No, you're not the biggest victim here. Not by a long shot.

The BBQ Pit
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This may be long.
continuity eror You’re right, and you’re wrong.
My son and his wife had a suicide pact. He died, she didn’t. She was hospitalized for several weeks, and came to live with us once she was able.

Michael, at 33, was my best friend and my only child. We had talked intellectually, about suicide many times. Michael was brilliant, and artistic. He wasn’t mentally ill, in the way we think of mental illness. He wasn’t exactly depressed. He just didn’t know how to live in the world. He, like, me at that age was an “outsider.” Maybe we were just more able to see the world turning. People seemed so shallow, sheep, unable to recognize the Judas goat just ahead.

He read… everything. He built stuff. Some art some… something else.
He used to tell people I was the smartest person he knew, but he was far and away my superior. I guess it was that “Mom” thing that made him think that way. He was so proud of me, just as I was so proud of him. He knew I loved him, accepted him as he was and supported him in anyway I could.

I was so happy when he found “the love of his life.” And she was. They were soulmates. She completed him and he, her.

Her reasons for contemplating death were, on the surface, very pragmatic. All of the women in her family, mom, grandma, aunts had developed Alzheimer’s around age 55. Very young, and it progressed quickly. Her dad was an end-stage alcoholic.
She didn’t want to live like those women did. She didn’t want to burden someone else.

But, it was in the far distant future. And I never believed her, or him. It was just intellectualizing. We talked the same way about medical research, or string theory.
Michael wanted to make the world better and he did, one person at a time.
The people who knew him, worked with him, all had stories of how he had taught them to look at something in a totally different way. He wasn’t a helpless intellectual either. He could fix just about anything. One woman he worked with, told me about him helping her fix a flat tire. She’ll never be afraid to do it herself now.
He was kind. Even though most people puzzled and annoyed him, he kept that inside, never wanting to hurt feelings. He could listen to the most innane drivel, and appear as though it was a revelation from God himself.
Somehow though, he never understood what he give to people. He was amazed when he return to work from vacation, and everyone would tell him how much they missed him. In his mind, he disappeared from their minds the moment the door closed behind him.

On my birthday, June 24th, 2000, I didn’t get my normal phone call, so I called him. He was still at work at 8:00PM and said he was in the middle of something he couldn’t leave, and he’d call me later. He didn’t. The next day was his wife’s birthday, so I called their house, but got no answer. That wasn’t unusual, I thought they were probably out.
At 4:14 PM on Tuesday, June 27th 2000, the phone rang. It was Jake, Michael’s neighbor, and close friend. I was happy to hear from him, he usually called on my birthday too.
But, there was a hesitation. He told me later, he wanted to hang up, because, Michael and I were so close, he thought I’d already know.
He said “Michael’s gone.” I said, “Gone? Gone where?” He said, No, I mean, he’s dead." Then the whole story came tumbling out as I screamed and screamed. I didn’t hear most of it then. He told me the detective needed to talk with me, but I couldn’t, not yet.
Crying, like I’d never cried before, I called him dad, in Florida. He wasn’t in the office, but my voice told his assistant to find him.
I could hardly make the words come out. Michael’s dad, was at best intimidated by Michael’s intellect, most times it just made him mad. They rarely talked, but he loved his son. I couldn’t do anything but say the hateful words. We agreed to get flights out as soon as we could.
Then I called my husband. His trip home was a night mare, taking almost 2 hours, which would normally have been 30 minutes. I know I talked to people during those hours. I called Jake back and talked to the detective. I don’t remember any of it. I remember carrying around a bunny Michael had sent me for Easter.
When my husband finally go home, he took over. I guess I’d called airlines etc, but he got all the ducks in a row.
We couldn’t get a flight until the next day, and late at that.

Our first stop was the memorial park. Michael’s dad and step-monster (his word) met us there. We sat arround a big table, it seemed like there were 50 people there, but I know it was only the funeral director, and the two families.
His dad insisted on paying for everything, while allowing me to make what ever choices I/Michael wanted. I knew he was horrified by the idea of embalming and burial so cremation was the way we went. The step-monster tried to protest, but dad shut her up.
My husband distracted her, so his dad and I could have a few private moments. We walked by the reflecting pool and talked about Michael. I tried to tell him Michael did love him, and I think he believed that. He talked about how frustrating Michael could be, and how he always meant to try harder to understand him.
He will, never be ok.

