Suicide Notes? NOT short!!

In My Humble Opinion
1

If anyone here even knows who I am or has followed a thread (recent or otherwise) or four, has read that I have problems. Quite severe ones, in fact, and they’ve been rapidly increasing ever since my most recent catastrophe, which can be seen here and then rightly so, here. More documentation of my insanity can be provided upon request.

So, with that said, I’ve been working over-time lately with my therapist doing a workbook on depression and some worksheets on the devastation of suicide for remaining loved ones. The first one is difficult enough and makes me feel worse and worse as each chapter goes along. However, I’m assuming that with enough time and changing my way thinking, it will help. I’m hoping to remain positive about this. The latter is what I have a question about though…

You see, these things talk about how horrible life would be without you. How terrible your family, friends, co-workers, etc. would feel once you’re gone. The mess they’d have to clean up, the arrangements made and then the stages of grief. Then it has you really wondering what you’d write, if anything at all. Now, I’ve always felt I’d leave a note, or notes, as need be. Hell, I’ve written tons over the past 8 years. But with everything that’s gone on lately (within the last 2 months), this subject is a little closer to my heart than usual. My medication and the therapy are, for the most part, keeping the suicidal thoughts at bay. Regardless, I’m curious as to what the folks left behind would want, if they had a preference (besides that person remaining alive) as to how the deceased truly felt.

The reason I ask this is that my mother and I have a horrible relationship. In the past, I’ve always sugar-coated her letter because I wouldn’t her to feel awful all the rest of her days. This worksheet though (despite this not being its intention), has me questioning if this would really be the right thing to do. [And please, no lectures on suicide, I’ve read up on extensively, I’m in no immediate danger, again, in therapy and on meds and I understand fully where most people fall on whether it is a sin or not, I’m covered. If anyone’s interested in that sort of thing, I’ll be more than happy to meet you in Great Debates.) First let me stress, I am an adult and I take full responsibility for my actions, the choices I’ve made have solely been mine. But I am also a product of my environment (the one where she gave me no tools to cope with reality or daily living) and it took me 35 years to establish even the most base boundaries with my controlling, manipulative, hateful mother. Evil incarnate, that woman is and incapable of caring for another soul but her own. Therefore, if the time came, should she actually know this? Would it do any good? Or would she simply deny it, like she has everything else negative about her, my whole life? I can’t see any reason to do it if it wouldn’t help someone else… like my Dad and Aunt that are basically sequestered up her butt 24/7/365. Or any other minions, like her employees that could possibly benefit from ANY better personality improvements.

Furthermore, I’m believing I’m also pretty pissed at the ex (“Ted” for those who read/followed along on the first thread) who grasps the situation and supposedly wants to know how things are going. Previously, when everything was roses, sunshine and lollipops, if I’d taken a turn for the dark side, he knew he’d get the longest, most glowingly loving letter ever. Matter of fact, I think he still would expect that to happen. Now he’s even more delusional than my mother, so listing his crimes against humanity in general would be pointless. He’d shrug it off as that he really was ALL THAT and I just couldn’t live another day alone and it made me say crazy things, 'cause I was nuts after all and thank God he got away from me in enough time. (Whew!) Well, that made me guess it’d be a huge blow if he got nada. I mean, wouldn’t that speak more words than anything else? Meaning that you weren’t even as important as you thought you were, to have just been the “love of their life” and yet go un-addressed when they choose death over you? Yeah, I’d want to hurt him. Always. (Least, that’s how I see it when I fantasize late at night.) Hmmm, that does sound icky. Sorry.

Anyway, I know that paragraph sounds extremely bitter towards him, and I am, like you couldn’t believe. Right this moment, I’m in HATE HIM mode and love to see him exposed as the fraud/liar that he is. Despite that, this is just an exercise for me to get all this out of my system. Sometimes just the act of writing the blame things down calm me. I promise, I’m not going to hurt myself (well, unless getting a little drunk counts) or anyone else. No really, I swear. :wink: I just need to start getting closure on a lot of things and dealing with the most pressing matter first seems prudent.

Ok, if you were the one “left behind,” what would you want? I know if I were, I’d prefer a note and one that told the complete truth so that in the future, I wouldn’t contribute to driving anyone else over the edge (if I had). I also think, if it was all good, that would certainly help when the time came that I hated them for leaving me or whimping out (though I’ve never believed this because it seems an impossibly difficult and far-reaching decision to make, but I digress) or whatever one thinks in that situation. Plus, it would be the last thing I’d have to remember them by, no matter what the content. Hope that explains what I’m looking for. Thanks in advance for your opinions.

