help her son.

I feel really bad for you. I know that there isn't any answers, nobody really has them.. but you should think of the pain your brother feels a little more than your own. You talk about how it negatively effects your life and hurts 'you', to the point where you'd be relieved for him to just die already so you won't be dealing with it anymore. That makes it harder for me to sympathize with you, but I do know that the pain he is feeling, if it makes him want to not live anymore, must be pretty bad, possibly among the worst pain imaginable if he can't even handle it anymore. You do have the life your living, a boyfriend, etc. and he probably doesn't have any of that.. just feel for him and put yourself in his shoes a little bit. I know that even if you hurt 'for him' it doesn't even help.. it's just a bad situation for everybody involved. But I think it's worst for the person who wants dead or even ends up dead. They have nothing.

Has anyone asked him what's wrong?

The fact that he is a cutter raises some interesting points. Cutters often cut to manifest their emotional pain as physical pain. He could be clinically depressed. Also, maybe there is some horrible thing that heppenned to him that no one in your family knows about. The suggestion of abuse wasn't meant as an attack on your family, I don't think. But it is not unreasonable to suggest that your brother was abused by someone else and he has been hiding it from you for a long time. Just my personal thought.

Anyway, since he is still 17, have your parents thought about sending him to a school for troubled children? My sister-in-law actually works at one, albeit an extremely expensive one. Basicaly it's like a high school where he can continue to get an education and where he can also work on emotional issues as well. I suspect that there are a lot of things that he is keeping bottled up that are causing this behavior. The one where my SIL works is by no means the only one, but the point is that they exist. Maybe that would be the best thing for him. Just my thought again.

Jnet, I was an abused child. I won't go on with this subject.

I'm sorry Remnant, I was very upset last night and wrongly took it out on you. As janicka suggested, whatever happened to him may not have come from our family. I have no idea what has hurt him so much that he'd want to end his life. He won't talk about it. I wish that he would so that i could be there for him. I love my brother very much. Since he won't directly talk to me about what is getting him so down, i have no idea what to look for. Any ideas what i could do to learn the cause or to help him in some way? As i said before, he doesn't seem to want help. The idea of sending him away to get help, either at a special school or to a psych hospital, only make him angry and scared and he feels hurt by the suggestion. He is a very stubborn and closed individual.

Thanks to everyone for posting. I know my posts seemed rude and unreasonable last night and i apologize for that. It's hard to think reasonably in times like these and all ya'lls support and ideas are appreciated.

It's all right. I understand.

The public school that I went to was bad enough to be damaging even if I had had a supportive mother. The abuse there can be incredibly persistent and what still hurt me is being so helpless and used. Schools can and will conceal abuse. This abuse can be by the staff, by other students, or by both.

It's hard to believe that anyone can be like that without someone having persistently abused him, and it doesn't have to be the family. It doesn't have to be the whole family, or his immediate family, either. Does he hang out with someone who abuses him while pretending to be his friend?

Could it be homosexuality?

Interesting thought. I have one friend who is extremely depressed because he is scared to come out.

i dealt with my little brother wanting to comitt suicide when i had custody of him in illinois in the usa its a hard subject but you got to hang in there. just ask him if you can spend some quality time with him and get to know him and then ask him in a nonchalent way whats eating at him. i know im a mom of 8 kids and 5 grandkids and one more grandchild on the way.

Thanks LoneWolf20. He and I used to be best friends growing up, but when we both hit teenage years we fell apart somehow. Reconnecting isn't easy, and it's been an up and down traveling trying to do so. Sometimes i think i am getting closer to him, then it falls apart again. As my grandmother tells me though, it is never too late. I've recently just reconnected with her so i know it is possible.