The LA county coroner didn’t, at that time, have facilities for viewing, so it was a week before I was able to see him. I had to see him. It was not real, I had to make it real.
I’m sorry, I can’t tell you about the moments I spent with my baby for the last time. Its still too vivid and too painful.
There were maybe 100 people at his memorial service. I’m not much of a public speaker, in fact, it terrifies me. But, I spoke to Michael in front of those people. I told him I would miss my hands less than I would miss him.I told him I would alway be proud of who he was. I spoke of the crater in my heart, that would never be filled. I dropped a red rose, for love and a white rose for sorrow into the water. I didn’t cry while I spoke. He would have, once again told everyone how proud he was of me.

During the week before the memorial and for a few days after we tried to go through his things, deciding what to keep, and what to …Do what with?
Through the whole time, my husband and I took time to go see his wife. She was in ICU. The first time we went in, the doctor pulled me aside, and told me she wouldn’t live. That if she did, she would be vegatative. He asked that I talk with her family (in England) and convince them to let her go.
Then I went into her room. She was moving randomly, as I’d seen so many brain devastated patients before. Since, I have always talked to my patients, no matter if they could understand or not, I started talking to her. I told her, I’d be back later to wash her hair, but that I couldn’t put her make-up on. She got that “I want” line between her eyebrows. I dismissed it. She got agitated. I stroked her head, and told her she was alright, that, michael was alright. She stopped moving. The nurse asked me to move to the other side of the bed. Her head turned toward me. I asked if she knew who I was and she nodded. Still, I wasn’t going to be one of those family members, who sees cognition in even eye flutter. I asked her to open her eyes, she did. I asked her to squeeze my hand, she did. The nurse bolted from the room to tell the doctor. He came in a minute later, and said, “I guess this changes things.” He said, still, she would never be the person she once was. He took me out and showed me her CAT scan and MRI. They were awful.
See next post…

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Looking at them, I knew she wouldn’t ever be able to care for herself. I talked it over with my husband, and he agreed, when she was ready, we’d take her home.
Even though we had done very little in their apartment, we both needed to get back to work. On the day of the memorial, Jake, his friend, but also the apartment manager, called and asked, when we would have their “crap” cleared out. I was stunned. I asked why he was being so cruel, he said his dad had told him to get the apartment cleaned up, so they could rent it again. P. was still alive, and their rent was paid… I told him we’d have to come back to get a storage unit to take care of it.
The day we got home Jake’s father called. He told me he’d gotten permission from Michael’s dad to toss everything. He then proceeded to tell me what a low life my son was, and that I should be glad he was dead. That’s when I remembered I could hang up the phone. He called back and talked to my husband, but, even though P. was still alive, and actually improving, he said she forfeited the rent because someone died there :confused: I found out later that Jake had gone to the hospitaland had P. “sign” a letter saying she didn’t want anything but her clothes from the apartment. Other than some artwork and the few things we brough back with us, I lost everthing that might have given me comfort. P. lost everything.
All this time I had been following P.'s progress by telephone. One day I called the ICU at my regular time and was told she wasn’t there.
The person on the phone wasn’t a regular, so had no idea what had happened to her. I was frantic.
Finally, the nurse who had been following her figured out who the clerk was talking to and got on the phone. It seemed that P. had decided she didn’t need a breathing tube anymore, and pulled it out during the night. She did so well, they transfered her to a regular floor.
I was able to speak with her for the first time in 3 weeks. Her voice was small and hard to understand, but she seemed to know what was going on. She was PISSED. No one had told her that Michael was dead. She wanted to know why he’d left her there.
Then she said he’d been there last night. He’d brought her a present. She said he was hard to see, because of the church windows…??
She thought it was Christmas.
When they finally told he he was gone, she refused to believe it, because he’d been there. Over time, she’s forgotten some of this, but she knows he was there that night. I now believe he was giving her back her life.
My belief system is pretty casual. I don’t subscribe to organized religion. During the year following his death, I felt Michael just behind my left shoulder. I won’t go into the little unexplainable moments, during that time, but in eary June the next year, as I was driving home from work crying, as I did every day. I said, out loud, “Michael, I can’t keep crying like this, you have to show me something to make me smile.” I was stopped at a light, a couple miles from home. I live in the city, no 'burbs for us. Houses shoulder to shoulder. At the moment, when I needed something to smile at, a bald eagle flew not ten feet from my windshield. Traffic stopped it both directions to watch. It spiraled up and up until it was just a dot, then it was gone. And so was my baby at my shoulder.
P. is now living in California again, she has a very mild seizure disorder, but no other problems. she is as bright and witty as ever. The same… except for one thing. She will never attempt suicide again.
Over the months she was here, we talked often about what lead up to that day, and why.
The thing that puzzles even her, is that day was no different from any other day.
She said that when they talked about ending their lives, it never occurred to them what would happen next. When we talked about the stuff I had to do while trying to get my mind around what had and was happening, she was appalled. She knew Michael better than anyone, even me. She knows that if he knew what would come after, he never would have gone.
In the letter he wrote to me, that was waiting when we got home, he said he was just going outside to see what was there and maybe he’d come back and tell me about it.
I think he did in his own way.