[Second disclaimer: To all Dopers, administration and mods… I am NOT suicidal now. Please, please, please don’t anyone come along a say that it’s a “cowards way out” or any other kind of preaching. Truly, you may be helping others here with your answers who only watch but don’t partake. Yes, I do have my suicide hotline numbers and a constant family member with me. I repeat, do not be worried or alarmed because I’m simply struggling, but not falling into the abyss. I will get emergency help if necessary. I DO know where the line is. That should make it clear and if not, I’ll be glad to go over it again. So, I’m ok, you’re ok.]

2

I’d want a live relative.
Given that, how could any simple note explain a person’s life? A full-length novel couldn’t do it.
In the end, a note would leave the survivors as lost & confused as no note.

3

I think Bosca’s hit it right on the button: a note, no matter how long or what it says, is no substitute for having the live person around.

Kay Jamison’s excellent (if not particularly cheerful) Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide has an interesting chapter on suicide notes. In short, there’s nothing you can say in a note that will prevent your loved ones from being traumatized by your suicide, nor that can make them truly understand why you felt you had no other choice, nor, indeed, prevent the ones who loved you most from blaming themselves in some way.

Suicide is a fundamentally selfish act, and suicide notes the ultimate in “getting the last word in”. Even when heartfelt, they’re petty. Better to say what you want to say to the person or people before choosing death.

4

I’m with the last poster, Bosda.
A dear family member offed himself last fall. He left no note.
8 years ago, a dear friend blew his fricking brains out. He, too, left no note.
I was initially upset that there was no note… WHY! WHY! it kept running through my head.
But in the end, the note would have answered nothing. The reasons a man does something and the reasons a man says he is doing something frequently fail to converge. I would still have cried like a little girl both times, with or without a note.
In all likelihood, someone upset enough to do themselves in won’t write a terribly explanatory note. The survivors will likely read things into it that aren’t there.
In short, making a will serves a purpose. Writing a suicide note serves none.
Hell, if I could stand living long enough to write the note, I’d probably save that time, and devote my efforts to doing something fun, like getting laid, driving fast or playing video games. The grim reaper can pry my life from my cold dead hands.

5

Suicide note? Hell I’ve gotten the suicide phonecall. It doesn’t help. It doesn’t make it all better. It didn’t help me understand why. It didn’t make me miss her less and it didn’t lessen my grief of losing her and it didn’t help my anger at her for being so stupid and so far away and so irretrievably dead.

She’s gone. No note or phone call will ever change that.

6

I was hoping that most people would prefer that their loved ones remained alive. But if that was no longer what they felt was an option… hence my question. But you are right, as an explanation for their entire life, it would be pointless. However, to clarify the act in and of itself, with the reasoning behind it, would matter not?

7

You are correct that Jamison’s book is excellent (although depressing as hell) and I’ve amassed quite the collection of this type of thing. And I do get that there’s nothing to prevent what those that are left behind will feel. What I’m aiming for is would it make a difference in that particular person’s future. I mean, if I’m a complete and total bitch and was finally the straw that broke the camel’s back, no matter how hard it would be to know that, I’d prefer to so I at least try not to repeat the behavior and do the same thing to someone else.

As far as you saying that “suicide is a fundamentally selfish act”, I suppose I’ll just have to agree to disagree. Which is what I’d requested initially that we refrain from. :stuck_out_tongue: However, that said, having been pretty much daily suicidal now for almost a decade, those that have repeatedly begged me to “hold on” just in case, without truly giving a damn or lifting a finger to help, are the ones being unbelievably selfish. I’ve asked many a time what’s worse… staying alive and miserable, dying on the inside, to appease those around you who can be consoled by your natural death or taking your own life, getting some peace (as some feel is possible) and then the remainder can get on with the rest of everything else? I know I’ve more than disrupted, torn apart and destroyed people over the course of my illness. I’d rather they be healthy and happy than me just hanging on for something that may never be fixed. JMHO though.

Petty, except where the ex is concerned, is the futherest thing from my mind.

8

I’m so very sorry that you’ve lost loved ones this way. I have too, but no one terribly close and that felt extremely surreal. I can’t imagine someone I loved. Perhaps you are correct that for some, no note is just as good as having one because it ultimately doesn’t matter. But in my heart of hearts, if my best (and only) friend in this world, decided to commit suicide, I’d want that last bit of his thoughts. Whatever they were.

