Suicide Grief
I mentioned in a recent episode that I would talk about the grief that comes to us as a result of a suicide.
For a long time I have ascertained and maintained that grief is grief. It doesn't matter so much what brings it to us as it does what we do with it once it arrives. However, in researching this further I realize that the grief that comes as a result of suicide is unique in many ways.
I know there are 'loss specific' support groups and I do believe it can be helpful to be in a group of individuals who have suffered a similar experience. One of the more sought out groups are those that are for parents who have had to bury their children. Parents in these groups have lost children of different ages and in different ways but they are all parents who have had to bury a child and that act alone goes against everything we think is natural. Somehow, as we grow up, we have this idea (if we think about it at all) that we will bury our parents and that our children (if we have any) will bury us. When that vision is rudely assaulted by the death of a child the complete inside out disruption of the life we were living up until that point is hard to find words for. So having a place where you think you might find others to be with where nothing really even needs to be said because you know they get it, can help. It can help get us through some of the darkest days, weeks and months.
I have seen, with parents I've worked with, that when a child dies, the grief is some of the most complicated grief a human can know. And when a child dies by suicide the layers of complicated, agonizing, eternally life alternating emotions just simply defy language.
I would never want anything I might say to sound as though I am minimizing anyone's grief. I know, too well, that grief is one of those things we know, as living beings, that we often, and in my opinion foolishly, wish we didn't have to know.
Grief is born of love. We do not grieve, what we do not care about. And the deeper the love, the bigger the grief when it is lost.
As humans, once we know grief, and trust me, we come to know it at a very early age, we carry it always. Not in the acuity we have no choice in initially, but in that vaguley disguised way that actually enriches our lives. And again, please understand that I would never suggest to an acutely griefing person, that what they have expedrienced could ever possibly enrich them. But it can. In the twisted metal of the wreckage left behind when someone we love dies unexpectedly and without warning, and we find the help we need to process the pain and to understand the grief, that loss can help make us better people. More compassionate people. More understanding people. The wounds scar over and we are forever changed, and, we can, eventually and with help, take the experience and try to make something good from it. No significant loss in our lives goes away. It becomes part of the fabric of who we are.
If you have ever lost someone you care about to suicide, you know that the grief is always complicated by things that do not necessarily accompany other kinds of losses. Things like, guilt, as though, we, somehow, might have been able to prevent that person from robbing us of their life. And responsibility, as though we should have or could have known what we did not know, as a way to keep that person alive. If the person who died, left a note or a letter, and you are privy to what it says, there are instances where blame was laid at the feet of one or more of the survivors. That is a complication not wished on anyone. If there is a note left that tries to absolve anyone from any responsibility or blame, it rarely works. I think there will always be the nagging question of what else could have been done.
An additional complication is for the person or persons who first find the body. And the trauma of that moment. If the death was by a violent means, the carnage can never be unseen by any eyes that see it. These are unique circumstances that absolutely impact the grief process for those involved. When someone dies by suicide, it's very normal to experience a sense of rage. A very long time ago, a dear friend lost her husband to suicide. I had not known him well. And I remember feeling such visceral rage at what he had done as I was bearing witness to the grief his death was inflicting on my good good friend. She mourned him loudly and deeply the night of his death. Bearing witness to that much suffering in someone I loved, knowing there was nothing I could say or do to make it otherwise, knowing she had to move through this in her own time and in her own way, left me feeling helpless which just added to my rage. And I will always remember her walking me to the door that night and saying to me “Sean, please do not be angry with him. I alone knew the demons he lived with and I am not angry with him.”
I marveled at her strength and her ability to forgive. I have thought of that moment hundreds of times since that night. We are still friends although we see one another rarely these days, she still holds him in a place of reverent understanding. She misses him and she admits to once feeling really pissed off that he wasn't somewhere she was to enjoy something with her that she knew he would have loved but she has never held what he did against him. She has never blamed him for the pain she has had due to his absence. Sadly, I think she is among the minority of people who can have that kind of understanding. But maybe, with enough time passing, others who grieve the loss of a loved one due to suicide, can somehow soften to the idea that we don't know what sufferings another person carries. We don't know how it feels to be in their skin. And in that, maybe being able to carry the grief in a slightly different light.
There is no doubt at all, that the grief that comes as a result of suicide is lasting. And complicated and deep and life altering. But so is the grief that comes from someone dying of cancer, or the grief that comes with someone dying in a car accident, or a house fire or intentionally at the hands of another person.
I am not minimalizing suicide grief. It has unique and difficult to process circumstances that come with it. It is shrouded in shame and judgment. Death by suicide is not accepted by some religions as that person then being worthy of receiving the sacraments and rituals normally offered uopn death. Families are denied the right to bury their loved one where they want them buried. What does that do to a family? On top of already suffering the loss of their loved one, turning to the place they may have always found refuge from suffering, to then be denied entry. Compounding the layers of complicated grief.
In speaking with people about their own experiences in loss by suicide, I have learned that every suicide has it's own unique set of circumstances that then influence heavily the ability for each person who was touched by that loss to move forward in their own lives. I feel a great sadness in my heart for the countless numbers who have carried, in silence, the sorrow of suicide. It is a self perpetuating injustice that suicide is seen as such a shameful act. That if this is how someone has died, it must be hidden and swept under the rug and not talked about in the family.
I'm unsure at this point, how to move forward in this episode on suicide and grief. I feel it in my bones, that there is more to come. That this will open dialogues and conversations that I can only hope will help make a difference in someone's life who may be suffering silently in their grief because it is from losing someone to suicide.
There is help. There are places where this can be talked about. Places where talking about it is welcomed and encouraged and understood. If you are that silent sufferer, please get help. Please reach out to someone and ask where you can get the help you need to process suicide loss. No grief is grief that we need to try to do alone. And all grief is grief that can be dangerous if we think we have to carry it in silence and alone.
Thank you for listening. I hope you will join me again Where the Veil Grows Thin.