Dear Ismael,
I recently lost two friends to suicide, separately, and am feeling extremely angry with them. Why didn’t they talk to me or someone? Suicide is not the answer. You may be out of pain but you leave others who have to live with your death for the rest of their lives. How do I get over being so angry with them for being so selfish?
— Grieving in Lincoln Park
Dear Grieving,
Losing a loved one to suicide is hard. But losing two friends? I’m sorry you’re going through what I can only imagine is intense grief.
When I received news of person in my life who died by suicide, my first response was, “So, they’re in the hospital?” I had just seen their Instagram story a few days earlier, a happy 10-second clip, so I couldn’t make sense of them not being around anymore. Let alone, not have a chance to be helped or saved.
But that’s what losing a loved one to suicide does to us: It shatters our sense of a predictable world, a mental health expert told me.
As we try to comprehend and process a sudden tragedy such as suicide, we go through complex stages of grief that include intense, raw and sometimes conflicting emotions. So, you are not wrong for feeling angry.
The challenge is to understand what our loved ones went through — beyond messages in our culture that are often oversimplified — while not letting those dark thoughts consume us through our grieving journey.
“As we gain more and more understanding of mental illness, perhaps there will come a time when we can give grace to those who have passed, recognizing their death as something that happened to them, rather than something they did to themselves or to us,” said Ronnie Walker, a mental health counselor with personal experience of loss by suicide who lived in Evanston for over 50 years.
Journey to recovery, understanding
Recovery can be a journey that takes months and years, and usually starts with us creating a narrative to help unwrap the tragedy.
“As we try to make sense of loss, we tend to look at what happened from many different perspectives, and those perspectives impact our emotions,” said Walker, who is also the founder and executive director of Alliance of Hope for Suicide Loss Survivors, a nonprofit that provides online healing support and other services for people who are coping with loss to suicide. “There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ perspective. It is important to let yourself feel and notice what you are feeling.”
Sometimes, most suicide loss survivors create a narrative that a person had a choice, Walker said. However, an important fact to consider, and eventually try to accept, is that we can’t ever fully know what our friends were experiencing.
What has been learned from those who have attempted suicide and survived is that they entered an internal state that researcher Richard Heckler termed the “suicidal trance.”
“… this type of trance includes a particular vision of the future: an illusion of eternity in which the future is projected as an endless repetition of the present pain and disappointment, never-ending and hopeless,” Heckler wrote in his book “Waking Up, Alive.” He adds that the trance seems as if there is no force strong enough to persuade people to act on his or her own behalf.
Healing, finding support
No matter how many different perspectives we throw at the trauma of losing someone to suicide, you’re right — it will be something friends and family will live with forever. But how do we go from someone who experienced trauma to someone who can go beyond surviving and go on to have a meaningful life?
Talking with a therapist or counselor helps, but also look for other suicide loss survivors who are further into their recovery journey. Bonus points if that person is both a professional and has personal wisdom as a survivor. If you’re not ready to talk about it, the Alliance of Hope online forum is a good place to find a community of support.
For now, go ahead and feel angry. But for the sake of you and your lost friends, I hope you eventually find a way to transform that anger into compassion.
Write to Someone in Chicago at someoneinchicago@suntimes.com.