Suicide Loss Rights #2: Stigma

Here is the second Suicide Loss Right by Tony Salvatore with my commentary: 

2. We have the right to be free of stigma. In our society suicide has a negative connotation. This afflicts us as it did those we lost.

Even as I write this, I feel like I am breaking a taboo.  I hear voices telling me not even to use the word "suicide" because I am exposing myself, my family, and Zach to shame.   I remember in broadcasting school we were told that it was inappropriate to use the word "suicide" in newscasts.   Since that time, the media has become more sophisticated.  Here is a media guide for reporting suicides.

I didn't want to talk about Zach's death as suicide.  I still don't.   I want to remember him for the fun, kind, intelligent, handsome, playful, caring boy and man he was.   He also struggled.  That is part of who he was as well.  I remember reading about those who had lost adult children through accident and realizing that I could not fully relate.  It wasn't until I could hear from those who lost someone, especially a child or adult child through suicide that I could start to name my own feelings.    Thankfully, there were suicide survivors who did talk and write about their experience and that encouraged me to do the same.     Doing so has helped me begin to lift that stigma of blame, shame, and judgment.

I am not going to describe the details but at the time the police told us it wasn't a suicide.  I remember the officer at first telling us that we could find some comfort that it wasn't.    That reflects the stigma that it would be "comforting" not being a suicide.    Later the detective and the coroner did come to the conclusion that it, indeed, was suicide.

As time went on we were asked innocent sounding questions like, "Was he getting help?" and "Did you notice any signs?" that just furthered the judgment that we were class A fuckups as parents.  We were "on watch" with him for five years after he had made his first attempt in college.   We brought him to live with us.  We were alone in this.  We didn't tell people why we had brought him home.  We didn't want to make it harder for him.   Yes, we saw the "signs."  We lived with the "signs" and yes he did get "help" and it simply isn't that simple no matter what the "experts" say.  I suppose if I were Dr. Spock or perfect Rev. Lovejoy this wouldn't have happened?  It isn't that simple either.  But that is the stigma that parents are somehow at fault and that if we were "good" parents it wouldn't have happened.  

I have no idea and no one else does either what my son's experience of life was like.    I can guess.  I can partially fantasize about what went on inside him but I cannot know.   One thing that has been helpful regarding the stigma is to use the passive, "He suicided" rather than "He committed suicide."    He was a victim of illness, not a killer of himself.  I am not ashamed of him.  I don't want his memory, to the extent that I have control over it, to be one of shame.   As I see it, he bravely fought demons day in and day out that I will never know.   Finally, they got the best of him.   Ultimately, I can only honor his life and his death.   I wish there had been other options and other choices that he felt he could trust.  I wish he were alive.  I wish he were well.   I am grateful to have had him for as long as I did.

I know the reality of stigma.  I choose to rise above it.  I will choose to hold my head high.    I will choose to talk about his life and his death as I need to do as I feel it is safe for me to do.  I will choose to remember him with pride.  I will remember him with laughter and with tears.  I will honor my son.

Suicide Loss Right #1

I recently posted a series of blog posts on The Mourner's Bill of Rights.  Now I am posting on Suicide Loss Rights.  Why "rights" language?   I think those of us who grieve losses may feel pressures to grieve in a certain way.   We feel that family, friends, "experts", society, or some other entity real or imagined is setting the parameters for our experience.  

Rights language is strong language, revolutionary and rebellious language, "fightin' words" to assert autonomy.   

"Do not tell me how I feel or how I should feel.  I have the right to feel as I do and express myself as I do."  

Rights language is about changing things.   Whether these things be laws, habits, attitudes or values, rights language demands notice.  

"This isn't right!  People are suffering and the powers that be need to recognize this and hear us out!"

Rights language comes from righteous anger.  For those of us who have experienced loss of a child, and in my case, loss of an adult child to suicide, anger can be common.  I am angry.  Yes, I am angry and I have the right to be angry.  I am not ready to make nice as the Dixie Chicks eloquently put it.  

The challenge of anger is that it requires an object.  Sadness doesn't need an object, not even a reason.  We aren't sad at someone.  Anger needs a someone or a something as a target.   In my experience, I am angry and I don't have a target.  I could make one up.  I could find things and people (including myself) to receive my anger.  I could be angry at Zach or me or the mental health system or the government or the church or God or forest gremlins or the internet or stupid people.   Why not?  It is something to do.   