So, you see, continuity eror he was no more a victim than I am, but I don’t consider myself a victim. Not exactly. Its more like having a chronic illness.
Don’t let anyone fool you, grief doesn’t get better, and it doesn’t go away. The moments one has to stare into it become less frequent, but the pain isn’t diminished at all. When I think of Michael, my heart breaks anew. I still trip over his memory at odd moments. I still cry, just not every day.

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Complete, total, utter fucking bullshit that can only be pronounced by someone who’s never even been close to being there.

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To the OP: On behalf of my niece and her husband’s family, fuck you very much.

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About comparing pain: They (the people in the original thread) started it. Yes, I do think that the pain of the dead person outweighs the pain of the survivors, but I wouldn’t have been compelled to create this thread had it not been for the fact that other people were making comparisons and I wanted to state my case without shitting up the other thread. Okay, now for individual responses:

EXACTLY. My story: I grew up with a father with bipolar disorder and a mother that hated him for it. Whenever I showed the slightest mental imbalance, my mother took it as a sign that I was turning into my dad (who she hates) and “siding” with his side of the family (there are a number of crazy people on his side, not just him). Getting psychiatric help would have been out of the question–that was something THEY did, not something her awesome family did. Yet, had I killed myself, none of this would have come up. The shame and family politicking and negligence would have been buried so as not to make waves and my parents would have been the victims. True, not all families/friends of suicide victims are so heartless and negligent, but many are. For every suicide that comes “out of the blue” there are hundreds of people suffering from mental illness who are brushed aside by their families, made to feel shame about their condition, and whose only reason for clinging onto life is knowing they might hurt the “people who love them,” who if they lived up to their name wouldn’t have invested so many years in making them feel like crap about themselves. Again, not talking about anyone here, but about my life and the lives of people I know (whose stories I’d write out here except that I don’t want to “out” people without their knowledge; it’s already bad enough that I’m semi-anonymously spilling family secrets all over the Internet).

I really don’t know where all you people come from where you get to talk about your mental health issues with people who care. Whenever I told my parents (well, my mom… my dad might have been sympathetic but I don’t like talking to him and he has no legitimacy in the family anyway so it’s not like he could have helped) I was depressed or even flat-out told them I was suicidal, the response was basically “don’t be a dick” (as someone said above). I think that if you are one of those people who brushed aside someone’s suicide threat and/or denied them access to care (either logistically or through shame), you don’t get to ask “Why? Oh, why?” You fucking know why.

Wow, I really don’t know what this woman was thinking, not to want to stick around to share her life with such a charming and thoughtful lad as yourself.

I’ll say it again even though it’s so obvious it’s not getting through: GRAMMA WAS NOT THINKING STRAIGHT. Maybe she thought she was doing you a favor by offing herself in the most gruesome way possible. Maybe she thought you’d be glad to see it, and not in an ironic sense. Do you even know if this woman had a psychiatric history? Do you care?

Not everyone has the privilege of having total control over their decision-making faculties at all times.

Actually, sometimes there is. See story above.

