My Nonprofit Reviews

Before the Alliance of Hope for Suicide Loss Survivors, there was little help available for this population, certainly not the 24/7 care and support that the community forum provides, certainly not readily accessible information for which I was desperate. It was a lonely, dark time in my life.

Now, as I serve in the organization, I know what new survivors are feeling when they stumble in. I understand how difficult it is for them to believe they can experience any healing. And how alone they are.

Because of AOH, I can help. One step at a time. By shining a little light for them. All our lights together make it possible to change one life after another. To offer hope that they can make it.

But I do think of those who do not find us. Those who are still hurt and alone in that terrible grief. And I hope the Alliance can continue to reach out into the world.

The Alliance of Hope for suicide loss survivors helped me recover following the devastating loss of my husband. Losing someone this way is the beginning of a journey that most people don’t understand. I’m grateful this organization allowed me to heal and grow in my own way.

I was in shock and broken when I found the Alliance of Hope. Life as I knew it was over. But people there understood what I was going through. They showed me how to live again. I don’t know how much that is worth in dollars, but to me it was worth a lot. Everything.

Every day the volunteers and members at this nonprofit save lives and bring hope and light to those who have lost precious loved ones to suicide.

Knowing this dark pain firsthand, we help each other rebuild lives all over the world just using the power of words. When others don't understand, when they turn away, the people here are ready to listen, to support.

Suicide traumatizes those left behind, and the Alliance of Hope for Suicide Survivors provides a safe, nonjudgmental atmosphere for them to heal, often the only such place in areas where support resources are limited or stigma creates impenetrable boundaries of isolation. The clinically moderated forum, blog, and Web site are lifelines, often called "sacred spaces" where healing can and does take place though that may seem impossible to survivors at first.

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I lost my dear husband of 33 years to suicide in 2007. When he ended his life, he ended the only life I had known as an adult. I felt so alone. When I found the Alliance of Hope for Suicide Survivors, I found other people like me, people in pain offering hope to each other. Hope was all we had, but it was what we needed. Now, five years later, I volunteer as a forum moderator. Every day I try to hand out hope to people who are hurting because I remember what that pain feels like and how alone I felt. And I see how strong this Alliance has made me now. When I read posts, I often send replies for hours because, well, who do you leave out? The mom who suddenly found out that the son she loves killed himself? The young person whose friends don't understand why she can't just "get over" her mother's death. The man who lost his only sibling? The fiance whose future is ended before it's begun? The widow my age who writes my own story when she tells about her tragedy? The rest of the world doesn't know how many nights we suffer. They don't see the tears we feel we must hide from them just to make it until the end of the day. They are not aware that we were once like them and that they might one day be one of us. If that happens, I pray the Alliance will still be there. Hope is a fragile commodity but, without it, where would any of us be?

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When my husband's personality changed, after 28 years of marriage, I didn't know what was happening. For over five years after that, we tried to get help from doctors of every kind, from professionals in seven counties in two states. Even after I learned that my precious soul mate, a man who had been only gentle and kind, was struggling with mental illness and alcohol addiction, none of the reading and research I did or the courses I took or the support groups I joined prepared me for losing him to suicide. When it happened, in 2007, I was utterly alone in my shock and grief. Though I was surrounded by loving family members and counseled by a professional in private sessions, no one could really help me. No one, that is, until I found an online group called The Alliance of Hope for Suicide Survivors. I had tried other groups. My local Survivors of Suicide group disbanded after a year, and other online groups did not offer what I needed. The Alliance of Hope was different. I joined in September of 2008, about nine months after the group was founded. What impressed me then was not only that the founder and moderator had professional training and clinical experience in counseling people in traumatic grief but also that she had lost a loved one to suicide. She knew my darkness. No matter the day or the hour, I could turn to the forum and read what this quickly growing number of fellow sufferers were posting. I could see I was no longer alone. In reading about their pain, and in sharing my own, I began to heal, but the journey we are all on is not an easy one. Few people understand what it is even like or that it is a journey measured in years, not months or days. We are forever changed, in fact, and do not have the luxury of going back to lives that have been irrevocably demolished. The guilt, confusion, misinformation, heartache, questions, and the enormity of being left without a life and disconnected from even the physical world for a time is overwhelming to new survivors. The pain cannot be imagined. How was I to go on? What was to become of my children? When would the nightmares end? I received help with all of these issues and so many more from the leadership and members. This is a group no one wants to need, but the statistics on suicide are staggering. People from all over the world are members of The Alliance of Hope because suicide crosses all geographic, national, racial, ethnic, economic, political and social boundaries. No one is immune.

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