“It was his life if he wanted to end it.” “Why did he leave me?” “He just wasn’t built to withstand the pressures of this world.” “How could he do this to me?” “He didn’t owe anybody anything.” “But didn’t he know just how bad he was going to hurt everyone.” “It was inevitable.” “This didn’t have to happen.”
The thoughts and the grieving process that a suicide survivor goes through is a long and complicated one. And one that never truly reaches a resolution. Like all grief, there is a complex cycle filled with an array of emotions from shock to anger to sadness to contemplative acceptance. But in the case of suicide, the grief cycle is much more complicated because the victim and the cause of death are the same entity. There’s no “Stop drunk drivers” “Cancer sucks” “Addiction is a disease” bandwagon to jump on. There’s no perpetrator to hate or blame or prosecute. There’s no “accident” to chalk up to fate or universal plan. And that is not to minimize the loss of persons via other means but instead to point out the fundamental difference of suicide from any other cause of death. In suicide, the same person you love and miss immensely is the same person who pulled the trigger, tied the noose, swallowed the pills. They did it electively. And it is fucking devastating. There will always be questions. Closure is very hard to find. And as a survivor, once you deal with “you”, then you gotta take on society and their lack of finesse and stigmas surrounding your loved ones passing. See my post on Death etiquette if you don’t want to be that person.
When my brother first died by suicide, after the shock of course, it was the “Why did he leave me?” thoughts that consumed me the most, followed by overwhelming sympathy for the horror that he lived inside his mind.
And then, as I reached my contemplative resolution, I decided that he owed no one. He was single, without children and his life was his own to end, if that’s what he wanted. And I accepted that the battle he fought daily in his mind was not for me to judge and was clearly a miserable one. And I reached an inner peace when I could say to him, “It’s okay. I know you had to go. I know it was too much. It’s okay. I’m okay.”
And then I became a mother. I watched my children grow and develop their own struggles. And like the flip of a switch, my thought-process changed and suddenly, it was all less “okay.” I wondered if my brother ever felt a sense of regret. Does he see how far the rest of us have come? Could he see his nieces and nephews and know what he missed? When he pulled the trigger did he wish he could take it back? The few people that have lived despite their suicide attempt, sometimes speak of feeling instant and overwhelming regret upon facing their death. If he hadn’t been drinking, would the outcome have been the same? Regret, to me, is life’s biggest nightmare. I don’t ever want to live with regret. The idea of my brother carrying the same was painful.
I also no longer viewed my children’s lives completely as their own. I grew them. I birthed them. I nurtured them. And me and my village have invested in them out of endless love. As the suicide survivor that I am, I have told my children, “You don’t ever get to check out. For the love that I brought you into this world with, for the love that your friends and family have carried you through different phases of your life with, for the reason you were put on this planet, you are obligated to continue living, always! I will stop at nothing to get you the help that you need and I will be by your side every step of the way. But you must always choose to live.” But is that fear or logic talking?
Choosing to live isn’t that simple, I know. Mental illness is a dark and complex illness and the stigma that is attached to it, is a heavy one. Even with my history and background in education and nursing, I feel it. I hear the comments, I sense the discomfort, I notice the change in tone of voice when people discuss mental health issues. And it is that stigma, that discomfort, that I believe, is killing people in droves. People with mental illness consistently feel alone and yet I can tell you, on any given night there’s rarely an open bed on the psych unit. As a person who has had to help someone through a crisis, I know I spent hours on the phone to avoid the emergency room. And most psychiatrists in my very populated area have wait lists that are months long. Further more, often the most recommended and more specialized psychiatric practitioners don’t accept insurance. But there are options, there are always options!
According to the CDC deaths by suicide are up 25% since 1999. The numbers were making a steady decline after the Great Depression but started to increase in 1986 and in the last 10 years it has skyrocketed. The statistics start at age 10. Girls aged 10-14 and males aged 45-64 show the sharpest increase. Firearms is most common cause of death. Suicide is now the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. The US! The land of opportunity! The land of the free! The land of milk and honey! Why when we have so much are we choosing to end it all? Whether the decision was impulsive or well thought-out and planned for years, persons who choose to die by suicide almost always feel hopeless. Why are we so hopeless?
