Is someone dying by suicide worse than murder to relatives?

In My Humble Opinion
21

One painful element of losing somebody to suicide is knowing that they decided to leave you (and everybody else), so you weren’t reason enough to live for. To get much pickier about it, you wouldn’t necessarily have good reason to think that they took their life specifically to get away from you, though you might, or you might wonder.
And it depends on the suicide, and on the murder you’re comparing it to. I think suicides to end painful incurable illness ought to be better than enduring the long ending. I think murders that are random and quick, like a random robbery that goes wrong, are like other random quick deaths.

My father was a suicide when I was 12. My mother talked him through it, for hours, by phone, and never alerted police or an ambulance or anybody else that might have helped. And this is by her own description. I’m not sure to what degree I should look at this as a murder instead of a suicide, as there are arguments either way. But, the whole deal was hellish compared to losing somebody to a mugger, I have to believe. I left home at 16 and have been totally estranged since 30, now over 30 years ago. Suicide, or whatever I should consider this, is very very messy for those left behind.

22

Yes, very messy indeed! I was 17 when my grandmother killed herself, and I felt so much self-centered guilt at that age. When I was little I was her “Partner in Crime” so speak, she took me everywhere and doted on me as her baby doll mascot. I was in places with her a small child had no business being, hotels, bars, in jail…yes…long story. However, she was a raving beauty and had a huge personality and everyone flocked to her, especially men. I didn’t put all of this together until some years later when I was in college and learned about things like bipolar disorder, addiction, alcoholism, nymphomania. A light bulb went off over my head.

So when she killed herself, I thought she did it because I was reaching the age where I wanted to do things with my own friends, etc…I now know it was about way more than me and my silly teenage stuff, but I selfishly related it all to myself at the time.

She shot herself. Unusual for a woman. My theory is that she did that because she was addicted to narcotics and had a huge tolerance for the pills and alcohol. There are stories of her drinking 250 lb men under the table and shutting down supper clubs, dancing on tables. I have also learned that her being a natural redhead had something to do with that high tolerance as well. She had enough pills in that house that day to take out prolly10 people. 10 normal people. She knew it wasn’t enough to kill her, so she resorted to a gun to the chest. I also think she chose her chest because she was very vain and didn’t want to mess up her face, which was perfectly made up, btw. Her nails were polished, her hair was freshly coiffed, and she was wearing her most expensive penior set. She had prepared her own body, she wanted to leave a good-looking corpse. She wasn’t found for almost 2 days. There wasn’t anything weak sauced about it, she meant this shit. No taking a handful of pills and calling the operator, screw that. This was done in the secret quiet, no public displays.

So even given all of this, as I said above, my Uncle would rather believe she was murdered by some unknown phantom assailant that broke in her house (there were no signs of a break in) and have her be the victim of an unsolved crime than to accept she just gave up on living.

She did it in February, and that Christmas before she the most bubbly and vivacious as anyone had seen her in a long time. She was full of giant hugs and kisses all around. I think she had already made her plans and was having a last hurrah. So even if one of us had called her or went by her house that particular day in February, we might have stopped her from doing it that day, but she would have done it another day. Once a person has made up their mind and talked themselves into that space, there is no talking them off the ledge.

I am not angry at her for leaving me anymore, but it took alot of years. I am now a few years older than she was when she ended her life, and I have much more understanding now about how she might have been feeling. It is very difficult for a woman of sound mind to accept in your 50s, that you are no longer “that girl” who turns all the heads and can hold the attention of everyone in the room, so I imagine when you add mental illness, addictions, and a big basket of regrets to that, the crash landing must be pretty hard.

Doesn’t change the fact that the ripple effect has been devastating, though.
Sorry for the length of this post.

23

I think one thing that’s worse for a family than suicide or murder is when a family member just disappears and is never found. Here in New Hampshire, a woman named Maura Murray disappeared after a car crash in February 2004 and it’s hard to watch her family on television because it’s obvious how much pain they are in not knowing what happened. I always had a hard time watched Unsolved Mysteries and America’s Most Wanted when they ran stories about kids that disappeared(and most cases assumed to have been kidnapped) because of this.

