Suicide and Grief, How do they interact for you?

[Atsushi.Ame]

hi there, I am completely new here and have a burning question I would love some feedback/discussion on.

Exploring the idea of "the right to die" has been incredibly interesting to me. In fact, grappling with it is all I've been doing for the past two days.

When I was 10 my father passed, I only found out that he had committed suicide a year ago when I was 18. My family lied to me for several years telling me it was simply a drug overdose. They never told me that before he overdosed, he left numerous voicemails to various people saying his goodbyes. This, obviously, completely ripped open my grief that was already complex and undealt with since he died.

Now, I completely agree with being autonomous over your decision to die. I think that the different types of suicide like suicidal thoughts/ideation, suicide to escape a specific situation and thought-out suicide based upon extended suffering really needs to be talked about and explored more in our current mental health resources.

But it's difficult for me to believe in this while also feeling the pain of my father's suicide and my own feelings surrounding my thoughts and attempts with self injury and suicide. I'm very unsure how to feel about it all. Often times in my grief I switched between wishing he had not done it and accepting it. Now I feel like there's this new added feeling of hope? peace? Maybe it's okay since he did suffer internally and now he is at peace?

For those who have lost someone close to suicide and experience suicidal thoughts themselves, how does this ideology tie into your grief?

All input whether or not you've lost someone/experience grief is appreciated, many thanks <3

 

[death_by_life]

People are so incredibly complex, and while basic emotions are fairly simple and have helped us survive for millions of years, we've evolved to feel so much nuance and it can be so complicated and maddening. I think it's totally normal to try to reconcile wanting to leave with being left by someone. I've never lost anyone to suicide; the closest I've come is having to cut off contact with someone I dearly love, which is not the same thing. I know that's not helpful. But it always hurts when we lose someone we love, even if we know they needed to go. Grief, like love, is meant to keep us together so we survive. Our nervous systems don't know the difference between losing someone "naturally" (illness, accident, etc.) and losing someone who chooses to go, and we feel like we are dying either way. That is what grief does, because it's meant to protect us from separation, both from those who protect us and those whom we protect.

I guess I would ask you, what would you want to feel? I mean, given the situation as it is, what outcome would feel the best to you? That seems like kind of a ridiculous question, I know. I just wonder if there's a way to see what you'd like to feel, and reverse engineer from there. It may be too much to think about, though, so my sincere apologies if it does more harm than good.

I'm sorry I don't have any advice, just reasons. I wish I had answers; I could help myself. Grief is what brought me here, and why I'm looking at suicide.

 

[Duality]

I have lost someone to suicide before, but like you it took me years for someone to tell me the truth.

I do believe that most people are driven to contemplate suicide out of circumstance, and not necessarily because they believe in their right to die. Given the chance, if most of their life's problems can go away, I am certain that the vast majority of people will opt to live on until either their natural death, or take the option of assisted death once they are old. This is where mental health definitely plays a part, to help us cope with the challenges of our own lives and preventing suicide/suicidal ideation.

Personally, my thoughts on someone's right to die became more firm once I knew the truth of my friend's death, and I wish more resources were available to them. Either in the way of mental health support, or even simply having the option for them to die peacefully via an injection or something peaceful from the hospital - given the latter, it's possible that they could have felt comfortable enough to live on - and might be alive even today - since assisted death would have been freely and easily available to them as a backup plan. Whether or not if they actually took the option of assisted death, just the choice being there would have relieved a considerable amount of suffering, and that's all I really wanted for my friend.

Unfortunately, they felt a lot of pressure since they felt like they couldn't talk about their suicidal thoughts to anyone lest there be yet another stay in a mental ward, and that their only chance to successfully do the deed was in a very short window of time, which they took full advantage of. It was more like 'self-pressure' if you will - this window of time was never going to come up again in their mind, so why not jump at the chance to be free of the life that they hated, instead of continuing on with a gamble that things could get better, but never having the safety net of escape if things go awry in the future.

In your case, it is very different with your loved one being your father instead of a friend. It is very complicated, and the only thing I can say here is that it's ok to feel conflicted. You can feel hurt by your father's decision, but also support his right to die. In the future, you may also change your opinion; maybe you won't support his decision anymore, or maybe you won't specifically support any parent's decision to commit suicide while they still have young kids. Maybe you won't support anyone's right to die anymore, or maybe you will support it even more. All of these are ok.

