Suicide Prevention

Week 13

I’m a little “late” to my write this post because I have been so enormously frustrated and exhausted.

Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.

John 8:7

Within the past month, there have been some who surmise that they have discovered the answer for “why” my mother ended her life, and with that “answer,” they cast stones at my family.

Lovely.

In the name of love for my Mother, they seek to harm those she loved most.

Those who believe they discovered the answer claim that they saw the signs, and, to that, I ask, “why did you not share them?” If you think you found the root cause, if you think you saw it while she still lived, why were you silent?

Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.

There is no room in this sacred space of mourning and bereavement for blame, self-righteousness, shame, and condemnation. It is shame that kills us most. Do not speak of things you do not know or understand. Do not assume to know the mind of the departed. Do not impart discord, hatred, and cruelty on her survivors.

Victims and perpetrators, that’s what everyone is in the wake of a suicide, including the one who physically died. Those left behind simply become more dead than alive, people walking without their hearts. Sullen, sunken, and tired eyes barely greeting those around them.

There is much we do not know, and there is much we do know. Do not be foolish enough to think that you have it figured out, and do not be cruel enough to speak abhorrent conjectures into existence.

This is the mess that fuels the stigma suicide survivors live through. This is the loss that begets loss, the suffering that begets suffering.

Yes, it’s harsh. Yes, it’s cruel. And yes, unfortunately, it’s the reality.

* * * * *

For those seeking to help and ease the suffering, the best thing you could do for your friends in mourning is simply to show up and listen with empathy and understanding. Advice doesn’t help. Platitudes don’t help. Conjecture doesn’t help. Empathy and compassion help.

Calm kindness helps. Showing up helps, checking in helps.

Reader, may your lives never experience this horror [again], and may love and compassion greet you. may kindness and humility envelop you. May reconciliation find you. May peace carry your broken heart.

I Write to the Griever; I Write to the Friend

Shame cloaks one in fear.  Fear keeps one in isolation.  Isolation repeats the cycle. 

It’s the tragic irony that prohibits us from knowing how to reach out to others when we need them most, and it’s often that same irony that keeps others from reaching out to us. 

The concealment of shame safely shields one from oneself and from others – at times I have been afraid to voice my concerns and share my story simply because the story itself frightened me.  Sharing makes life’s nightmares more real.  Other times, the fear of another’s someone misunderstanding has kept my fingers from typing and my mouth from speaking. 

But where does one turn when he or she internalizes those matters that are too dangerous to share with others?

I look to words – to books and to music, to poems and to plays – but what happens when there are no words?

The prevalence of centuries of literature whispers God’s mercy: one looks to the Psalms for comfort and contrition, the Old Testament stories and New Testament parables for history and application, and the prophecy books for detailed truth of who God has always been.  These precious words preserve timeless truth. It is God who bestows light and life into man, and man who reflects the image of God (Genesis 1, John 1). 

Mankind mirrors fractures of God’s mercy, not because God’s mercy is broken, but because we are broken and fallen creatures.  Mercy cracks through the brokenness of man, reflecting the glory of God, through the gift of man’s words. 

Words meant to heal, words crafted to explain, words written to comfort.  Words to bring the shamed out of isolation and into compassion: words powerful enough to help the confused and broken feel understood and validated.  

I didn’t get those words.  I couldn’t find them. 

When my world fell apart, I fell with it, and there were so few resources to explain.  No one writes about the loss of a sibling, though most of the deceased are survived by siblings.  It’s rare for young people to experience and detail loss. 

And grieving a “complicated death” (ie: suicide, murder)?  Some psychologists write to attempt to explain, but few first-hand accounts exist.  These deaths are shrouded in the shame of the survived, leaving the survived isolated, tabooed, and unreached.

I intend to share the depths of a griever’s experience as a sibling, as a friend, as a woman, as a youth, and as a survivor.  In weeks to come, I will share excerpts from my journals to convey the intensities of loss and the miracles of mercy. Some excerpts may be incredibly intense and seem hopeless, but these are the details of redemption and lament.

In the end, we’re each the griever and the friend.

So, let’s break the cycle.  Truth is not powerless. Isolation, shame, and fear are powerless.  

Death & Escape are Not Freedom

I now empathize with the notorious Edna Pontelier when she filled her pockets with rocks, walked into the sea, and submitted her life to its waves: experiencing my best friend’s death, losing my great-grandmother, reminiscing of past losses, and struggling each day to know whether or not my brother has made it through the night. The past 365 days have taught me that the waves flow calmer than they appear, that life berates me more than it seems, and that escapism plagues a nation of plummeting addicts.

The waves tranquilize when you’re beneath them; they rage when you’re surfacing and tumbling through them, but they gently rock you when you dive below them.  It’s a gentle sway, almost like a cradle.  Perhaps that’s why we enjoy the water.  Its beats return us to the calming rhythms of childhood: before the loss, before the heartache, before the destitution. 

In literature, the ocean symbolizes innocence, danger, sexuality, and complexity—numerous in its expressive nature.  Innocence in that its tranquility brings peace.  Dangerous in that its murky waves captivate.  Sexually in a matter of mystery and addiction: complexity in its many forms.

We see it in our own lives—the ocean that took my beloved friend’s breath away is the same ocean that I cling to when my own thoughts become tumultuous.  It surmises me.  How can I look upon the waves that robbed me with such joy and solitude?  How can I trust them not to carry me down as well?

It’s the resiliency of the human spirit, gifted through God’s mercy.  He allows us to endure and strengthens us to persist despite the weight of the world looming at our shoulders and under our feet.  

I’m so weary, I’d love to submit to the waves.  To give up the fight is to be truly free, isn’t it?  That’s the lie Edna Pontelier, a pioneering feminist icon, perpetuates in her iconic death.  

But death and escape aren’t freedom. Death finitely robs us of all possibility of freedom, and escape imprisons us from experiencing freedom; attractive as their appeals appear, its their lies that rush us to ultimate despair. Once we begin listening to the lie that to die is to escape and to be free, we begin to give up on the hope that things can change.

Things do change, everyday, and that is why we must remember it is truth that sets us free, not death.  Christ said, “and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” to Jewish believers in John 8:35.

That is exactly why I started my blog—to share with others with little truths that God revealed to me.  I began my blog based on Ephesians 5:13-14: “But when anything is exposed to the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light.  Therefore it says, ‘Awake, O sleeper, / and arise from the dead, / and Christ will shine on you.’” 

Death and escape are not freedom.  Truth is freedom.  “Who the Son sets free is free indeed,” John 8:36.  This life is horrifically hard, but that was promised: “I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace.  In the world you will have tribulation,” John 16:33a.  Christ does not conclude on a sorrowful word; instead, He adds, “But take heart, because I have overcome the world,” reminding us of the steadfastness of truth and of God’s faithfulness.