Welcome to our group and website, LISOS (Long Island Survivors of Suicide). We’re sorry you had to seek us out. Actually, none of us ever dreamed of joining a support group like this either. What brings us together is our common experience of suffering the devastating loss of a loved one by suicide. We are like other mourners in feeling overwrought with the unbearable sadness and emptiness from loss.

Yet, compared to others who grieve for lost loved ones, we are different. What sets us apart as survivors of suicide is our relatively unique experience of being racked by guilt, shame, feeling anger toward our departed loved one and an assortment of other intense feelings. We are also totally shocked and mystified that a person we loved and thought we knew so fully could ever commit suicide. Other mourners usually don’t deal with some of our issues.

We have entered this place from different paths. Some of us felt our lives were idyllic and believed the future would only bring more joy and fulfillment. For others, life was an endless roller coaster of psychic ups and downs. Yet, even those of us who struggled with an impaired family member always held onto a ray of hope that our loved one could eventually get better.

Now, no matter where we came from, we are all together: dreams shattered and our future, one of enduring pain and longing. Yet, in our support group, with others who have sustained similar losses, we know we can comfort and support each other and move beyond our initial feelings of intense shock and pain to a more comfortable place.

Our support group, with the mutual aid of its members, helps us find the inner strength to repair our lives, to find meaning again and to receive and give love and comfort to those who depend upon us.

We all share the common experience of suicide loss and we are convinced that this similarity between us will enable us to draw strength from each other. We are confident that together, with the aid of each other, we will cope better with our losses and, once again, find some joy in the future.

Group Co-Facilitators:
Bill and Beverly Feigelman

181-34 Aberdeen Road
Jamaica, NY 11432

718-380-8205 or 8206

Bill’s email: feigelw@ncc.edu
Bev’s email: bevfeigelman@gmail.com