"On Self Blame and Suicide"
There are times of intense sorrow when it is almost impossible not to find
some way of blaming yourself. People magnify trivial incidents in order to
accomplish self blame. Often there need for an answer to "why" in nearly
insurmountable. Perhaps there is a sense of "if it's" my fault there is a reason he or
she died. The need for that reason can be near frenzy for some.
Self blame is magnified a thousandfold when a special person has died of
suicide. Very often that self blame is cruel as well as unjust.
If your loved one died of suicide frequently you will find yourself reaching
for some way in which you could be held responsible. You may be berating
yourself with questions like these:
Did I not do enough
Did I not give enough
Was I simply not enough
Were my last words the final breaking point
To help balance some of this self blame, help yourself by using some new
language. There is a tendency to say "committed suicide". The sense that someone
acted out there anger and pain in the most aggressive and hurtful way is our
image of suicide. There is also the sense that someone got the last word
without allowing you to make the situation better or to explain it from your point
of view. All to often loving survivors feel inadequate and helpless and view
the suicide as an act of viciousness from which they had no protection.
When you decide to help yourself it may be helpful to begin with a new
vocabulary for suicide. Begin to think "he died of suicide". In this context,
suicide becomes a death like cancer or heart failure, for in reality there are
simply some people who cannot live despite the finest ministering we may offer. If
you are able to make this transition in your mind you may find that you will
become kinder to yourself and less punitive. As you ease up on yourself you may
allow some logic to enter your thinking and without hat logic may come some
peace.
Remember it may all begin with this new terminology.
This perception of suicide originated with Monsignor John Trese, who works
extensively with survivors suffering a loved ones death by suicide. He says
that after hearing a multitude of stories involving those who took their own
lives his view, which has always been traditional, was altered. His new concept is
that suicides are not necessarily indictments; they are not proof of
mistreatment by those who surrounded the one who died. He believes firmly that some
people just simply cannot live, Things are just to painful.
Not long ago a young woman attending a high pressure university in the Mid
West died by suicide. She was found in her room by her room-mates.
A year afterward they are still wondering, they are still in shock "What
could we have done that we didn't? She didn't leave a note. She didn't tell us
anything except that she was doing badly in one of her classes. How could we
have known?"
The answer, of course, is that they could not have known unless she chose to
share her inner pain with them. This was not the case. Instead, she went
quietly about her business, going deeper and deeper inward, and ultimately she
ended her life.
How helpful it would be if her room-mates could look at her death not form
their vantage point but from hers. Not from the standpoint that somehow they
were unable to help her but rather that she was unable to live.
Since suicide is not an acceptable way of dying in our society we all to
frequently try to find some self blame and often self blame is unjust. If you are
a survivor of a suicide perhaps to know that the person just simply could not live will ease some of your hurt.
© Author Harriet Schiff from Living Through Mourning
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