In the Wake of Suicide's Silence: Why Blame Is Never the Answer
I received the fateful call almost 15 years ago. My husband and I, then married little more than a year, were winding our way out of rural Ohio, where we had spent the weekend celebrating the wedding of friends. My phone rang. It was my mother.
"Your brother is dead," she said feebly. I don't remember exactly how the details spilled out, except that she and my stepfather had come home from their own weekend of travel, pulled into their garage, and found my 25-year-old brother dead at the wheel of the car they had parked alongside. When my mother reached through the car window to touch his shoulder, she found it cold and the gas tank empty.
He left behind no note of explanation.
For months, we had thought he was making a real turnaround. Addiction and depression were the demons he had been fighting since high school, but we held out hope for a new chapter in his troubled life. He had enrolled in a culinary program at our local community college. He was developing a mentoring relationship with an older man at my parents' church. Not long before, my then-fiancfamp;copy; and I had come home from college to witness his baptism. We hadn't expected the phone call the day it came. Years earlier, perhaps, like in the months following his week-long disappearance, which ended when he turned up at a local hospital suffering from drug overdose and paranoid delusions. He'd made it out alive from those dark days. The worst of it, we had assumed.
"You sit down to dinner, and life as you know it ends," writes Joan Didion in her book The Year of Magical Thinking, capturing what feels most pernicious about human existence: it ends without warning. And if all death, even death at the more predictable end of a terminal diagnosis, feels like a cruel surprise interjected into the routines of the everyday, suicide is a thousand times as heartless. It has been chosen, purposed, by someone you love. They have forced their goodbye on you, a goodbye you have not wanted and cannot now undo. For that, you have only the ringing, unanswerable whys.
Tyler Clementi's suicide made national news when the Rutgers University student jumped from the George Washington Bridge in the fall of 2010 after learning that his college roommate was webcasting his sexual encounters with another man. Clementi's roommate, Dharun Ravi, was convicted of crimes of intimidation and invasion of privacy and has subsequently served a 30-day jail sentence. But according to The New York Times, "the trial has never directly addressed the question at the heart of the story—what prompted a promising college freshman to kill himself?" The NYT article, "After Gay Son's Suicide, Mother Finds Blame in Herself and in Her Church," suggests that Clementi's evangelical church and their hardline views on homosexuality bear at least some of the responsibility for the tragedy.
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Takisha Sandlin
They have forced their goodbye on you, a goodbye you have not wanted and cannot now undo. For that, you have only the ringing, unanswerable whys.
Donna
My husbands family still blames me four years later for his death. Yes, I have moved on in efforts to keep from falling into the darkness that this type of grief can inflict if you allow it. He had been ill, from smoking for several years (sacroidosis, brain tumor, seizures)...this illness changed him, we separated 6 months prior to his death due to his affair with his exwife and also being informed by a family friend that there was yet another woman. Although we were separated, we were still dating, my parents stopping in on him frequently. None of us knew he was even contemplating suicide. After our last date, before he took me home...he asked me.."what do I have to do to bring you home?" I said, you need to take your medication, keep your appointments with your doctor, you need to want to take care of yourself, stop seeing the other women...."he said, I understand, I know now what I need to do..it will be ok. Early the next morning I get a call from a family member...he shot himself. No note. Ever since then, his family/friends blame me..."how could a woman leave her husband in his time of need?" See, they didn't know about his affairs...I felt after he died, what's the point. But, I have proof, emails...they have nothing on me, because there isn't anything. They accuse me of affairs, at which I would take a lie dectector test any day...only if the two women he had the affair with...took the same lie detector test at the same time. I am guessing that it's these two women who started the rumors about me because it keeps the drama going and the family keeping me at a distance...keeping them from possibly learning the truth... I know the ligistics of it all...it wasn't my fault...etc. However, I not only lost my spouse of 21 years, I lost his family, our friends, laid off of my job 3 months later, lost our home, his surgeon took his life 6 months later...can you imagine...all of this in 8 months. God has put someone in my life who took me out of the darkness not even a year later (due to an illness, I didn't have health insurance, so my best friend sent the Dr. she was working for to check in on me, that is how I met him)...I have chosen to move on...but, that has caused me grief as well. Everyone says.." you need to move on, continue with life...", yet, when I did, I was judged. I wish there was some written "protocol", time line for how to mourn for something like this? There were feelings that quite frankly, I had no words for. That was alot of "stuff" to deal with and some I haven't even mentioned to cope with in such a short time. Today, I am happily remarried to a man who brought me out of darkness. He is my best friend. I am very happy. Yet, when we go in public sometimes and I run into some of them...I am mistreated, yelled at. So, I scope places I go still so that I can prepare myself or simply leave. Unexpected dreams bring back the horror and at times refreshes alot of feelings. I also did a fund raiser to raise funds for suicide awareness...I was even riducled for that...anyway...this is my story...I am still standing, yet inside...I still hurt.
