53 months ago today my husband of seven years (and partner of 14) stepped out into an early spring morning, walked into our garage, and sometime thereafter took his own life.
Every September thereafter I have felt sharply aware of World Suicide Prevention Day, which was set up in 2003 with the World Health Organisation as a major day of advocacy. You’ll probably hear a lot of statistics today, like there is a suicide every 40 seconds (over 700,000 per day). It’s likely that you’ll read those statistics, feel momentarily shocked, and then if you haven’t lost someone to suicide yourself, you’ll probably forget those stats until next year where you will be briefly shocked again.
That isn’t meant to be negative or critical. At the moment so many bad things are happening in the world that you can’t possibly hold all of them in your mind! But for those of us who are bereaved by suicide, this day can raise the painful question that is never far away: could I have prevented it?
I have done a lot of therapy work in the nearly four and a half years since Kieran died, and so I don’t ask myself that question so often. In the early days – which, I’m sorry to say, counts as at least the first year in the case of traumatic bereavement – I used to rake over everything I had said and done in the days leading up to Kieran’s suicide. I used to imagine scenarios where I was able to intervene. I used to say what if to myself long after I had stopped saying to it other people.
I don’t do that very much any more, but it was a long process. Suicide bereavement is very complex. There are many resources which are being shared today about suicide prevention and I am 100% in favour of that. If you are experiencing or have experienced suicidal ideation, I have written a post for you that I have been told has helped people in your position; please read it. At the end of this post I will provide some resources for you.
This post is mostly, however, for people in my situation – who have lost, or who fear losing, someone they love to suicide. While the most popular narratives of suicide in the media seem to frame it as coming “out of the blue”, many people who are bereaved by suicide have lived with fear for a long time before their loss. It took me a long time to work through the trauma of the months leading up to Kieran’s death, as so much of my focus had been on the loss itself. But Kieran’s mental deterioration had an enormous effect on my mental and physical health, too, and given there is a paucity of care for people experiencing mental health crises it’s no surprise that there’s also virtually no support available – unless you can pay for it – for people supporting those in need. And if you are caring for someone in mental distress, it’s also likely that you aren’t thinking very much about putting your own life jacket on, even if you know that’s good practice.
In the UK, if you are bereaved by suicide you may find SOBS (Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide) a useful charity to contact – they have a hotline and in person and virtual support groups. The phone lines and groups are all run by people who are bereaved by suicide themselves. MIND have some tips and resources for looking after yourself while caring for someone with a mental illness. Most of all, I want you to know: suicide prevention can never be an individual intervention. A lot of the media – and, unfortunately, some of the charitable campaigns – around suicide prevention focus on stories where an individual manages to interrupt someone’s suicide attempt, or manages an earlier intervention that diverts someone from suicidal thinking. Of course these stories happen. But one person is never responsible for another person’s suicide and one person is never responsible for preventing another person’s suicide. I know you may instantly think – yes, but when you read this. I did. Sometimes, despite all the therapy, I still do think yes, but I should have stopped it somehow, anyway. So I’m not writing this in the expectation that reading it once will make you believe it. Perhaps you can bookmark this page, or copy and paste the message above into a note on your phone. Look at it when you need to. Suicide prevention is complex and requires multiple layers of intervention that can never be provided by one person. It requires our governments to invest in mental health and it requires societal change to divest suicide and mental illness of stigma.
Of course we can all of us, as individuals and collectively, contribute to this work – and I encourage you to do so wherever you can. But today, if you are grieving or you are gripped with fear, remember that you can only do so much. You are probably already doing too much. Please give yourself a little of the love that you feel so desperately for your loved one, and offer yourself some grace.
And if it helps at all – I love you. It’s not your fault.
Resources
Find international helplines if you are experiencing suicidal thoughts.
In the UK, call Samaritans 116 123 all day every day.
If you are a child in the UK, call Childline 24/7 on 0800 1111.
If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, this is a health emergency – don’t be scared to go to your local hospital emergency unit. Bring someone with you if you can.
Visit this link for more resources.
Rachel E. Moss 