Very touching Jason and thank you for sharing this. My father committed suicide when I was 11 years old. My spiritual path is because of that incident and all the wonderful inner exploring. As a child I experienced a lot of death, my mother and grandmother just before my dad. As a result I went into nursing at the age of 18, then became a yoga teacher at the age of 40 followed by psychotherapy and now coaching. I find myself drawn to people who have experienced suffering in one way or another in this lifetime and find so much beauty in them

Jason. I feel for you and can relate to your feelings. My all too young son Jacob took this path just over a year ago and I can share that it has been the most painful and transformative experience of my life. The grief and anger are conflicting. You feel both sorry and angry… not only for the one you lost, but also yourself and everyone around you going through the same suffering. Suicide is the most difficult teacher there is…

I can also share with you while the pain and confusion will never completely go away because as you said… we don’t really know what was going on inside the mind of others… it does get easier… and as a Father who lost the most precious gem in his crown… you hold the gems you still have with more care and reverence.

Yours in healing, strength and love.

Adam

Doesn’t the righteousness we feel when someone we care for commits suicide come about on account of our need to absolve ourselves of any guilt? We need to feel the blame is in their court; that they should have been stronger. So that we don’t have to feel we are at fault. But why is there so much emphasis in our society of guilt and of fault? Sometimes people are simply overwhelmed by despair and depression. Other times it might simply be one single moment’s worth of not having the courage to live out a painful situation. In any event, our society does put a lot of blame around the issue. Churches preach the one who commits suicide can’t be given a church burial, etc. It is not an easy thing to sort out.

The words you wrote, Jason, were ones of insight due to the recent loss but also with your own beliefs from life and experiences. It is the way of each individual whose life is touched by suicide as they grapple with their own set of beliefs, shock, experiences with any loved ones with mental illness and as you mention guilt. Often the guilt may be the overriding emotion which then creates such confusion with the grief. Often it is advisable for the loved ones grieving to consider counseling. Even unsuccessful suicide attempts can cause many mixed emotions, disruptions within families and all the while hoping and praying there won’t be another attempt.

When I was in my late 20’s, a close uncle attempted suicide but was ‘saved’ by excellent Emergency care. With my family background being the British attitude of ‘unless it’s normal look the other way and let’s not talk about it,’ there was a ripple of revulsion, a sense of the ‘act’ as being repulsive by all the other members of the family except myself. As the only RN in the family circle, I was fully aware of those reactions and felt they were not attune with mine. Although through an association which provided skilled counseling was offered through my efforts, after a first meeting it was rejected totally as not being helpful. All the while, my uncle was in a hospital Psychiatric ward refusing to speak to anyone and did not for 6 months during which time he escaped to be found two days later. During these months, while working in a high stress Open Heart Unit at a big city hospital, I was aware of a need for my own counseling and clear boundaries were necessary for myself apart from this family. I could not be the nurse in this situation and with counseling felt justified in maintaining those boundaries.

I give this example because although the conversation about suicide is difficult, often when there is an attempted suicide, there often is not much discussion at all even with those closest to the person who is mentally ill.

My uncle during his first year post his suicide attempt did have many hours of counseling, was compliant about medication but sadly, his close family of a wife and two daughters in their teens, always treated him like he had ‘done’ this to them, embarrassed them with the suicide attempt and did so proving to them, especially the wife, that he didn’t love them. His recovery, to me, proved completely the opposite, but due to the dysfunction in the home, he didn’t maintain his good mental health and lived out his life really struggling with not getting severely depressed again. The support of his family could have existed had they been willing to have more education, more professional support for themselves, even while he was hospitalized. I was the only person in the family who on occasion was able to really talk to him and let him know I had empathy for his illness and loved him despite. The one question I had which caused me to cry on many occasions was the thought of what he did to himself must have hurt so much. He’d slashed his arms over 200 times with a razor blade but did not cut deep enough to hit an artery. When I did ask him after a long friendly talk which was 2 years after the attempt, he said there was absolutely no pain at all during the time of his attempt. This answer was his honest answer and I cannot tell you how his openness with me comforted me those years later.

So, perhaps a lesson I learned is that whether a person commits suicide, or attempts, the love we have for them before this devastating act of harm should remain. The person we love, their goodness deserving of that love remains; it’s the mental illness which causes the suicide or the attempt. It’s not a lack of love for those who they love. If we can realize the love is not diminished, as I did realize with my uncle, it can still be even if the person is gone from our life, we have the memories of the goodness and the love which was shared and treasured.

Maybe that can give hope to those, like yourself, who are left with so many questions. My uncle has now been gone, dying of natural causes, since 2009 and I am proud to know he never doubted I loved him dearly as his niece.