I have just a few things to add. First it's heartbreaking to read about your suffering. That amount of loss is unbearable so PTSD is very possible. Read Judith Herman's book, when you can, about all kinds of trauma. Any exposure to things that overwhelm you can cause PTSD, but especially things like tragic events over which you have no control.

I myself experienced the suicide of my first true love, completely unexpected and I was blamed for it because we had had a disagrement just before. He did it on his birthday, which also was Easter Sunday. Even though I was just 18, I still feel the loss and always take that day off to do something in honor of his memory.

Later in my life I decided to volunteer as a suicide prevention and crisis counselor on a hotline. The training was excellent and profoundly moving. One of the things we learned is that when you have known someone who has committed suicide the likelihood that you yourself have a possibility of feeling that way increases 40 times! That's how powerful it is. We were instructed when assessing for lethality to ask a suicidal person not only about their own previous attempts but also about their experience in knowing anyone else.

We also had lots of training in grief for survivors, who would often call. Grieving and mourning is often blocked with PTSD. Part of recovery from PTSD is being able to enter into the process of the pain of loss, which is unsafe at first because it feels too traumatic or "frozen in time." Grief is painful but healthy. And it tends to follow a pattern of stages that most people share, so one of the best ways to deal with it is in grief support groups so that you are around people who are in similar situations but often at different stages of the process. This is something that individual therapy can't really provide as well as a group can, although individual therapy is certainly helpful regardless.

I have myself tried suicide in the past but never really seriously. It was more impulsively trying to dull the pain. When you are in a lot of pain, this seems like a very understandable reaction. Part of you wants to live without pain so it is like a strange version of self-mercy to put the part of you in pain out of misery.

That is what I learned on the hotline. People who called really didn't want to die. They just wanted the pain to end. When they realized that, they started connecting to things that mattered to them and reemerge attached to meaningful things that got them through. No suicides occurred on my watch, but occasionally I had to call in the police for uncertain cases, usually with someone who was too intoxicated to establish that they were going to remain safe. I hated doing that. I have had it happen to me and hated it, but in the end, I learned something about how the system fails people. There simply isn't enough decent and humane care out there. That is a major reason why I decided to become a psychologist myself. There is a major need and people need the help. Since I know something about it, I feel committed to it in a deep way.

I would encourage you to seek a group for loss or grief. Also one of the things I did is start doing some writing about my experiences. I started with journals but ended up publishing poetry. Transforming the experiences with activities like this helped a lot. And a journal and pen is way cheaper than seeing a psychiatrist.