"Survivor Outlook" shares the voices of survivors of suicide loss whose experiences with grief and recovery have been reported in the news. To learn more about the survivors quoted, follow the links to the complete stories. Learn how you can suggest a story.

"Murderers can at least be questioned, but a suicide is a murder in which the killer is also the victim: in which the reason, the motive, dies with the act." Jeremy Gavron, son of Hannah Gavron, who died by suicide in 1965 at age 29 (The Guardian, U.K. -- also see A Woman on the Edge of Time)

"Connor, Will [Trautwein], Robin Williams -- they died of an illness, just as people die of cancer and heart disease ... It is common. It is treatable. It is curable. And it is ok. The stigma needs to go away. People need to talk about it." Erin Ball, mother of Connor, who died by suicide in 2011 when was 14 (WMUR, Manchester, N.H.)

"Suicide grief is so complicated. It's a very physical pain. It affects every cell in your body." Grace Young, mother of Jack Young Jr., who died by suicide in 2007 at age 27. (Hartford Courant, Conn.)

Self-compassion can be a potentially valuable skill for bereaved people to consider, and I believe I've found a simple exercise that I hope -- if it appeals to you -- will open the door to practicing self-compassion in a way that contributes to your healing.

The exercise -- the "Self-Compassion Break" -- can be found on Kristin Neff's website both as a written instruction and in an audio version. Clear, brief, step-by-step guidance is given on the website, which outlines three basic steps to pausing in the midst of a painful experience to invite self-compassion into the situation:

1. Be still for a moment and observe that you are suffering.
2. Recognize that your suffering is painful -- and also is part of being human.
3. Declare that being kind to yourself is your intention.

Why do I think this self-compassion exercise might be helpful to people who are grieving? Because there are times when the pain of loss touches us so deeply that it is not possible -- at least for a time -- to squelch our pain or to escape from it. And I hope that, if we are able to bear the pain and at the same time to be actively compassionate toward ourselves, we may begin to experience something meaningful beneath the pain -- or beyond it.

Please try the "Self-Compassion Break" -- perhaps beginning not with the most troublesome pain you feel but instead practicing with any kinds of difficult or stressful situations -- to see if it might hold value for you.

If self-compassion is an concept that resonates with you, here are some additional resources from Neff:

• "Self-Compassion Guided Meditations and Exercises"
• "The Three Components of Self-Compassion," a 6-minute video presentation (from which the illustration above is taken)
• "Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself," a 50-minute video interview with CJ Liu, about Neff's book on self-compassion
• "Why Self-Compassion Trumps Self-Esteem," an article from Greater Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life
• Self-Compassion on Facebook

A recently posted essay (you may download it here) argues that some aspects of suicide are inexplicable and suggests that if survivors of suicide loss who are struggling with the question "Why?" can embrace "the element of mystery as being as real as any other aspect of what [suicide] is all about," they might increase their "understanding and peace of mind by some measure."

Here are some of the observations that I claim "illustrate vital components of suicide that make this self-directed fatal act seem inexplicable":

• Suicide requires the person who dies to overcome the innate human will to live, which is genetically designed to be a powerful and even invincible force.
• Suicidal people, in almost every instance, are ambivalent about killing themselves -- so their behavior leading up to their death can be starkly contradictory because actions driven by the fact that they want to die occur side-by-side with actions motivated by the fact that they want to live.
• Before the person died, internal factors existed -- and perhaps also some external circumstances -- that only he or she knew about.
• In the end, the only person who is eligible to say firsthand why a particular suicide happened is the person who died by suicide in that instance.

The essay lists versions of these conundrums in the form of personalized questions that I hope lead people bereaved by suicide who are bedeviled by the "why" of it to a story of their own about what happened -- a story "based on who you knew the person to be (and who the person in essence still is, in relation to you)."

I hardly know where to begin in heartily recommending the "Silent Suffering" series published today by the Columbus Dispatch. Each of its half dozen in-depth feature stories and handful of engaging videos is in itself worth experiencing. Taken all together, the series offers an extraordinary opportunity to see suicide from the perspectives of those who struggle with thoughts of killing themselves, of caregivers who are devoted to preventing suicide, of family members who are left behind to ask "Why?" and truly of everyone in a community who is affected by suicide.

Click on the picture above to go to a video that sets the scene for the entire series (the video features several moving stories from people's personal experience). My introduction to the series came when a colleague sent me the article "Some Survivors Cope with Loss by Helping Others Affected by Suicide," which tells the stories of people bereaved by suicide who now volunteer in a variety of ways that change -- and literally save -- the lives of others struggling with suicide and its aftermath.

I hope the following quote from the "Helping Others" story persuades folks to explore whatever might interest them in this superb series. These are the words of Mary Ann Ward of Columbus, Ohio, who lost her son Murray to suicide in 2009 -- and who now facilitates a support group for people bereaved by suicide.

“All we can do is accept this loss without ever understanding it, and lean on one another to move forward ... I can give hope to those who are newer than I. From the pain, we can grow in knowledge and wisdom, and experience joy again.”

I recently sent an essay to TAPS Magazine, which is going to be published in its upcoming edition; and I decided to recognize National Survivors of Suicide Day by sharing an excerpt from the essay here on the Grief after Suicide Blog. In the excerpt (you may download it here), I begin with this statement:

I believe the love we feel for a person who has died and the pain of grief we feel are directly and profoundly connected: When people die, our immense love for them is, in a way, the source of our pain.

