by Erin Carl, LMFT, Specialist in Suicide
Every year, when September rolls around, I think very critically about my role in Suicide prevention. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, and I always hope that others are thinking about their role in this as well.
But this time around, I am thinking mostly about the survivors of suicide loss.
Suicide grief is a complex and even traumatic grief. It’s unlike any other type of grief. I remember in grad school when I wrote yet another paper on suicide, but more specifically about suicide grief, and as I was spending hours and hours of time researching this, I mostly found research articles lumping traumatic suicide grief in with homicides, car accident deaths and SIDS. Though the three latter are incredibly traumatic and horrible griefs, it seemed to me that “one of these things is not like the other”—suicide. Suicide is the only one on this list that includes the element of volition and premeditation on the part of the deceased.
Suicide leaves us with unanswered questions that echo and ache. There is a sense of urgency, but nothing to do with that sense. We replay these questions and regrets in our minds endlessly. While others receive the typical support—the positive comments and messages about their loved ones, the pats on the back with words such as “you did everything you could”—those of us who lose someone to suicide are often met with blame, shame, avoidance, platitudes and unhelpful statements.
I remember going to the Out of the Darkness Walks (honoring those we’ve lost and working to protect those still among us) and thinking, “this is the only safe place we have to talk about this.” The fact is, suicide holds so much stigma forged for centuries and based in fear of the inexplicable that we simply have no regular safe space to talk about our loss or about suicide in general. Of course, as with any deep-rooted stigma in our society, this means we have internalized some of that stigma. This presents a huge challenge when grieving. The shame, the anger, the confusion, the guilt, and the trauma all add to the already complex issue of grief and loss.
It’s my mission as a therapist to support my patients suffering from suicide loss in this unique and complicated space. And if it helps…I’ve been there too…a few times. So, when you are sitting with me, you are sitting with your community, sitting with someone who isn’t afraid to walk with you in this space, because she too has walked it.
My love to all of those we have lost and to all those who are left in the aftermath. I’m here.
Yes! And it surprises me that suicide is still such a stigmatized issue among many religions. Although I am no longer religious myself, I was raised in the Catholic church, and we were led to believe that suicide was a very serious offense, punishable by eternal suffering, because an individual’s body was considered to be the “property” of God. And to take one’s life was viewed as an attack at God.
Needless to say, when our family experienced its first suicide, and I asked a close family member to update me on their thoughts, they said that there was no way our loved one would endure such a fate. They were good. And thus they were with God.
Needless to say, my beliefs were challenged at a very early age by this truly damaging idea. Suicide is an extremely complex issue, and to simplify it in this way is a detriment to the healing that many people are likely seeking in times of distress.