Maybe it’s social pressures. Maybe it’s a failing mental health system. Maybe it’s unrealistic cultural expectations. Maybe it’s guns. Maybe it’s social media. I don’t know.
What I do know is that it has to stop. And the “pull yourself up by your boot straps” mentality doesn’t work! We need real solutions. We need real change.
While I understand the risks associated with medications and I don’t believe any pill is an easy fix … correcting chemical imbalances saves people’s lives. And when there isn’t a chronic and biological cause for depression or a mood disorder, sometimes medicine, combined with therapy, helps to bid the time to allow someone to get over a traumatic life event. When people publicly shun medication, they contribute to the stigma.
And if you’re not ready for medication, what is the problem with therapy? Why do people avoid seeing a therapist? I mean, if I had a nickel for every time someone said “Oh we don’t need that!”… “I mean, we’re not there yet.”… or “Oh no, it’s not That bad!”, I’d be a millionare! What are you waiting for!? A crisis?! Are you too good to talk to somebody? An expert in the field? And what does that make me? A headcase? An over-reactor? No, it makes me a sister, a daughter, a mother, who refuses to allow history to repeat itself, who refuses to wait until it’s too late.
My brother’s suicide, my uncle’s suicide and the many suicides I have now been personally made aware of since my brother’s passing have forever changed me. I will never be okay with it. I will never get over it. I will forever know the feeling of loss and regret. And I will forever have questions. But I will never ignore a warning sign. Never will I pass up an opportunity for assistance. Never will I rationalize that “We’re not there yet” or assume that we are better than anybody or immune to tragedy. Never will a person’s mental heath issues be a source of gossip or judgment in my presence. Never will I pass up an opportunity for someone who needs to talk. Further more, I will work to never minimize someone else’s struggle and always try to be kind.
Because where someone else sees a “weird kid,” I see my big brother. The teenager “looking for attention” could easily be my own. Who the world writes off as “crazy,” I know, was once a precious little baby that someone loved. And the old man who has “lived a good life” is my father whom I still so desperately need. My family was The family. None of these statistics are just numbers. They are lives, lives who are loved, whether they accept that or not.
I hope you join me in my work.
And to this note, if you want to help, if you want to make a difference, here are a few small changes that we can make to help to change the societal influences of suicide. In addition, consider donating or participating in Out of the Darkness, a walk and movement to help end suicide.
- Stop saying “committed suicide”, instead use “death/died by suicide”. It helps to remove victim blame. Save “committed” for crimes against society.
- Don’t use the terms “successful” or “unsuccessful” when referencing a suicide attempt. Suicide is never a success.
- Don’t share media posts that announce in the headline that the cause of death was suicide. This perpetuates normalcy as well as creates a hype that statistically leads to imitative behaviors. Teens especially, may look for attention in suicide attempts. Attention called to the act or to the details of suicide can encourage risky behaviors that could lead to suicide.
- Focus on the victims or in the case of suicide, the suicide survivors (the loved ones affected by the suicide). The same way school shootings can be sensationalized by the media (and by us) and then copycatted, suicide too, can lead to imitative behaviors. This is decreased when the focus is put on the pain of the surviving family members/friends instead of the cause of death.
- In moments of exasperation never say “Well just do it then” instead make a phone call and get help.
- Don’t refer to it as “an easy way out”-that can be attractive to those persons who are contemplating suicide.
- Take every comment about wanting to die, no matter how trivial or off-handed or passive aggressive it seems, seriously!
Lastly, don’t take life for granted and don’t ever think suicide won’t affect you. Regret is life’s biggest nightmare, save yourself and those you love by remaining vigilant. And always choose love. I pray you never know the pain of a loved one electing to end their life and I pray that you yourself never feel so hopeless that you consider such an end. But if you do, I am always, always here and I will always maintain your confidence and promise to lend an ear without judgement. You are not alone.