24

{{{{{Ellecram}}}}}

I have a diagnosed mental illness and attempted to kill myself a few times; thankfully I didn’t really know what the hell I was doing, so I wasn’t very efficient at it

25

I’d say murder and suicide as a rule tend to diverge in their impact with the age of the person, or how much longer they might live otherwise (in case of a very sick person). The terrible impact of one human being violating the right of a loved one to live I don’t think is dulled as much if the loved one was older or in bad health. Maybe somewhat, but not as much as it changes the degree of hurt when the person decided by themselves they’d had enough of life when young and healthy v old and sick.

26

Indeed. I was raised Catholic & was taught that suicide was a “mortal sin”, but I do recall the Vatican changing their stance at some point in time. The family was Spanish speaking, maybe originally from Mexico or South America, so I’m guessing they were old school.

27

I would definitely vary my answer depending on why they committed suicide. Terminal illness they just can’t bear the pain of anymore? That would make me feel very different than if the pain was emotional and hidden from people who might have been able to help them resolve if only it was known about. Besides feeling awful that they hadn’t confided in me, I’d likely feel angry if the catalyst felt like it wasn’t an insurmountable problem.

28

I was going to send this via PM but decided since others here …

Look into TCF. I am not sure how active the Pittsburgh Chapter is these days (we were easing out just about when your need began) but its the only thing really that pulled our family through. And barely even with it; my MIL had a major heart attack the first birthday my BIL missed and I suffered a small stroke settling his affairs. It doesn’t matter if it was 10 days ago, 10 years, or 10 lifetimes ---- when you need to talk they are there. And with a son as well, never assume you are dealing – networking is never a bad idea.

29

You can probably expect a thank you note from them any day now for publicly clearing this up for them, even though all death certificates clearly said homicide. It’s not suicide if you are forced out of a window because you are blinded by smoke, can’t breathe, are trapped in an inferno or whatever. They were escaping. They didn’t wake up that morning and say “I’m going to jump out of a 110th story window because I want to kill myself”.

One of the three characteristics of a mortal sin is that the action must be done out of free will. They clearly did not have free will in this situation.

30

Calm down there, tiger. I don’t believe for a second that any person who jumped from the WTC is guilty of anything, let alone a “mortal sin”. They were all victims of homicide, obviously.

The point I was making was that the man’s FAMILY, due to their religious beliefs, did not want to believe that he jumped because THEY interpreted that as suicide and THEY considered that a mortal sin. Reading for comprehension is an important thing in life :slight_smile:

31

One of the things which is apparently somewhat true of suicide is that it can be ‘contagious’. Maybe sort of like divorce, when someone close to you chooses an out like that it opens a door to the possibility in your mind?

At least there are a lot of cases of suicide running in families/groups of friends. There can be other explanations naturally, but it isn’t something you can say of murder.

32

People react to these things oddly. One of my friends was the victim of a murder-suicide by her husband the day after they got back from a dream family vacation. Their daughters still idolize their father even though he killed their mother and then himself by blasting their house apart with gunshots. They had a double funeral and are buried next to each other. I want to support their daughters so I don’t say anything bad but it seems more than a little odd to me.

My favorite cousin is still screwed up from her father’s (my uncle) suicide. She was only 7 when he died and didn’t find out that he killed himself until she was 18 when someone let it slip. That was not a good move and made her relive the entire thing over again. Her mother had always just told her that he died of an extended illness and she never questioned it. There is still a suicide note to her that she doesn’t know about and probably never will because it is painful to read.

33

Since my father committed suicide and my younger brother was murdered, I thought to myself… “Hey, finally, here’s a question on The Dope in which I’m really qualified to answer.”

My family was not close at all and the events were over 35 years ago, so I figured I could give a quick and easy answer.

I was wrong. Not today.

Those events obviously impacted me a lot more than I had ever imagined.

34

Thank you for this. Sorry I am a bit late in responding.

35

Not just a religious issue, but chances are, there are also cultural issues that are relevant to the area where they lived that color this opinion.

36

I’ve heard survivors of suicide say that having someone commit suicide is like having the person both be a murderer and murder victim.