Then I say that realizing the "pain following the loss of a loved one is a natural phenomenon ... can empower you to give yourself permission to express your pain." I call expressing your pain "a healthy response to the death of a beloved person," implying that such expressions are connected to the loving relationship between you and the now-deceased person. In fact, I declare, "the pain of grief can provide the 'fuel' for profoundly heartfelt discoveries ... [about] the meaning in your loss." I close the excerpt with a list of questions that I hope might help people cope with their pain, followed by this conclusion:

The pain of grief can be terrible, and there is often no sure way to stop pain from unfolding in real time. But finding safe ways to process your pain can help you see beyond it even as it has you in its grip. And reflecting on the connection between your pain and your love for the person who died can help you uncover meaning in your life that comes directly from the relationship you had -- and still have -- with your loved one.

"Survivor Outlook" shares the voices of survivors of suicide loss whose experiences with grief and recovery have been reported in the news. To learn more about the survivors quoted, follow the links to the complete stories. Learn how you can suggest a story.

"I just wanted a way to remember him. As a mom, that's something you don't ever want people to forget, to forget who he was" (Lori Christianson, Fruit Heights, Utah -- whose 24-year-old son died by suicide in January -- referring to the "Brake the Cycle" event that is dedicated to him).

"It's helping me let Christopher's legacy live on, and it could possibly help save another teenager's life or another parent the grief ... That's what keeps me going every day" (Janet Sutton, Killeen, Texas -- whose 14-year-old son died by suicide in April 2014 -- commenting on the new peer support group she helped start).

By Franklin Cook

Sheryl Sandberg's recent Facebook post (bit.ly/sandbergempathy), written a month after her husband died,* is a wise reflection on the rawness of grief -- and a testament to the resiliency of those who grieve. Her heart-rending story gives us a hundred gifts, perhaps the greatest of which has not as much to do with the extraordinary things she says as it has to do simply with the fact that she is able to stand before us, plain and real, and share: This is how it is for me. Where she takes her stand, she makes room both for the painful void, "the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe," and for whatever might exist on the other side of that void, a place where, she declares, "I want to choose life and meaning." She continues, deconstructing one moment of grief after another, always from a perspective that juxtaposes sheer darkness against gratitude that "knows no bounds."

I hope my allusions to her eloquent post entice you to read it, for it is not my purpose here (nor would it be possible) to summarize all that she gives us. My purpose, rather, is to thank Sandberg for clarifying for me -- in a way that I will never forget nor let go of -- the meaning of a word I hold dear but which I did not understand as completely I now do: "Real empathy," she says, "is sometimes not insisting that it will be okay but acknowledging that it is not." An edifice of compassionate helpfulness to the bereaved could be built upon that foundation.

---

* This post is on Grief After Suicide to recognize Sheryl Sandberg's observations about grief, but it should be noted that Dave Goldberg did not die by suicide (please see cbsn.ws/1QwjQj1).

By Franklin Cook

One of the most unsettling statements in the recently released U.S. national guidelines Responding to Grief, Trauma, and Distress After a Suicide* is this:

Hardly any research has investigated treatments specifically tailored to suicide loss survivors.

It is unsettling because more than 40,000 people die by suicide in the United States every year (more than a million fatalities worldwide), and it seems clear that

    • experiencing another's death by suicide can have an inordinately negative impact on survivors and
    • the experience of bereavement for many people is uniquely shaped by a suicide.

By Franklin Cook

The special report "Systems Must Include Three Levels of Care for Aftermath of Suicide" (available to read or download below) is essential reading for anyone involved in developing, implementing, or assessing services designed to help people who have been affected by a suicide fatality, such as first responders, mental health practitioners, and the suicide bereaved.

Based on recently released national guidelines,* the report delineates three levels of care:
   • Immediate response: crisis assistance, triage and referral, follow-up
   • Support: assistance with grief and loss, self-help
   • Treatment: interventions for potentially debilitating conditions

Quoting Goal 6 of the guidelines -- which is to "ensure that people exposed to a suicide receive essential and appropriate information" -- the report explains that providing such information is a goal that applies across all three levels of care. It also features an addendum, "Information for People Exposed to a Suicide" that outlines the kinds of information that are valuable to people exposed to a suicide and points to the online resource directory available at bit.ly/afterasuicide.

By Franklin Cook

A recent blog post on Grief After Suicide argues (convincingly, I hope) that suicide bereavement is unique because suicide itself is a unique way to die. Yet, at the same time, an abundance of research -- not to mention the universality of the human experience of grief -- points to a paradox, namely, that all bereavement over the death of a loved one shares a great deal in common. In other words, grief after suicide is, simultaneously, both different than and similar to bereavement following other means of death.

Understanding and accounting for this paradox is important because, as is stated in recently released national guidelines on responding to suicide, created by the Survivors of Suicide Loss Task Force of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention:*

Suicide grief support is an emerging field of practice poised to gain strength from newer understandings of bereavement adaptation in thanatology [the study of death and bereavement].

This emerging field would benefit tremendously from looking more closely at -- and acting more collaboratively with -- the field of grief counseling (as well as other fields, such as traumatology, mental health crisis response, and disaster response). Doing so would enrich and strengthen suicide grief support through the application of evidence-based and promising practices that are already proving to be effective with a variety of bereaved people. Taking this multi-disciplinary approach would prevent responses to suicide grief from evolving based on narrow or monolithic ideas centered primarily around what is unique about suicide bereavement.