Michelle came to see me after her husband killed himself. He had retired a few years earlier after a long career with the NYPD. She was devastated. She couldn’t sleep. She was overwhelmed with grief, anger and guilt. She was a therapist. The questions “Why did he do it?” and “How could I have missed it?” raced through her head.
Put aside that he was a cop and she was a therapist. This is a common response to suicide. It’s a structure that traps people.
Suicide Loss Survivor is the term used to describe people who have lost someone to suicide. For many of us, it is like a nuclear bomb went off in our lives. Everything has been affected; everything hurts. Recovery often feels impossible. The Suicide Domino Theory states that survivors are at higher risk for suicidal thoughts and attempts than people who don’t know anyone that died by suicide.
Suicide produces questions without resolution.
- Why did they do it?
- What did I miss?
- Could I have stopped it?
The mind attempts to treat these as solvable problems.
Edward Arlington Robinson published Richard Cory in 1897. No one in town can understand why this man, who seemingly had everything, killed himself.
Sophocles wrote about Ajax, one of the Greek heroes in the Trojan War, in the 440s BC. Ajax took his life after the death of Achilles, near the end of the war. His wife, his brother and his soldiers all struggled with his suicide.
Individuals and society have always struggled to understand suicide. These are not questions. They are unending loops.
The Structure of Suicide Loss
1. Complex Grief
- Suicide is different from other deaths, because it often adds anger, guilt and confusion.
- It’s non-linear. That means it doesn’t just heal with time.
- grief + anger + guilt + confusion = complex grief
2. The Why Loop
- Everyone asks “Why did they do it?”
- Even if there is a note, letter or video, there is no satisfying answer.
3. The Self-Blame Statement
- Many people ask “What is wrong with me that they killed themself?”
- The grief and this question can shatter a survivor’s identity, particularly spouses, children, parents and close friends.
4. The Missed Signal Problem
- Some people lament “I should have seen this.”
- People try to reconstruct conversations
- They look through old texts and emails
- Clinicians frantically search through notes
- They seek a clarity that cannot be found
5. Planet Pretend vs. Planet Suicide
- Most people avoid talking about death, and they definitely avoid talking about suicide. They live on Planet Pretend.
- Survivors are stuck in the complex grief. Their world has been smashed. Things are unresolved. They live on Planet Suicide.
The Suicide Loss Survivor Protocols
- Stop trying to answer why. It can’t be satisfactorily answered. It is not a question, but a doom spiral. People can learn to stop this by seeing a therapist or going to a suicide survivor support group. Once someone knows that this is a universal response, they can learn to recognize it and ultimately, stop asking it.
- Interrupt the Missed Signal Loop. Much like the just stated why question, survivors need to put a boundary on reviewing past interactions and replaying events.
- Structured Expression. I believe writing is the best way to deal with grief. These 30 prompts are a good start.
- Plan for dates and triggers. Birthdays, holidays and death anniversaries sometimes loom painfully large. It’s really important to come up with a plan for those days.
- Re-engagement. For many, laughing again feels like a betrayal to the dead. I work with people on re-engaging with life. I encourage them to spend time with family and friends. Go to religious services. Volunteer. Travel. Even date again.
Do Not
- Endlessly ruminate over the suicide and call it processing.
- Search for a single answer.
- Get validation from a therapist about your grief and never move forward.
- Avoid life.
I worked with Michelle for just about two years. She learned to stop asking why. She accepted that there was nothing wrong with her, that her husband’s suicide was not about her, even though it felt that way in the beginning. Michelle begrudgingly went out to dinner with other family members. Eventually she enjoyed those meals. She traveled with close friends. Near the end of our treatment, she went on a date. She felt guilty. She went anyway. It wasn’t a match. That was just fine though, because she had turned back to life.
Humans experience repeated loss. In Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, the phrase “so it goes” appears 106 times. It shows up after every death in the book. Vonnegut survived the trauma of the firebombing of Dresden. He wrote books that often used humor to handle heavy subjects. “I’d rather laugh than cry,” he once told an audience. Death is a constant part of human experience, and most of us will experience it many times. We cannot live in despair. We must move forward. Suicide resists the compression of “so it goes.”
We do not solve suicide. We live despite it.