Another thing to do is to make a list of rights.  I am no political philosopher but I find rights language tentative.  I may have the right to free speech, to bear arms, and to have my own private toilet, until these rights are taken by force or compromised by circumstance.  Then it is just f__ing reality.  I have a right to have my son outlive me.   I can carve that in stone and put it on the courthouse lawn.  Then one day I have a "right" but no son.  

Why am I ranting on rights?  Oh, I don't know.  Rights are a way to cling to something when there is really nothing.  They resemble beliefs.   At the end of the day as I see it I have reality regardless of what I believe or what right I claim.  I can assert myself, use my voice, tell my little truth and try to find a way to survive.   

I translate these "rights" in my own head to simple assertions.  For instance, here is the first of Tony Salvatore's Suicide Loss Rights. 

1. We have the right to grieve as we wish despite the unsupportive settings that we often find ourselves. Death is a normal life crisis; suicide is the ultimate abnormal life crisis.

In my head I change that to "I will grieve as I wish despite the unsupportive settings that I often find myself...." and so forth.  If it helps to claim to have a right, then one can claim it, I guess.   I'll just do it. 

The point of number one is that unless people have experienced this type of loss, they don't get it and they would prefer it if you could just get back to normal whether they say so or not.  The only setting that I have found that is truly supportive outside of my immediate family and other suicide survivors is a suicide survivor's group.   That is because we are surviving a unique type of loss.   We get it as no one else can.

Having said that, it doesn't mean that other settings are particularly "unsupportive."   My congregation is a very loving and caring group of people who have supported us in concrete ways.  Other family members and many friends are also supportive and caring.  Nonetheless, they, of course, cannot "get it."   Here is the deal:  no one gets it unless one is in it.   It is a club you never leave.

I don't want people to "get it" because I don't want anyone to go through this.  

That is the paradox of this grief.  On one hand, we want people to get it.  We are angry when they don't get it.  But we really don't want people to "get it" because once you have entered the "get it" club, life is altered forever.   The only way for people to "get it" is to become one of us.  Get it?    I hope you don't and never will.  

It isn't a matter of people not being insightful, or compassionate, or smart, or learned, or being able to relate via similar experience.   I am not in any way judging.  

The point of number one, as I read it, is that we are kind of like the Amish.  Yet we live in an "English" world.  The "English" will never get us.  So, Dear Suicide Survivor (who this post is really for), learn that.   The "English" will always seem unsupportive.   Sometimes they are obviously unsupportive and that is often a topic in our survivor's group.   Mostly, it is because they have their lives to live and they are doing the best they can.  You, on the other hand, have experienced the "ultimate abnormal life crisis."  

Therefore, you have to own your grief and do it your way without expecting the "unsupportive English" to approve, understand, offer good advice, or whatever else we think we would like them to do.   You have to find your own path.   And you will, because you are a survivor.  Believe me, that is no small thing.    
 

Suicide Loss Rights

I didn't attend the seminar we held at our church, "Suicide and Its Aftermath."   I heard that it was helpful to those who attended.   I did pick up a handout entitled "A Statement of Suicide Loss Rights" then found it on-line. 

This is from Tony Salvatore, The Suicide Paradigm.  He lost his son, Paul, to suicide in 1996.  These are his Suicide Loss Rights.   Much of this is true for me.  I thought I would post them here and perhaps comment on each one.  Or maybe not.  We'll see.

1. We have the right to grieve as we wish despite the unsupportive settings that we often find ourselves. Death is a normal life crisis; suicide is the ultimate abnormal life crisis.
2. We have the right to be free of stigma. In our society suicide has a negative connotation. This afflicts us as it did those we lost.
3. We have the right to be angry about our loss and to be able to express it appropriately at the one we have lost or ourselves.
4. We have the right to feel responsible for things we did or did not do in relation to our loss. We may or may not come to feel differently.
5. We have the right to grieve in a manner and timeframe that works best for us. We don't have to "get over it."
6. We have the right to know "why." All who grieve yearn for the one lost. We also seek to understand what happened.
7. We have the right to regard our lost loved one as a victim. Suicide is the outcome of debilitation; it is not a choice or a decision.
8. We have the right to cooperation from police and the health care community if we seek information on how our loss came about.
9. We have the right to the truth about our loss. We should have access to information as early as possible, if we need it.
10. We have the right to know that we are not by definition candidates for psychotherapy or counseling, or that we must "get help."
11. We have the right to channel our experience to aid the suicidal or other suicide grievers, or to help others better understand either group.
12. We have the right to never be as we were before. Other ends to grief do not apply to us. We survive, but we do not "heal."

(Note: © Copyright 1998-2002 Tony Salvatore)