Hugo was 7 years old when his mother committed suicide.

He was 24 when his brother ended his life.

He confides in how he experienced his particular grief.

At the microphone of "La Libre antenna", on Europe 1, he evokes the guilt felt and the need to forgive the one who committed suicide.

TESTIMONY

Hugo experienced two suicides in his family, that of his mother when he was seven years old and that of his brother when he was 24 years old.

He recounts how he experienced his grief, evoking unanswered questions, guilt and the need to forgive the one who committed suicide.

As a teacher, he says he is more inclined to perceive the discomfort of his students.

At the microphone of Olivier Delacroix, on "La Libre antenna" of Europe 1, Hugo confides on the grief experienced following the suicide of a loved one.

>> Listen to Hugo's testimony in full here

"The question of suicide concerns me because my mother opened up when I was seven. Subsequently, my older brother threw himself under a train when I was 24. I often feel that suicide is taboo. There is immediately a distance which is created between the interlocutor and the one who speaks about it. Having suicidal thoughts is taboo. Talking about a person who has committed suicide is taboo. The person close to the suicide ashamed for a very long time. 

My mother committed suicide the day I returned to CE1.

I am a teacher by the way, so all of the school year is special for me.

You will never really find causes, but there were catalysts and facilitators.

My father had a deeply toxic personality that drove his wife to do something irreparable, even though she had two children.

She opened up when I was seven and my brother was going to be 12. Many years later, my older brother developed schizophrenia.

He was interned at the psychiatric hospital in Rennes. 

"

I see suicide as a huge mess

"

To live the suicide for 35 years in my flesh, I see it as a huge waste, at least for those who remain.

For whoever left, maybe that was the only solution.

But for those who stay, there's still a lump forming in their throat, with that feeling of immense mess and nameless guilt.

Guilt leads to self-destructive practices, depression, or questioning the meaning of life.

At best, one can be blocked and have a relatively weak capacity to project oneself. 

Mourning by suicide is very special.

Suicide is multifactorial.

To prefer death to life with the best it can have, to prefer suicide to total estrangement from your spouse, to prefer that, you have to reach a stage of suffering that you don't understand.

It is a suffering that many people share, however, since there are 100,000 suicide attempts per year in France, that is to say one every six minutes. 

"

Suicide pursues you for a lifetime

"

Suicide worked on me because I realized that it haunts you for a lifetime.

It grabbed me as soon as I was 7 and a half, I built myself in it.

From that moment on, we see a lot of things through this prism.

There are a lot of things that you try to reject or put aside, but at the same time it comes back.

I'm a teacher.

I had a student whose older sister had committed suicide.

It made me fall into depression.

When I am faced with suicide scenes, it comes as a greater shock to me than to others. 

A young person who commits suicide may have sent signals.

There will always be people to spot a troubled child, but you can never stop someone from doing something irreparable.

As a teacher who has experienced two suicides in my family, I immediately notice the discomfort in some students.

Maybe I have more antennas than others and I would have less taboos telling a kid about it.

It's up to everyone to try, without being a shrink, to capture the discomfort, allusions, behaviors and a whole host of more or less tangible clues. 

>> Find Olivier Delacroix's Libre antenna in replay and podcast here

I wrote a book called 

Surviving Suicide or Happy Sisyphus

.

I hope this book will find an echo with some.

It is a book that I wanted as a calming, a calming book for people who have experienced grief by suicide.

It is to give them some keys on the questions of guilt and the quest for forgiveness, because you have to forgive someone who has committed suicide.

We must forgive him for leaving and for leaving us with these unanswered questions.

You have to know how to reconsider the act without wanting to succumb to it yourself sometimes.

"