And you do make a good point. Being anal enough to take the time to write the notes has saved my ass more than once. I’m hoping someday that’ll turn out to be a good and worthwhile thing. Lastly, if I had my druthers and wasn’t in such a man-hating snit (well, ok, just ONE man, but anyhow), the “getting laid” part is also a great deterrent. :smiley:

9

Oh, DeVena, I’m so sorry to you as well. That has to be immeasurably worse. I understand that nothing can help, what’s felt and I’m probably naive for thinking it would shed some light, but I get it would never lessen how much you miss her or how angry you were. Sadly though, if she were truly that miserable and in pain, no one could help her. I know that feeling. Hell, I have it almost every single day. And sometimes, I wonder if some supreme deity could step down from heaven to confirm that it’d be eventually alright, I don’t know if I could overcome the here and now when it’s that damned bad. I just don’t know. But writing helps, in whatever form.

10

A note might leave me with the inescapable feeling that these problem are something I could have helped to resolve, had I only known they were causing a suicidal level of despair, and yet it would forever be too late. Knowing the whole truth is great when you can do something about it besides impotently wring your hands.

11

Well, obviously in my case, everyone and their dogs (plus however many Dopers that are playing along at home) know way too intimately how bad things are for me. I mean, I have had a couple of psych hospital stays under my belt now and am being encouraged to give it another go soon. No one could save me that wasn’t already interested and the rest, weren’t. So, I wouldn’t be doing that sort of thing to anyone clueless. I reiterate, since I’m an open-freaking-book, the whole world is kept abreast of my idiotic situation.

::: sigh :::

But I suppose I’m still being too foggy in what I’m trying to get across… would a note make someone have a Scrooge-esque about face? Would it make them question their interaction with that person and how it might have hurt instead of helped? Could it make a difference in the future in *someone else’s * life?

See, that’s what I worry about (mostly) with my mother. I doubt seriously that being called on the carpet over her actions would ever matter, even in the event of my death, but I’d risk her hating me and renouncing me for all eternity if it gives one iota of relief to those left around her.

Does that make sense?

::: crosses fingers :::

12

I agree.

And I think that a note which highlights all that went wrong, and all the supposed reasons, would only serve to make me feel guiltier.

That said, I wouldn’t really want to know what I did that was apparently so horrid as to “push you (figuratively) closer to the edge.” Maybe because I refuse to accept responsibility for the way a person responds to anything I did, especially if their response is to kill themselves. I can change every single thing that I do, but guaranteed there’s someone who’s not going to like something I do afterwards.

This, by the way, from someone who has written a suicide note.

13

What would I want to see on a relative’s or friend’s suicide note? Frankly, I’d hope the last sentence would be, “April Fool’s!”, which would be followed by the sound of hysterical laughter from said person’s “corpse.” Then I would have to restrain myself from personally killing him or her for playing such a stupid prank.

I don’t really see how a note could lessen the pain at all. I could see how it could have meaning to the person committing suicide, but it doesn’t help the survivors one iota, other than showing that the death wasn’t accidental. And even then, what’s the difference at that point? The only real value for posterity of a suicide note would be if you’re some kind of literary or artistic great and you feel a duty to make your biographers’ jobs easier (or possibly harder, depending on what you write).

14

I know this probably isn’t the answer you’re looking for, but I really don’t think any putative ‘good’ that might come out of a suicide note could ever outweigh the ‘harm’ that befalls a person who has to suffer the loss of a loved one that way. Yes, they might learn something interesting and moderately useful about themselves, life, or the general state of the universe, but at the end of the day, that’s going to be a poor consolation. Suicide just totally fucks up the lives of those left behind in a real and lasting way, no matter how poetically or eloquently you try to explain yourself.

15

By George, someone finally understood me! Yippee!!! I was beginning to think I’d slipped back into Klingon speak or something. :wink: See, maybe that is why it would be pointless to leave anything besides a video tape or CD or something. But, what I’d meant when explaining about someone “pushing you closer to the edge”, was that there are some people so horrible that only an act of God can penetrate. I seem to remember a thread in the last couple of days about really heinous parents and I’m referring to that. I started to post to it, but there was just too much (I mean, when your own mother wants a DNA test to prove your hers – and your her ONLY – well, that’s a bit much on the verbal abuse front, if you ask me) that overwhelmed then to write down.

And she still does this kind of damage to others, daily. Needless to say, I can’t do zilch alive, because she has everyone brainwashed (much like Jim Jones) to not even listen to dissenting negative opinions about her. But surely, something as traumatic and permanent as death might convince them, if not her, to seek help.

