Strategies for Coping with Suicide Grief
Given these stresses, it is immensely difficult for those left behind to pick up the pieces of their lives, and start to recover. It’s quite possible that specialist help will be necessary to overcome the barriers of silence inside the family, and feelings of public isolation. However, regardless of whether a specialist is brought in, there are a number of strategies that you can use to help cope with your loss:
- Talk Make sure that the family talks about what has happened. It’s important for everyone to show each other constructive support at this time. This is especially true in the first few days following the death since this is a time when feelings of guilt, and bitter accusations of blame, are likely to surface and stifle and ensnare a family in a cycle of unhealthy recrimination.
- Be objective It is common for survivors of an adult suicide to view the death, and the person, in extreme terms. This can result in seeing your loved one as having had an almost saintlike personality. In addition, survivors often assume total responsibility for not having foreseen the act itself, and blame themselves for not having ‘done enough’ to prevent it. While sadly there is sometimes good reason for such guilt, it is important to realize that suicide is not necessarily motivated by a feeling of not being supported by others, but can be a result of an unseen accumulation of stresses, or by psychiatric disorders and personality factors that probably could not have been influenced by immediate family members. It is essential to correct distorted guilt patterns and reassess attitudes so that the fact of suicide, and objective feelings of guilt, can be accepted as soon as possible. With acceptance and understanding, it is more likely that a sense of peace will follow.
Euthanasia
It must be pointed out, however, that not all forms of suicide are necessarily incomprehensible or hugely traumatic. The arguments in favour of active euthanasia, or ‘assisted suicide’ as it seems to be becoming more widely known, are fairly straightforward. Under circumstances of advanced terminal illness that causes intolerable pain and suffering to an individual, or when physical handicap is deemed too restrictive by an individual, despite lengthy consideration, counselling, physiotherapy and other intervention, then it is the right of a mature, rational adult in the face of hopelessness to take their own life. Supporters do not believe euthanasia should be used as a first resort when the knowledge of certain death from illness becomes apparent.
Perhaps because of the voluntary and rational nature of euthanasia the emotions of shame, guilt and fear may be lessened for those left behind, knowing that their loved one’s life ended under their own control, and without undue suffering. This would be especially true if your loved one made a Living Will indicating that they accepted the notion of taking their own life in a calm and orderly fashion. A Living Will is a document that outlines the circumstances in which the person who draws it up wishes medical intervention to be limited or stopped altogether.
Opponents of euthanasia see this form of suicide as being unjustifiable from a number of different perspectives. Perhaps chief among these is that the practice of pain management and relief available in hospices is excellent. There are also those who reject euthanasia on ethical and theological grounds. They would suggest that it is the duty of doctors not to take life, but to preserve it, and to leave the matters of life and death to a god.