I feel the same way, especially since my depression is usually accompanied by paranoia. I can’t even talk to a therapist because I think they’re mocking me behind my back, how can I possibly reach out to random Internet people? It’s great that some people can, though.

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For those, like me, who’ve lost someone (or several) to suicide…

How long are they supposed to wait to get ‘fixed’? If they’ve literally tried everything, is 10 years acceptable? Twenty? Never? Are they always meant to fore go their own hell and what they put everyone through while alive to assuage possibilities upon death? Is there ever a point that it’s ok to give up the fight? And if not, are they just shit out of luck so that I don’t have to deal with the aftermath?

And you know what else? When the several people in my life chose suicide, I didn’t and don’t hate them for it or question how they could take such a cowardly way out. I constantly wonder just how bad the pain in their world must have been to let go of the only thing that we’ve truly got. How nothing must have really made a difference or helped in the long run. How much they loathed themselves and what all this was doing to everyone around them. How much it hurt to not be able to make something right, even though they had nothing to do with it or millions of others can deal just fine. How much no one else must of honestly understood enough to fight their own issues to reach across to someone drowning.

That’s what I think. Every single damn day. About each of them. Also, I usually consider killing myself with almost as much frequency. Imagine that. There are folks, in this thread even, who can see both sides of this fence. I don’t presume to judge them. I wish that the same could be said across the board.

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I disagree entirely with the OP, having been affected by suicides from close friends, and work colleagues.

It happens that I am not personally traumatised, however I also have to note that others around them were badly affected.

How is it you cannot see that a husband in the prime of his life commiting suicide and leaving a wife and child behind, or a lover leaving his partner behind, or others who leave a trail of destruction in their wake, how can these possibly not be victims ?

It’s more than just the absence of a person, when your whole life is invested around one person, when you both share dreams, hopes, plans and ideals, its ridiculous to assume that those left behind can just dust themselves down and start all over again.

Real life is not like that song, its untidy, unpredictable, fair and unfair all at the same time.

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And also:
I didn’t mean to say that the people left behind are not victims AT ALL. Yeah, death sucks, and it’s even worse when someone is cut down in the “prime” of their life. I just hate the special rage that’s reserved for victims of mental illness, one that isn’t given to victims of cancer or car wrecks or murder. If someone had responded to a thread about the murder of a family member with “the true victim of murder is the family left behind” there’d be all kinds of people jumping their shit. When will people learn: suicide is NOT (in most cases) about choice. It is not about sticking it to the survivors. It is one of the possible effects of a number of very serious brain diseases.

Also, I know not all people who commit suicide are mentally ill, however this thread is about the ones who are.

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I apologize, I misunderstood your intent. I muddied the waters even more.

Understand that the rage people feel is part of their grief. When the death is due to an outside force, murder, cancer, accident, the grieving person has something or someone to focus that rage on. In suicide, there is nothing but the poorly understood mental illness, or the suicide, himself.
You seem to be personalizing a normal part of grief.
Obviously, you have suicidal thoughts. I can’t give you advice, except of course, to see someone who understands and will neither deny nor vilify your feelings.
You are your only hope. Family can’t help. Even educated family. Councilors need to maintain perspective and objectivity. Anyone with a personal stake can’t do that.
There are no easy answers. I do understand your anger at hearing the hackneyed phrases, about selfishness, and cowardice. They are not speaking to you, nor are they speaking ABOUT you.
They are simply trying to understand their own little slice of hell.

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I have nothing but sympathy for anyone who feels compelled to attempt to take their own life, and for the survivors who bear the pain and sometimes guilt regarding loved ones who suicide. And I don’t think it’s legitimate to say which parties suffer more. I’ve had depressions and even despair. And my father suicided. So I can empathize with both halves of the equation.

