Suicide Forest

[Totally Judy]

...I mean, when my grandfather shot himself... This was a man who was just a few months earlier chopping wood in 20 degree weather at the age of 78. To me the idea of living that kind of a crippled life versus the one he had led was terrible, and I realized that he was not being the selfish one, I was. To say, "Oh, why would you put us through this," when it was in fact what he had to go through that I should care more about.

I'm not saying that it's not a selfish act, I just find the lack of understanding and acceptance by people's relatives and loved ones to be more selfish. I can certainly understand the feelings, and I never wound up not having them for other loved ones who killed themselves, but every time I realized that my grief and my sorrow for losing them was nothing compared to the suffering they had to live through day to day. It's hard to lose someone, but the important thing to realize is that if the person killed themselves, it must have been pretty damn hard to lead their life, and I don't really think that the statements of, "What a selfish thing to do," are without their own selfishness.

Kenny, thank you for sharing your thoughts on suicide. I'm sorry for the pain you have experienced, but glad that you also have had the will to see what tomorrow brings. I appreciate your insight into the feelings of friends and family of a person who has chosen to take his/her life, and that it isn't just a case of that person being selfish. I believe that feeling the person who took their life was being selfish fits into the "anger" part of the grieving process.

The five stages of grief are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. With a suicide, anger and bargaining usually come pretty close after the initial denial.

Anger is a necessary stage of the healing process. Underneath anger is pain, your pain. It is natural to feel deserted and abandoned, but we live in a society that fears anger. Anger is strength and it can be an anchor, giving temporary structure to the nothingness of loss. We usually know more about suppressing anger than feeling it. The anger is just another indication of the intensity of your love.

After a loss, bargaining may take the form of a temporary truce. “What if I devote the rest of my life to helping others. Then can I wake up and realize this has all been a bad dream?”

We become lost in a maze of “If only…” or “What if…” statements. We want life returned to what is was; we want our loved one restored. We want to go back in time: stop the suicide from happening…if only, if only, if only. Guilt is often bargaining’s companion. The “if onlys” cause us to find fault in ourselves and what we “think” we could have done differently. We may even bargain with the pain. We will do anything not to feel the pain of this loss. We remain in the past, trying to negotiate our way out of the hurt.

Suicide sucks. It sucks for the person who was in so much pain that they could not see any other recourse. It sucks for those who are left behind.

Walking into the forest to die... are these people just hoping to spare their friends and family the pain of finding their body? I can't answer that... but it makes sense in a way.