This post is about feelings about suicide, how people respond, the loss and confusion, and especially that shame that is wrapped up about it.
I myself feel so much guilt and shame about my own battle with it. I posting this is part of me taking a part that shame and facing it. Somehow. (something my T suggested I try doing.) It's also to just give a place if anyone has any thoughts or feelings or feedback about this. (and it's ok with me if no one has anything to talk about with this or any feedback - i'm just opening it up to see and to process it myself some without doing it all alone in my head or just with my T. I hope that's ok...)
I posted here about my T and about how her sharing about her husband committing suicide made me feel and impacted the relationship. I'm still sorting that out... It's a big topic and a lot to it.
I wanted to start a seperate thread about specifically the shame part of suicide. (I hope that's ok.) Just trying to sort through this a little more one step at a time.
One thing that really sticks out for me about the responses and the subject of suicide in general is about how much shame there is about it:
- In our society it is so taboo to talk even about it
- loved ones who survive often are deeply ashamed of the person who committed suicide
- and often people, like me, feel ashamed for having had the thoughts or attempt and battle with wanting to die ourselves
All this seems to lead to silence. Silence never helps the pain or the people.
I keep thinking about why this is. (It's partly just me and my stuff about sorting out shame in general, and also my own feelings and experiences with this specific topic.)
I'm wondering if it is a topic that so easily brings up feelings of needing to hide or cover up or be silent because it is something that is so hard to face and so deeply painful to deal with the fact of someone hurting so bad suicide seems like a good option. Maybe we (as a society) just don't want to face that people could choose to do that and/or that people could be in that much pain where that seems like a good idea? or maybe a lot of people just can't even imagine ever being in that kind of a place and see them just as weird or abnormal - and yet there are plently of poeple that are not "accepted" or "understood" by society at large that are not shamed.
As a society, and as individuals, do you think we cope with such depth of pain surrounding suicide (those who are suicidal, or those who have love ones who die that way) and the confusing and lack of understanding about it by somehow using shame as a defense mechanism from feeling the pain?
or...?
I feel ashamed of my own battle with it. I just do. It's hard to find any words about why I do.
At the same time, it makes me downright angry to hear when people don't want to talk about the person who succeds or shames them or lies about it or tries to cover it up. What do I think we shopuld do instead? I don't think we should glorify suicdie but we are so far from doing that. I think we should somehow be able to talk about it.
I want to say really sucks that those I have loved about and people near me have died this way. My heart breaks that they were in such pain and couldn't see another way out, a better option. It's just awful. I don't understand why people think it is a selfish act. When I was sucidial I was fully convinced it was the best thing for everyone if I was gone. When I was in that place, my mind was so warped by such deep pain, it's hard to see that people would have been so deeply hurt by it. Then when I have walked through the grief of others dying or oknown people who have had loved ones die that way - oh, it breaks my heart. Anyone dying for any reason by any means sucks. Dying by suicide is horrible, and it's another death to grieve. The grieving process seems to get all jacked up though because it becomes so laden with extra guilt and shame by ourselves (wondering what we could have done to prevent it) and even more by society. My counselor, who's husband died of suicide, couldn't share with people very easily that she even had a husband in the past. That would lead to the question of where is he, and then that leads to how did he die and when she had told some people that it wsa by suicide - they give her all kinds of crap about it! Kinda screws up the grieving process and makes an already hard and complicated thing so much harder. The same goes for the mom of the 13 year old I know who committed sucidie. People would tell HER, the child's own mother, that "oh, well he was a disturbed kid" (and he wasn't disturbed more than most kids I have worked with, whatever that is supposed to mean) or that she should have known and gotten him help sooner. (um, what?!) When I was sucidial, I was very good at hiding it. No one had a clue, and I wanted it that way... I wanted to die... family is often too close to see - and yet I can understand the natural questions and guilt they would struggle with wondering what else they could have done? What I don't get is others adding to it. ugh. I wonder if maybe the silence or blaming or shaming actions of others is about them trying to make sense of something that you can't really control the pain of or explain all away. LIke trying to reassure themselves that their kid would never do it because their kids are not "disturbed" (whatever that means) or they would certainly be able to see it and do something about it.
But I don't really know and I don't really get it all.
