I think you’re right that people wouldn’t do it if they had a bit more perspective….as Sara notes as well.

Polly,
It’s really good to see you!

I think though, that some people, in their utter and complete despair can lose that sense of perspective and I can easily forgive that.

The only person I’ve know who I’ve been angry at for committing suicide was a friend in high school who did it violently with a gun in front of a dear friend of mine. It destroyed her completely. I could never find compassion in my heart for him. It still makes me angry.

In general, I only feel pain and sadness, as I do for this friend.

A suicide makes me so angry. Angry that there was no one there at the crucial time to dissuade against it.

For no clear reason, a friend of mine took his life a few years back. He was just 25, universally popular, very good looking, had just moved into a nice flat, and was training for a new career as a draughtsman. To an outsider, he had every reason to live.

His blameless mother insisted on blaming herself. She phoned me several times after his death, just to ask “why”. I had no answer. But I could relate to her confusion and frustration at the senselessness of his demise.

His mum had gone out for the evening with her partner and had left her son at home. Before she left him, they had some trivial squabble. He wanted money for cigarettes. She refused because the shop was some miles away, and she was already running late and couldn’t give him a lift there. When she returned, he was dead.

His mum was torturing herself that it was all her fault.

What if she hadn’t argued with him? What if she had got him the cigarettes, or money? What if she hadn’t gone out at all? What if she had taken him with her? He would still be alive?

Dorothy Rowe, the celebrated author and psychologist, offers an extraordinary insight into the thought train of the suicidal mind, and how to escape from it.

I am sure her written words alone have saved many many lives..

I often recount what she writes when I’m feeling down.

(very roughly..)

“So you’ve finally done it.. You’ve killed yourself! The pain at last is over! Now what? You’re going to look down on them with deep satisfaction as they discover your body? You want to watch them weep as they read your farewell note? You want them to feel the pain, just like you did? … But you’re dead, you’re gone, no more, so you can’t do any of that…”

Whenever someone takes their own life, a feeling of profound sadness comes over me because I know that often it was just a temporary and intense wave of despair (or worse, psychosis) that came over the victim. I honestly think that few of these people had a long term desire to die. It is such a great loss. I’m so sorry.

Wendy,
I’m so terribly sorry for your loss. There is nothing like losing a young adult child to suicide. Unfortunately I have two friends who lost young adults to suicide and I have some vague inkling of the terrible suffering you must endure. May you find peace in this somehow.

I’m just grateful that my husband, son, and mother were always there for me, and that I always remained at home–where I knew how much I was loved, despite sometimes feeling so numb with pain that I could barely function.

Susan