Friends & Families of Suicides Internet Community

FFOS was founded on September 30, 2000.

Friends and Families of Suicides (FFOS) is an international e-mail group and part of the POS – FFOS Internet Community. The FFOS group was began on September 30, 2000. The group is managed and moderated by volunteers, other members of the group who give their time and hearts to help. Our mission is to offer understanding, support, information and hope to anyone grieving a suicide death.

Send an email to Karyl at memorials2026@gmail.com to ask for an application to join FFOS.

To read notes from some of the FFOS members who have found support from the FFOS community, scroll down to the next box.

Comments from FFOS Members

By Vicki

FFOS was my foothold when I thought I was literally falling off the end of the Earth!i

By Rose, friend of Jenny

Right after my son's girlfriend died, I was devastated. I did not know where to go for help with my own grief let alone how to help my son. That was when I found the grief discussion board and Karyl invited me to join FFOS.

Since then I have found friendship, support and comfort with people who know what I am going through and I was finally able to find  a way to say goodbye to Jenny without totally losing my cool or my sense of self. FFOS has helped me in so many ways, but mostly by teaching me more about suicide and the impact it has on those of us who are survivors....
 

By Susan, Wife of Tony

In my desperation after Tony's suicide to find help, information and answers, I stumbled across the website for FFOS.  I looked at the website and immediately joined the suicide discussion board group.  I was able to pour out my personal feelings, pains, anguish and fears in the postings and received so many responses that were positive and started making me feel better. 

Hey, I was not alone in this, like I thought.  I then joined into the email group and have developed many friendships and so many friends, it is like an extended family. 

Here, I can say what I need to say without anyone trying to tell me I am wrong.  Here, I am able to help others if by other way than posting about my own grief.  Here, I am able to read other's posts and realize that I was thinking that all along, but was afraid to say it.  Here, my healing started.  Here, I belong.  Here, my life after Tony's suicide began. 

God Bless each and every member of FFOS.  Reluctantly, we all join the exclusive club we are in, but joyfully, we pull together as a unit and hold each other up.  Here is life, love, sadness, sharing, laughter, kindness, compassion and above all FRIENDS and FAMILY...

From Andrea, Daughter of Melody

When my mother killed herself my perfect little world was shattered. I desperately was needing someone to talk to, someone who could understand. My family and friends have tried to support me. They tell me how to grieve, and what I should think, and how I should act.

But how could they even begin to fathom what I was going through? They had never lost a loved one to suicide.

Alone and heartbroken I began to search the internet for online support groups, that was when I came across FFOS. I was immediately relieved in a sense, because after I started recieving responses I realized these people did understand. And I didn't feel so alone. I've made several friends and I have a lot of support here. I know that if I'm having a bad day, they will be here to listen. And they don't judge me or critize me for what I say or what I think. They are just there helping me along the journey. I appreciate that more then words could say.

From Brenda, Aunt of Matt

FOS has helped me in so many ways. It's a wonderfully safe place for people in their initial grief to come, not be judged, and learn from others that they can become functional again after the terrible loss they have suffered.

I need to count myself as one of the very broken people who came in to FFOS, with my heart in my hand, and through the intervention I experienced within the group, and the compassionate conversations I've had with other FFOS'ers, I've become as whole as I possibly can, given the hurt and heartbreak I experienced through the loss of my nephew Matt.

FFOS has made it very effortless, and meaningful to memorialize Matt, through two cookbooks, the wall, decals, tiles, etc. It's through these living memorials that I can keep his memory alive in a significant manner.

I've spent time reading very heartfelt, compassionate, well written memorials of FFOS's group members. I learn each time that I read one, and feel pain for those whose journey is just begining, I feel blessed that I found FFOS when I did. Inside this forum, I have learned so much and met others in the same situation as myself--we've lost someone that we care about so deeply.

FFOS is also a safe place to grieve. This is a hugely important task. Sometimes when my grief has been so overwhelming, the guidance that has kept me from making poor decisions has been in place.

From Robin, Wife of Louis

Suicide......something that always happens to other people. That is how I felt before my husband took his life.

I quickly realized suicide doesn't always happen to other people...it happened in my own family and I had never been educated about suicide or being a suicide survivor. I found I no longer knew how to live my life - because everything was different and I was now one of those other people.

FFOS helped me to learn there is no shame in being a suicide survivor and most of all...that I was not and AM not, alone.

FFOS was my beacon of light in my suicide survivor storm. It was my lifeline, my support, my safe place and my refuge when I was so battered and broken I couldn't survive in the world as I knew it.

I found support, understanding, compassion, companionship, education, love and friendship which all helped me to build the strength from within myself to face the world again and to know, not just hope, that I could live a happy life and be a suicide survivor.

I can't praise the FFOS group enough! They have not only become my Friends - they are my Family due to a suicide.

From Sr Mary Fides Realubit, OCD, Sister of Eugene

I lost a brother to suicide and it was only six years later when I finally come to grips with the truth of how his death was affecting my whole being.

FFOS gave me the space to slowly come out in the open. As a Catholic Nun it was not easy even with my own self to be simply honest about my feelings. I had too many "spiritual jargons" and I didn't want to "offend" God by articulating what was in my heart. I was trying to be the nice catholic who kept on convincing myself that I was OK as spiritualize and cope "alone" with my harrowing pain.

FFOS allowed me to be real, to be true and to be honest enough to really feel my feelings and say whats in my mind without protecting an "image" of one who is a nun and is supposed to have understood it all in terms of faith and everything. The raw honesty and the support of each one in this group is something I really feel grateful about. I realized it was okey to open my bleeding heart and trust that healing would come as I share with men and women who knew exactly where I was coming from. They saw what i saw and felt what i was feeling.

This loving family "companioned" and is still companioning me as I journey through life, though forever marked with the suicide of a beloved brother I am walking on a different shore now . I used to think it would always be dark.that my guilt and sorrow wouldnt end...I was wrong... though we never remain unscathed... healing, forgiveness, acceptance....new life is possible. I believe with all my heart that God and my brother, Eugene led me to FFOS.