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Siege: I understand that some people may not be able to talk to people they don’t know about something like depression, suicidal thoughts, etc. But I know that I find it much easier than talking to my friends or family. The fact that you posted tells me that is true for you to some extent. A third party that has no expectations and holds not judgement is very therapeutic, more so than even a psychiatrist, sometimes. No one has to take up the offer, but it is there. That is the only thing I can do.

picunurse: That is THE most moving thing I ever read. I appreciate that you could share it.

continuity eror: There may be obstacles to getting help, but there are never real reasons. It is not always apparent where or how you can look for help, but it is there. I have a rapidly cycling type of bipolar disorder; it frankly hurts to get out of bed most days. I have attempted suicide several times and think about it everyday, so I am not talking out my ass. I will not presume to tell you that or that will work and it will all be honky dory, but dammit, it is worth the try. I will continue to tell everyone I know, to show everyone I know that there ARE places, people, programs that are built to help, whether you are contemplating suicide from mental or situational problems.
There are so many things I would like to say but it is hard trying to untangle my thought. I will conclude by saying that I think this discussion is futile and tiresome. What is the purpose of saying who has it worse? If you kill yourself and leave no survivors does that make it all right; are you now the rightful victim? I say this sacrcastically, of course. It is not a contest and no one wins a prize. Instead of placing blame, why not make sure that the family that is left behind gets the support it needs to end the cycle? Do not ennoble the pain of the living for the pain of the dead. No one has that right.

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[QUOTE=boofuucontinuity eror: There may be obstacles to getting help, but there are never real reasons. [/QUOTE]

This is one area in which you and I are going to differ. You see, the reasons which have prevented me from getting help, whether it’s by going out to Cecil’s Place and posting or calling an old and trusted friend have been as real to me at the time as the reason why I’m going to go out and get Long John Silvers’ for dinner rather than cooking it myself. They may not be any more rational or helpful, but I won’t denigrate them or myself by saying they’re not real.

You see, if they’re not real, then I don’t have to deal with them or overcome them. I can, instead, dismiss them as figments of my overactive imagination and continue on as if nothing’s wrong. If I acknowledge my reasons were real but not based in fact, I can find out the reason behind the reasons and do something about it. By acknowledging there was a reason I called a suicide hotline instead of my therapist when I was suicidal and that reason had enough reality to me at the time to keep me from contacting her, I was able to take steps which would ensure that if things got that bad a second time I would do something which would work better in both the short run and the long run. If I’d dismissed it as just being irrational and overwrought, I wouldn’t have faced some fears I needed to.

Like you, I do what I can to let people know there is help available and that it works. One reason I didn’t is I let things go for far too long because I thought I couldn’t get help. One thing I can do is let people know that I have been in a position where I thought I was beyond help and undeserving of any there was and gotten past it.

Fah. I’ve participated in threads on abortion, torture, and suicide today, all situations where there’s far too much pain to go around. I won’t compare levels of pain with anyone and I certainly won’t tell anyone not to be angry about something which tears a hole in their lives. When it comes to suicide, I only know one side of the equation. It’s not my place to tell the survivors they have it worse. All I can do is offer sympathy and my condolences and wish that it could have been otherwise.

I hope this makes sense.
CJ

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There is no way that I can compare pain either. This thread has made that clear. The worst pain that I have known was mental anguish, but I got relief for it within a short period of time. How can I compare that to a mother who endures the loss of her son?

picunurse, thank you for letting us in. I understand even better now how much my father must have loved me to risk letting me return to Nashville and living on my own again. You have given me a gift.

You are such a lamb. That really needed to be said and it’s important and true. I wouldn’t blame the person who chooses suicide either. The part of their bodies that makes the decision is also the part of their bodies which is damaged and sick – even when it doesn’t seem that way. That’s true of people who do it to get attention or to get even or who do it without thinking of the consequences to others. They are like children who dart into the street after a ball.

Please take care of yourself and never let go.

calm kiwi, try to think of them as being temporarily brain-damaged and not in their right minds. Under those circumstances, they are not really in a position to choose, are they?

I don’t know why people have such a hard time understanding that mental illness affections the functioning of the brain.

Peace be with you all.

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So when I was growing up in a small town, unable to drive, unable to walk anywhere for simple logistical reasons (our house was two hours walk-time from the center of town, where all medical services were), under the control of a mother diametrically opposed to psychiatrists (for her kids, anyway), I should have been able to get help? Also, this was pre-Internet. Guess deep down I just wanted to waste my teenage years in a state of constant anxiety and perpetual feelings of guilt, dread, and worthlessness. (Of course, this all pre-supposes that I would have been able to recognize my problems as what they were, and would have been able to connect the dots and figure out that I seriously needed help, which was not the case. I spent all of my high school years and most of my college ones in a fugue-like state, and would often lapse out of reality for days at a time. Makes me wonder how I got the grades I did.)