Donna
My husbands family still blames me four years later for his death. Yes, I have moved on in efforts to keep from falling into the darkness that this type of grief can inflict if you allow it. He had been ill, from smoking for several years (sacroidosis, brain tumor, seizures)...this illness changed him, we separated 6 months prior to his death due to his affair with his exwife and also being informed by a family friend that there was yet another woman. Although we were separated, we were still dating, my parents stopping in on him frequently. None of us knew he was even contemplating suicide. After our last date, before he took me home...he asked me.."what do I have to do to bring you home?" I said, you need to take your medication, keep your appointments with your doctor, you need to want to take care of yourself, stop seeing the other women...."he said, I understand, I know now what I need to do..it will be ok. Early the next morning I get a call from a family member...he shot himself. No note. Ever since then, his family/friends blame me..."how could a woman leave her husband in his time of need?" See, they didn't know about his affairs...I felt after he died, what's the point. But, I have proof, emails...they have nothing on me, because there isn't anything. They accuse me of affairs, at which I would take a lie dectector test any day...only if the two women he had the affair with...took the same lie detector test at the same time. I am guessing that it's these two women who started the rumors about me because it keeps the drama going and the family keeping me at a distance...keeping them from possibly learning the truth... I know the ligistics of it all...it wasn't my fault...etc. However, I not only lost my spouse of 21 years, I lost his family, our friends, laid off of my job 3 months later, lost our home, his surgeon took his life 6 months later...can you imagine...all of this in 8 months. God has put someone in my life who took me out of the darkness not even a year later (due to an illness, I didn't have health insurance, so my best friend sent the Dr. she was working for to check in on me, that is how I met him)...I have chosen to move on...but, that has caused me grief as well. Everyone says.." you need to move on, continue with life...", yet, when I did, I was judged. I wish there was some written "protocol", time line for how to mourn for something like this? There were feelings that quite frankly, I had no words for. That was alot of "stuff" to deal with and some I haven't even mentioned to cope with in such a short time. Today, I am happily remarried to a man who brought me out of darkness. He is my best friend. I am very happy. Yet, when we go in public sometimes and I run into some of them...I am mistreated, yelled at. So, I scope places I go still so that I can prepare myself or simply leave. Unexpected dreams bring back the horror and at times refreshes alot of feelings. I also did a fund raiser to raise funds for suicide awareness...I was even riducled for that...anyway...this is my story...I am still standing, yet inside...I still hurt.
Piper Larry
Much like Job, this understanding can be the very thing that we demand of God.
Keesha Stacey
Had I only paid closer attention. Which chess piece should I have moved? And when? And where?
Chung Salcedo
Had I only paid closer attention. Which chess piece should I have moved? And when? And where?
Paul Coneff
Thank You Jen for sharing your heart - and for reinforcing the reality that our presence is much more important than our words, especially when words will often add to the person's pain, even when it is not intentional. As we listen to the person, allowing them to share their story, we can be in ministry in those moments. And when the time seems to be right, we can share how Jesus was "made like us in EVERY way," suffered like us and was tempted like us in EVERY way, (Heb. 2:17-18; 4:15)... Jesus was assaulted by the king of darkness.. and in Matt. 26:38, He was 'in agony of soul UNTO DEATH." He fulfilled prophecy, as our Suffering Messiah, experiencing the darkness of oppression in the Garden of Gethsemane, so He could identify with us in our times of darkness, when there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. And I'm sure He was assaulted every day of His ministry as well, but especially there in the garden, heading into His trial, with torture and total abandonment by those closest to Him).... Now, as the Son of Righteousness, who "rose again with healing in His wings," (Mal. 4:2), He has broken the power of death that was held by the devil, (Heb. 2:14-16), and the power of darkness... As we continue to listen without fixing or counseling, and offering to pray with them, connecting their wounded heart to the heart of their Wounded Healer, over the days and weeks and months, we can watch Jesus bring His healing power into their lives. I've seen this happen many times, in my ministry as a licensed therapist and with 20 years in pastoral ministry. May God continue to bless you as you share your story in such a beautiful way that invites others to open their hearts with their story. Paul Coneff MFT www.straight2theheart.com
Rahab
Aja, your intention to "help minister to people going through the same thing" is not just "in the future" (though it will certainly grow to fit your future as well), it's right here in your post today. I was cheering all the time I was reading your post--yes! Thank you!
