Our Forever Angel

Our society generally downplays depression as a causing factor in suicide. We say a person killed himself because he was "despondent over a broken love affair," because he "got a low grade on a test" or because "she didn’t get into the college of her choice." What these statements overlook is the fact that many people have similar disappointments without ending their own lives. The difference is depression. Depression saps people of the ability to recover from adverse experiences. Depression, with its sense of hopelessness and helplessness, makes all failures or missed opportunities seem monumental. These experiences feed on themselves, and produce even greater depression. But, because depressed people like to view themselves as in control of their lives, they rarely attribute these failures to anything other than their own flawed characters.

Following a suicide, I think it is a natural reaction for people who were close to the victim to feel a sense of guilt. "If I had only gotten them into counseling," "If I had only said I was sorry," "Surely there must have been something I could have done to prevent this from happening," are all common thoughts to have immediately after a suicide. The length of time a person feels this guilt will vary depending on several factors, such as how close the person was to the victim, and what may have been said or done shortly before the death. What you are feeling is sometimes referred to as "Survivor Guilt," and time may be the only healer of this wound. However, even if you had done everything you could to try to help someone who was suicidal, they may have still gone through with it anyway, especially if they had already made up their mind to do so. They have conviction that they are doing the right thing. They may feel that going through with the suicide gives them a sense of control and power which may, in turn, give them the determination to go through with the act.

I recently spoke to a Modern Problems class of high school seniors at the school which my children attend. The class was covering a section on suicide. I was glad to be asked to speak to them, but it saddened me to think that suicide is so common that it is covered in a Modern Problems class. Knowing that suicide will never be eliminated completely, I hope that some day we can reduce the frequency of suicide so that it will no longer be considered a "modern problem."

As I prepared to talk to this class, I was concerned about any impact my talk might have on my children. Their school is small enough that undoubtedly someone would make the connection between me and my kids, and I didn’t want to cause any negative results for them. I pondered on how to temper this, and here is what I came up with. After telling the students I was asked to talk to them about suicide because my husband completed suicide, I told them, "Some of you may recognize me from seeing me around the community, and you may be thinking to yourself, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize her husband completed suicide.’ And that’s a good thing, because I shouldn’t look any different than your teachers, your parents, or any other adult you know, because I’m not any different. You shouldn’t be able to pick me out of the crowd as being a suicide survivor.

"And some of you may recognize me from seeing me at school events, because my kids go to school here. If you’ve made the connection between me and my kids, you may be thinking, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize their dad completed suicide.’ And again, that’s a good thing, because they shouldn’t look any different than any other student here at school, because they aren’t any different. You shouldn’t be able to pick them out of the crowd as being suicide survivors. Many of you may have experienced the loss of someone you were close to, or may have even experienced a loss through divorce, which is in many ways similar to what we have been through."

Hopefully this helped the students realize that we a normal people, and that they shouldn’t look at us any differently than they would look at anyone else, or treat us any differently than they would treat anyone else.