With all that said, I would recommend trying to process your grief. I know you might be tired of hearing recommendations of seeing a therapist or psychologist, but it can help. Especially since you say you haven't dealt with your grief for all this time. There might be other factors at play with how you feel, like maybe you resenting the people who lied to you. This could be totally wrong and I don't want to put thoughts in your head - all I want to say is having someone to talk to can be very beneficial in discovering the exact reasons on why/how you think and feel, and helping you process your feelings. It won't stop you from feeling grief, but knowing the mechanisms behind it is unbelievably helpful with living alongside your grief.

I wish you nothing but the best.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I'm so sorry for your loss. I can fully appreciate you must be feeling a whole range of emotions around this.

I haven't lost someone to suicide but, my Mum died of cancer when I was 3. It's not really something I've ever gotten over. If I'm honest, I imagine I would have struggled even more if it had been suicide. I can understand why your family kept it from you till you were older. I expect it's especially difficult for a younger child to understand.

If I'm truly honest about it, parents who want to suicide, especially with young children are unfortunately a bit of a trigger for me. I suppose it's this hope that my Mum would never have chosen to leave me. It's obviously so much more complicated than that though- as you appreciate. And, I suppose it's something a person may have a better idea of if they've had ideation themselves.

I do absolutely believe that some parents are struggling so badly that they don't actually feel like their living presence in the child's upbringing will be positive, which has got to be dreadful. Like being trapped between a rock and a hard place. I'm not sure we can all just sustain a 'happy face' long-term if things are that bad.

I suppose I feel like it's important to allow yourself to feel however you do though. Even angry. But, I also think it's good to do what you're doing. To try to put yourselves in their shoes and work out why they behaved the way they did.

Did your Dad leave any kind of message for you? While my Mum may not have actually even known how close to death she was, I do still wish she'd left me a note or something. Other members of my family have left letters before they died (again, natural causes.) And, at least it's something of a goodbye.

Really quite appallingly I suppose, I sometimes actually get angry that my Mum went ahead with the pregnancy. Her cancer was diagnosed at the same time she found out she was pregnant, so she delayed having chemo to avoid aborting me. My Dad reasures me it still would have been too late to save her. The shitty doctor diagnosed it too late. But still, I don't know if he's just being kind.

Sometimes I wonder though, did they actually think it all through? Did they even consider that she might die and, how hard it would be for everyone? But then, I also know that's unreasonable. Maybe they were super optimistic and thought she's survive. I suppose a woman becomes very maternal when they become pregnant too.

I still think it's important to explore every emotion we have around these things though. I don't think there are exactly 'right' or 'wrong' emotions. However, the more destructive ones like maybe anger, resentment- we can probably temper a bit if we truly consider things.

That it doesn't mean a person doesn't still love their family if they suicide. It can be that they are simply in too much pain and can't cope. Or, that they feel like they can't even be a positive influence in their loved one's lives anymore. Some people literally just feel like a shell of their former selves and, they can't always find their way back.

One thing I do truly hold on to is something my Dad would say when I said how much I missed my Mum. That she really was suffering at the end. That it's natural we would miss her but that, we couldn't truly want her back in that amount of pain. That, if we truly love her, we have to let her go.

I do have to wonder if those that mourn suides really consider that. That- if they got their loved one back- could they realistically live a happy life or, would they just continue to suffer? We couldn't truly want that for the people we love.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

I guess I'm an exception to this since, although my sister died from natural causes, she was suicidal and wanted to die due to having multiple sclerosis and, when she did manage to get that death, I didn't feel any grief at all. Instead I felt happiness because I don't see death as a bad thing for the one who dies but rather I see it as the best thing ever. I felt happy because she is at peace and has to no longer suffer from her MS or her depression or any of her other issues. I do wish that she died in a more dignified way even though she died from a natural cause which imo is less extreme than other natural causes. I still support the RTD and the fact that my sister had to suffer for 50 minutes before dying (at least that's what the police stated) makes me support the RTD even more as I believe that nobody should have to die in such torment if they don't want to