Our new episode of #howtofallapart is up now. Trigger warning, this episode is a conversation about life after suicide. I spoke to my friend make-up artist Eilis Downey, who two years ago lost her sister Lyn, who died by suicide. 

“Knowing Lyn was to love her,” Eilis says. They had lived together, worked together and hung out together. In the aftermath, she said that she didn’t know how to be herself without her sister. But Eilis faced into her loss in a way I think is totally awe inspiring and a hugely helpful roadmap for anyone who has to come to terms with having to live with someone without whom they previously couldn’t imagine their life. She talked about not being angry at her sister. How she got through the first few weeks of grief. Starting counselling within weeks of her sister’s death, because she knew she wasn’t good at talking to the people close to her about how she was feeling, and because she didn’t want her life to fall apart. Trying to find a new normal. Accepting the fact that she might not ever be the same kind of happy again. On accepting a loss. How she wrote a letter to herself making a decision to live her life again. How when you’re grieving there will always be days when you feel sad,  no matter how much time passes. The language we use to talk about suicide. 

“You learn to live without someone. It’s like a really bad break up. You have to figure out a way of moving on without them”.

#podcast #lifeafterloss #lifeaftersuicide