a former colleague/friend has killed himself and I feel angry

[Myneighboursdomyheadin]

First things first - this is someone who was a part of my life and whom I worked alongside for perhaps 5 years and who left our town three years ago. So this is not my tragedy but we did touch each other's lives.

He was one of those people who wear a smiley mask IYSWIM. I guess I always knew it was a mask.

I found out today that he has taken his own life and I feel angry because the children are young - primary school age.

I have never felt this way before about a suicide, I have always just felt sympathy. My son's reaction was "poor Mr X".

that's it - don't know what I'm trying to say really.

And fuck Covid, as I presume something about this year's pressures had something to do with all this.

It definitely is feeling sad by other means. I know with my aunt, I tried to redirect my feelings into sadness as that was ‘healthier’ or at least people know how to deal with sadness, people don’t know how to deal with anger. I’ve cried at every funeral I’ve been to and sometimes if I’m feeling emotional I can start to well up when I see hearse. But I couldn’t cry at my aunt’s funeral. I just couldn’t get past the anger. Because I wasn’t crying, people directed their attentions to me, trying to get me to open up and feel sad but that just made me angrier. I think most deaths, people mostly experience sadness and when you feel differently they don’t know how to cope with you and it can just make you feel like something is wrong. It’s not wrong, I think sometimes complicated deaths just come attached with the overriding emotion of anger. As PP said it’s sometimes easier to come out as anger until you work out what the driving factor is. Although I’d never thought of it that way before.

I hope the anger doesn’t last that long for you I think generic sadness is somehow easier to deal with it. It’s a bit easier to explain and easier for people to relate to.

I used to get angry when I heard about suicides sometimes, especially when dc were left behind or the method involved meant it directly affected others (eg someone jumped off a motorway bridge near here and landed in front of a minibus full of dc, including a friend of ours).
I don’t anymore because a friend of mine is a MH nurse who explained that for suicides their actions are what they think is the best thing to do, for themselves and their family, they think their death will make things better somehow. She said “Hopping, imagine that you felt throwing yourself off a bridge solved more than just simply living, how can you be angry at that?”

@Sparklfairy I don't know all the details and dynamics but I thought knowing he would ruin their holiday was inexplicably cruel and selfish. Not that there's ever a good time but I struggled with that thought a lot. It doesn't mean I don't feel sorry for how desperate he must have felt.

To be honest, by the time someone feels that killing themself is the best option, I dont think they have much capacity to think about other people. Or if they do, the most common thing I hear (from those who failed, obviously) is that they think other people will be better off without them.

A colleague of mine committed suicide and was outwardly a happy and jolly person. I struggled to process it. Both his reasons and if I should have noticed something.

My friend killed himself when he was 19 (30 years ago). I was angry at the time because I just didn't understand. I still don't understand but now that I am so much older, I just feel such overwhelming sadness for him that I cannot think about him for more than a few moments.

[quote WannabemoreWeaver]**@Sparklfairy* I don't know all the details and dynamics but I thought knowing he would ruin their holiday was inexplicably cruel and selfish. Not that there's ever a good time but I struggled with that thought a lot. It doesn't mean I don't feel sorry for how desperate he must have felt.*

To be honest, by the time someone feels that killing themself is the best option, I dont think they have much capacity to think about other people. Or if they do, the most common thing I hear (from those who failed, obviously) is that they think other people will be better off without them.[/quote]
Yes, I think you're right. That's the conclusion I've eventually come to as it was a few years ago now. I couldn't quite reconcile the person I knew with how it all turned out, to 'ruin' someone's dream holiday and forever taint the memories of that holiday did not fit his personality at all, and I think that explains the true nature of just how ill he was.

@Notavegan

A colleague of mine committed suicide and was outwardly a happy and jolly person. I struggled to process it. Both his reasons and if I should have noticed something.

I was suicidal last year, very seriously so. You genuinely think that at that point in time everyone is better off without you, and you just want the pain to end.

i spent alot of time trying to work out how to do it without causing pain. Then i was driving on the school run and listenend to a radio 4 programme where the interviewee's parent had suicided and i listened to how it had affected his whole life. It sort of shocked me out of things and I then have spent the past few months re-sorting my life out.

But, the thing is, when people are in that place, IME they are in such hideous pain. They cannot see how it affects anyone else. Because the pain is all consuming.

It is no one elses fault. It is not the person's fault either. It is all all all too dreadful.

A close family member killed themselves and without going in to details, the repercussions are still felt thirty years on.

There was no doubt some anger from his side when he did it.

And I felt anger on behalf of those left behind.

More recently though I've come to realise that life is fragile and he had a dreadful upbringing which he couldn't escape.

No good parent wakes up and decides to kill themself and abandon their dc

Please don't say things like this. A persons mental health doesn't have anything do to with their kids or "abandoning" anyone and this kind of attitude prevents people feeling suicidal from getting help and implies that being suicidal = bad parent.

You need to grieve op. Anger is part of the process and all the more acute in lockdown.

Aw op I'm so sorry you have to go through this. A friend of mine killed himself a few weeks ago leaving behind a wife and very young children, amongst others. I knew he had his demons as we'd talked about them years ago when we were closer but to anyone on the outside looking in he was the happiest, funniest man, always willing and ready to help anyone. I'm angry too, angry at him for leaving everyone behind to pick up the pieces. But mostly I'm angry at the demons for getting him this time. He worked in mental health and "should" have had ample access to support but I don't know if he ever asked for any. I'm at the sad stage now tho, that an amazing man in his 30's is no longer around to grow old with his wife and kids and the world is a darker place for it.