True, I don’t have any reason for not clearing up my fucked up (though not as bad as it used to be) head now, aside from my shame and lack of money. But familial shame is a hard mistress, and unless you grew up with a similar pressure it’s hard to understand. You goddamn people and your fucking support networks.

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Zoe, I have to say, you just made it worth my time. As I started, I took a deep breath, and said to myself, if one person reads this, and comes away a little bit stronger for it, or chooses to wait one more day, I will be happy.
Thank you.
M

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(bolding mine)

You’re half-right; that would be the bolded part. If you ever hear of me committing suicide, find out who had something to gain by killing me and trying to make it look like I trashed myself.

Would you go back and read a little of what I wrote? I barely knew the woman. I wasn’t there. She was my nephew’s mother in law. She killed herself in a messy manner which was almost guaranteed to be discovered by her 4 and 6 year-old grandchildren.

Do I care if she wanted to end her life? Not particularly, it was her call. Do I think she was selfish and thoughtless to choose the timing and method she chose? Do I think her last act in life was to do a terrible thing to her grandchildren? You betcha’.
If we meet in hell, I’ll call her a heartless bitch there too.

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Okay, let’s step back. I did not write in malice and I was not expecting a response in malice. Let’s add the qualifier NOW. NOW there is no reason. I am not going to get into semantics of “real” versus “rational” versus any other close synonym. It behooves me make my point completely understood in the confines of this forum. So let’s just strike the statement from the record, k?

“Support networks” do little good if you cannot get medical help or pay for it. I know the realities of that very well. Because of various loopholes I went several thousands of dollars in debt paying for medications which did not even work until I found that there are resources to help. In fact, some of that medicine made me much much worse than I started. My general practicioner did not think I was depressed just stressed. I have family members that deny that I sick or have tried to commit suicide the same way some people deny the moon landing. These same people are on an active crusade to make me feel guilty for “shaming the family.” There are family members that will not speak to me.

I am not going to have a pissing contest with you over who has it worse. I do not claim to be a psychiatrist or anything of the sort. I do not even claim to be a nice person all the time. I am writing as a sympathetic person just offering help or an ear. You can take it. You can leave it. But there is no reason to stomp on it.

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I registered just to thank you for your story. It made me cry, there were so many things that hit very close to home.

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I’ve had loved ones die from natural causes, homicide, accidents, and suicides and the ones that hurt the most were the suicides. Often times the death of a loved ones brings forth a variety of emotions and those emotions can vary from person to person. So when the suicides occured amongst people I loved I felt a wide variety of emotions and some of them were indeed selfish. I felt extremely sad because someone I loved had been in so much pain and now they were gone forever. I felt guilty because I didn’t see it coming, I didn’t understand why they ended their lives, and I wondered if I had contributed to their problems. You might call this selfish but I also felt a great amount of anger because they did hurt me and they didn’t talk to me about their problems.

I understand that they must have had some serious problems and I know they didn’t commit suicide to spite me or anyone else. That doesn’t really take away the pain, the guilt, or the anger though. Just remember this, when someone dies it isn’t just that one person who is affected. Odds are that individual had people who loved and cared about him and when he’s gone those that loved him are going to be hurting.

Marc

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I’ve been suicidal for exactly half my life. I’m saddened to see the people here hurt by this action. I can only speak for myself here, and say that if I were to be discussing this with a friend, I’d ask to be allowed to die. I’d explain that it has nothing to do with the people in my life, I’ve found peace the ones that hurt me, and I am grateful for the ones who did their best to help. They did the best they could, given what they knew, under the circumstances. I’ve tried to help myself for the longest time, and sought professional help. But eventually, I can’t help saying to myself, enough is enough. Life is there to be enjoyed. If I cannot do that, then I’d rather not live it. I have the right to make that choice. Suicide is not abandoning your loved ones. It’s admitting defeat, but only after putting up one hell of a fight. Still, sometimes you do lose, although you gave it your all. And no, it’s not cowardly. It takes a good deal of guts to put a loaded gun to your head.

I do appreciate the contribution of everyone that shared something of themselves on this thread, and did not judge. You’re an inspiration.