Jesus-in-the-City
This is such a timely piece! I just had to comment! I am a Christian and I have battled through suicidal thoughts for half my life, way before I gave my life to the Lord. I still battle through these thoughts today, and in fact, the same day this blog was posted, I had a particularly challenging battle, but obviously I won out again, thank Jesus, and when I saw this post, I knew it wasn't a coincidence and I had to comment. The thing that God is showing me recently that helps me the most is that, when these thoughts come, it is like a tunnel and that there is another end to the tunnel and if I can just make it to the other end and not do anything harmful, I will make it through. God has also been showing me how POWERFUL the enemy is, how STRONG his hatred for the brethren is, how TRUE God's Word is, that the enemy lives to steal, kill and destroy us and that, even in Jesus, it is a struggle to get through it at times. I am really only here because of God's grace. I have taken overdoses of over the counter sleeping medication 3 times, once as a teen, once as a young adult and more recently as a newly converted Christian, just before my wedding. I am a generally happy person, I love the Lord, I am greatful for my salvation and my identity in Christ, I have an amazing, handsome, godly husband and a beautiful young child. From the outside, lots of people would say I have it all, but on the inside, satan and his demons know the weapons to forge against me to tempt me to kill myself. They know the weak spots in my character, they know the lies to spew and buttons to push, they know the perfect deceitful words to whisper, they know me so well that at times I have been so certain that I would never get to that place again, but eventually, I end up there again, so I guess it is safe to say, they know me better than I know myself. One thing that I am becoming more and more aware of is the necessity of knowing God's Word, but not only that, TRUSTING Him AT His Word. When I KNOW that I know that I know that God says I am fearfully and wonderfully made, that I am a royal diadem in His hand, that He will never leave me or forsake me, that He is acquainted with my sorrow, that He has put His seal upon me, that He is with me in the valley of the shadow of death, when I pass through the water, through the fire, in the lion's den and against giants... I can cling to His Word and His promises when I trust who HE is in the face of those demons. Sometimes it helps to read Christian websites about suicide, to read scripture, to listen to praise music, to reach out to friends. The best thing, I've found, is to shed light and honesty onto the darkness and the lies. Another thing I do know is that it has nothing to do with what's going on on the outside, the family you have, your children, your loved ones your friends, because the enemy will tell you what he needs to to make you believe you don't really have any of that. But if you Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and don't depend on your own understanding, then when you have nothing else, when it is just you and those demons and nothing else, you can cling to Jesus and who He is, hold on for dear life and He will get you through. Many of my friends have encouraged me recently that the enemy would not care about attacking me if God did not have some plan in the future for my life. I also heard a great sermon once about Lot's wife and how because she looked back and because she was disobedient, not only did she die, but she left a horrible legacy for her daughters as well, and that is something that scares me straight at times. Also, although I think I believe that God knows my heart and I would still go to heaven if I ever did kill myself, there is still that unknown element because really, we never will know until we get there, and I know eternity is a VERY long time and that is also something that I am just not willing to chance, so those are some things that keep me holding on ...
Alicia
Your vulnerability and your honesty are refreshing Jen. We rarely have answers when it comes to death.. even when we see it approaching. Grieving people naturally go through a season of blaming themselves.. it is not reasonable but a very normal reaction. This is true even when the death is from illness or an accident. We were not created to be comfortable with death.. It will always be a struggle to accept loss.. no matter how old the person is or how their life comes to an end. God leaves us with a desire for more for ourselves and for others. That is the longing that brings us closer to His heart and helps us look toward eternity. I am grateful for your insights and willingness to share what you have learned. Blessings, Alicia
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