Suicide is tough on those left behind to pick up the pieces, but life must be a living hell if you believe it's the only way out 😢😢 look after yourself op

Anger is a perfectly normal stage of grief - please don't let people make you think you're a bad person for being angry

It's totally okay to be angry - in fact, I would say it's incredibly healthy.

@oreo2020

You cannot be angry with someone who was clearly mentally unwell.

Absolutely you can.

Anger is one of the main stages of processing grief. It's totally normal and healthy to be angry about someone you love and care about taking their own life.

Is it rational? No, probably not. But grief isn't rational.

OP anger is one of the seven steps of bereavement so don’t beat yourself up about feeling this way your feelings will change as the shock fades. Is there anything positive you could do to Channel your energy into.
My sons have had several friends commit suicide over the years it has left them bewildered and devastated. Two had lived in our village so been close friends for many years. One left two young sons and everyone that knew him was so shocked. He had a very caring family and a family wedding he had a prominent role in. No one knows why to this day so he must have hidden it well. The method he chose was traumatic for a parent who found him.
It is so difficult but I am sorry for your pain and shock.

When the doctor from Love Island announced the sad passing of his brother he said 'I lost my beautiful little brother to mental health' this resonated with me, its not a choice, the death of your friend is no different to the death of someone with cancer. You can feel however you want about it, its your grief and your feelings.

I'm so sorry. Something similar happened with someone I knew last year. I think it's completely natural to be angry and to feel it's selfish even if things are no where near as black and white as that. Poor him that he was suffering so much and didn't get the appropriate help.

I for one am just heartened to see this thread full of people going 'this is how you feel and it's ok.' We're so bad at talking about death and particularly suicide and things are clearly changing even if just a little. We can't rationalise away feelings, I don't think. It doesn't work like that.

I am in touch still with the mum of a friend who died by suicide when we were in our early 20s. She's still broken, she's really struggled to put her life back together. Every time I see her I feel angry at my friend for buggering off and leaving her like this. It's all over for him but she's had years of sadness to live through and has years more ahead of her probably.

But the anger now is fleeting and is replaced by such huge sadness that he was so desperate and sad and overwhelmed and no-one, including me, could help him.

Grief is complicated, suicide adds an extra level on top. Feel what you feel op, it's fine. Take care.

@BaggoMcoys

One of my parents seriously attempted suicide when I was younger, and I felt angry about it for years. I think it's normal for us to feel anger around this issue, it's just a bit taboo to talk about it because people assume you lack empathy or are cold hearted etc.

Same here @BaggoMcoys

I feel angry at my BIL

He always was selfish so I wasn’t keen on him

He made a choice that after an accident he couldn’t live the life he wanted (ladies man treating the women and his children with little respect)

I feel desperately sad for my nephew, his half sibling and sister and the destruction he has left behind

When personally involved why do you need to feel sympathy you don’t. Feelings may change over time (mine haven’t but I’m not as angry as I was just very very sad for those who have been so hurt by his actions)

very sad of course you can be angry its part of grief-i suffer from mh but still get angry when i hear of people killing themselves

i know it makes no sense

I would say if you do write to your friend's wife, make sure it is not a cathartic exercise for you, whilst transferring further questions and hurt onto her.
Maybe write the letter, and keep it for a little while before sending. If you are truly understandably very angry, it will be impossible for you to hide this, even if you try.
Very sorry for your loss.

"But, the thing is, when people are in that place, IME they are in such hideous pain. They cannot see how it affects anyone else. Because the pain is all consuming. "

I've heard this before but never really thought about it. I mean not really really thought.

The only pain I've ever known that was genuinely all-consuming was labour pain. Where it gets to a stage where you just live in a particular place and in that place there is you and there is the pain. The pain fully occupies your mind. It's pretty irrelevant if someone comes and holds your hand because you are just contracting - that is the thing you do.

I'm imagining it as being like that .

@oreo2020

You cannot be angry with someone who was clearly mentally unwell.

Rubbish!! Op can feel however she likes, we are all entitled to our feelings at least and anger is very much a stage of the grieving process.

Op, a close family member killed herself recently. I'm angry too, angry for all the people suffering now and angry because we're all working so hard to save lives and she took hers away.

I also feel a deep sense of sadness for her as she was obviously in a lot of pain, I feel guilty that I didn't do more to help..... grief is not one nice tidy emotion, it just doesn't work like that.

Really sorry to say this....I know grief hits people differently so I'm hoping that's what this anger thing is for you....but in all honesty, I can't EVER imagine being angry about a suicide. I think it's a terrible reaction, and I have known several suicides over the years, some close, some not so much.

Surely, someone who is unhappy enough, depressed enough, desperate enough to kill themselves deserves the deepest sympathy and sadness over how awful their situation (or mindset) must have been to get to that point. Nor do I believe that everyone who kills themselves is mentally ill, some are so desperate that they can't see any other way out, or so depressed they truly believe the world would be better off without them. Some have absolutely no support or friends, others simply cannot deal with a situation which is, for them, the end of the world.....

Why ever would you be angry with such a person? They need love and support and (sometimes) treatment; a society which cannot do this for the desperate and needy is indeed a cruel society.

Anger is often a response to a death. Even where someone has been ill, and death was expected.

A feeling of 'why did you leave', so not unusual really.