To feel very uncomfortable about this Guardian article?

[KingscoteStaff]

Front page of the 'Family' section. A grandfather talking about his 21 yo granddaughter who has just committed suicide.

It just doesn't feel real. Could it be some sort of exercise in writing the most unsympathetic narrator ever?

BillSykes. Yes, imcompletely agree - so eloquently put.

I am not sure that it is supportive to people who have mental health difficulties to attack their families or say that if they had acted differently the person's problems would be less severe and/or they were alive today.

Mothers of children with autism used to be seen as 'refrigerator mothers'. It was assumed that their coldness had made children withdrawn.

In my partner's extended family there is a couple with three adult children. One of the children has a post doing skilled work in a world famous hospital, another is high up in a TV company. And the third child has schizophrenia, is in and out of hospital and will always need support and care. It's not that his parents brought up two of the children with appropriate love and care, but they abused/neglected/mistreated the third child.

Sometimes things just don't go right and all anybody can do is try and keep the ill person safe. And even that isn't always possible.

Sometimes things don't go right, but I've noticed, as I've read on other threads before that society is very sympathetic of those who have 'difficult' children but when it's a child with a difficult parent then that's somehow a massive taboo in some people's view.

Obviously we don't know her parents view on his narrative or on what their perspective is. But he sounds incredibly defensive. Why?

My mother sees and remembers my childhood the way that she wants to. She will say that my self esteem was always promoted etc. In reality, all I remember is being told other people were better than me at something or criticising everything I did.

At the same time, I remember seeing examples of people who were mentally unwell who had genuinely supportive families who appeared to have kind words for them and empathy. Yet when I was in a psychiatric ward I had no such support from my parents, they just didn't want to know about it and shut down. They even refused to pick me up from hospital so I could go on leave and my social worker had to take me home.

So, I do not think that mental health issues are a result of bad parenting in every case, of course not. But mental health issues are very common and if you happen to have an unsupportive family then the issues are intensified/made worse.

BillSykes. That's a thoughtful post but I don't think anyone has said they think the article is 'wonderful' or anything even vaguely like it. .

Some great posts Lottie, Billi

and in terms of
"I don't see that what he wrote was "nasty". I've said what I think about the piece many times in this thread so I'm not going to repeat myself, but you're reading things into it that I didn't see, and a lot of other people didn't see either. I see someone trying to make sense of their loss. I also see something of Emma, as she was, when she was alive. I don't see anything "nasty", that's for sure.

I feel the writer granddad had to have the last word. He basically wrote her legacy and was not kind nor generous but self-indulged and vain.

I think it is a fascinating and honest article. I also didn't find it hard to read.

A lot of you have got offended because he hasn't said the right things. But I think it's natural to be fucking angry at people who kill themselves and to express that anger.

He doesn't pretend to be a saint or to understand whatever condition she had and I think he's honest about not liking her. The article is as much about him as her. I reckon there is more in that article about how people can really react to suicide than twenty containing the usual acceptance that the person was just ill, and that's that. This one was far more honest and I applaud the Guardian for publishing it.

I think that people's reading of the article say more about themselves than they do about Emma or her grandfather.

Maybe that's why the Guardian paid for it.

But I think it's natural to be fucking angry at people who kill themselves and to express that anger.

It's only natural for those who are quite self-obsessed, and almost completely devoid of empathy.

People generally only feel 'fucking angry' when they take the death personally. Which is astonishingly selfish - more so than taking one's own life. Suicide is very, very rarely done as a Fuck You.

BillSykes great posts from you.

Stoic every single bereaved person I have met has experienced anger. Are you saying that they are all self obsessed and almost devoid of empathy?

Or are you only talking about the parents, children and partners of those bereaved by suicide?

Stoic every single bereaved person I have met has experienced anger. Are you saying that they are all self obsessed and almost devoid of empathy?

Have they all chosen to parade their grief via a national news paper??

Stoic every single bereaved person I have met has experienced anger. Are you saying that they are all self obsessed and almost devoid of empathy?

Anger at the universe, at Fate, at life is a normal human response to tragedy.

Getting fucking angry at an individual who has taken their own life is not normal, and nor should it be accepted as such.

Unless you are actually a child, it takes a level of (small 'n') narcissism and self-absorption to believe that the death was something 'done' to you. It's actually (almost always) not about you at all.

Getting fucking angry at an individual who has taken their own life is not normal

Yes it is.

No, it really isn't - unless you are still in an ego-centric phase of childhood or adolescence, or if you have not passed those stages into adulthood.

It is normal for those bereaved by suicide to be angry at the person who died that way. Really normal.

It is very normal. I wonder if your unwillingness to accept that is a display of your own ego centric phase of childhood. Have you passed into adulthood Stoic?

Anyone else thinking "but we took you to stately homes"

He barely talks about his daughter in all this this to me suggests toxic at the very least

It's badly written though

TheStoic

I think you are very wrong, and your words are potentially very damaging to people who have lost loved ones through suicide, and are trying to come to terms with a whole range of emotions

I am not talking about the article - he does sound like an egotist, but other people who may be reading this thread.

Feelings after suicide

Stoic The above link is from just one of several organisations that support bereaved relatives. You will see it mentions anger.

I hope you re-think what you have posted.

"Anyone else thinking "but we took you to stately homes"" yes

I am wondering if the difference in opinion is in part due to people's varying levels of awareness of language and rhetoric?

Oh, and ironically, people who are told that it is wrong or infantile experience emotions are those who suffer psychological harm

I am very angry about what you have written (as you can tell), and thought about repotting your posts. But I'd like to see how you respond

reporting

The problem isn't just that he seems angry but that he objectifies his GD throughout the article. I don't even think he sounds angry, more in convened. And as a gown up writer where is his own self-reflection? There is none, just a total lack of empathy. It doesn't reflect a complexity of emotions just a cold, judgmental and lack of insight and love