Not that I’m going to do that just to get her to change or ‘free her slaves’, because they are legal adults and appear to follow willingly. However, if it DID come to that, I just wondered. Much like what you wrote though, I don’t think she’d accept any responsibility anyway and it would just give her more fodder for labeling me the demon spawn I rightly was.

One last thing though, NO ONE is held accountable to that extent for someone else’s actions. My mother is my cross to bear, but if I give up and ditch life, it won’t be because of her. She might be the straw (God knows she’s usually the one nearest the camel, prodding it in the side), but whoever pulls the plug is the one, and only one, to blame. You can’t live your life trying to prevent a suicide. You can help. You can do what you can, but you can’t save us.

On the other hand, as my mother so aptly demonstrates, tries her hardest to push. The edge, the back , the abyss, whatever. The original martyr will honestly pass over to sainthood if her daughter takes her own life. Oy vey.

Sorry 'bout your note too. Suck, don’t they? :frowning:

16

You all are too fast for me! I can’t keep up.

::: pant pant pant :::

And if someone ever did that whole “April Fool’s” joke thing to me, on that kind of subject matter, we would have someone dead and I’d be in jail. Not. Funny.

I think I’ve addressed your other issues mentioned, but you see how I write, I don’t think anything I could possibly have to say would interest a biographer or have merit of any kind… literary, artistic or as liner for a bird cage. :stuck_out_tongue: So, no point in going there just for that.

17

Oh, I wasn’t looking for any specific answers. I wanted to know genuinely what others thought and if it could ‘help’ any left behind. That said, I’m really beginning to believe that the ones I’d wish most to protect (my Aunt and Dad) would be beyond reach anyway. Mother is more along the lines an unrepentant Cruella. I don’t ever believe she’d pull a Scrooge, even with Past, Present, Future and Everything In Between on her ass. That makes me sadder than usual.

18

My sister killed herself 16 years ago.

She left a three page note.

Did it help? Well, she was pretty clear why she felt so horrible and used it to get a couple digs in to a couple of folks, but as much as she tried to justify her action… ya know, I just don’t buy it.

Was it better or worse than not leaving a note? I don’t know. If she hadn’t left a note I guess my thoughts would be “Well, we know she’s had problems for years and years… guess it was finally too much.” As it is “Well, I know she’s had problems for years… I guess these specific things were what were finally too much.”

I was hundreds of miles away at the time, so there wasn’t a hell of a lot I could have done either way, although if she had asked I would have dropped everything to help her. But she hid how bad she was feeling - a lie on top of her act of murder.

The pain does not, and has not, and will not go away. It does not overwhelm me as it did the first week or two after, and it does not interfere with my ability to enjoy my life, but it is a nagging, chronic ache. Every time the surviving family gathers here absence is a dark presence. It is sentences trailing into silences, children asking questions that can’t be answered, and my parents sobbing behind closed doors. It has driven a rift between some survivors that, after a decade and a half, show no signs of healing. It is burning, red-hot anger.

My sister’s act of self-murder was the single most painful thing that has ever happened to me in my life. It was far worse than any *natural * or *accidental *death I have had to deal with.

Does a note make it better? Don’t make me vomit. NOTHING “makes it better”, NOTHING makes it forgivable, NOTHING makes it OK, more understandable, less painful, or anything else but what it is. It doesn’t matter if you leave a note or not.

A suicide cares only for their own pain. They leave a note - or don’t - for their own reasons.

If your mother and family make you so miserable then cut yourself free of them - stop worry what those people want, go somewhere else, start over, and don’t let them hold you back anymore. You don’t owe them your death, you owe yourself a life.

19

If someone is so harmful to you as to cause you so much pain in life, I doubt even spelling it out in a note could cause them to have an epiphany and change their ways after your death. It’d be too easy for that person to brush it off with “well, see how far gone she was? she just didn’t realize that people cared about her and were saying/doing those things for her own good.”

20

This isn’t answering your question, but can I ask if you still live near or with your mother. My parents were not abusive like your mother, but they did drive me deep into depression when I lived with them as an adult. I thought I would never “escape” since I didn’t have a good-paying job and they wouldn’t let me drive. I eventually did find a job away from home, however. Now we do not see each other as often and things don’t seem as bad.

Another thing you could do is go to theraphy with your mother. This won’t make it all better. In my case, it only helped a bit, but it made life a bit more bearable. Anyway, you would have better results in the long run in expressing your feelings alive to people, instead of leaving them in a suicide note.