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?

Whensmyturn I totally agree with you and that's why I'm not comfortable with posts on this thread insinuating that this girl must have been abused.
I have a family member who genuinely seems to have been born unhappy and really struggles with life. Her parents have shown her nothing but love and she has 4 siblings who are very different- happy and outgoing. I don't believe that people are born as a 'blank slate'. I think that there is a complex interaction between people's personalities and their environment.
Some people are definitely just more sensitive than others and somebody who is highly sensitive and introspective may grow up regarding their parents as very critical of them whereas their siblings would see it very differently. I also think it is very hard to change if you are naturally a pessimist by nature.
There is a widespread belief that there is a high correlation between anorexia and abuse but the research doesn't back that up and the most recent research suggests that there is a much stronger genetic/heritability factor than previously thought ie people are born with a biological predisposition to anorexia but it is often triggered by external events.
As a PP said, the mothers of children with autism were blamed for years for their child's condition and it used to be the same for schizophrenia (and it was mothers, not parents).

Yes, NotYoda. The thought of people being angry at others who are (almost always) severely mentally ill is very upsetting to me personally. Time for me to hide the thread, I think.

ForgotStuff - This is a very emotive thread and there may well be people reading it who have been or are suicidal and also people who have had loved one commit suicide. I hope everyone is careful about what they are writing and that posters try not to get too angry and indignant - Very good point.

Really disappointed with how this thread has progressed. This is such a sensitive and emotive subject. Huge hugs to everyone affected by it. And I say that as someone who has lost someone to suicide and also been suicidal myself.

anger is a natural part of grief, let's remember that.

And people who have never been suicidal don't understand what a painful tortuous battle it can be to stay alive.

Too late BadKnee

I am somewhat annoyed with myself for having become quite so 'irritated' with some posts.

Stoic my apologies. Sincerely. I should have had enough empathy myself, to realise that in being angry, determined to have you see my point of view, I was trampling over you and yours.

Too late BadKnee

I am somewhat annoyed with myself for having become quite so 'irritated' with some posts.

Stoic my apologies. Sincerely. I should have had enough empathy myself, to realise that in being angry, determined to have you see my point of view, I was trampling over you and yours.

Stoic my apologies. Sincerely. I should have had enough empathy myself, to realise that in being angry, determined to have you see my point of view, I was trampling over you and yours.

Gratefully accepted, OurBlanche. I obviously upset you as much as you upset me, and I am truly sorry for that. I have learned a lot from this thread, and won't be such an idiot next time the subject arises (or I might just stay away altogether). It's bloody awful for everyone.

I don't think she was definitely abused of course not. Her mother probably has a different perspective anyway.

I've been trying to work out if he deliberately wrote the article in the way he did to avoid any sentimentality and strip away to the harsh truth that suicide is a devastating thing for any family to deal with. However, I still can't get past the self congratulatory tone of how he describes what he did for her.

I think we should all leave now and have a nice day in the sun (hope it's sunny where you are)

Stoic It seems we have now experienced the very best of MN.

We have shouted, vented, been rude and upsetting. We have been chided, told to play nice and look! We have read, disgreed, argued, listened to good sense and, I hope, both learned a lot from this.

Put less pompously [ smile]

Well said, OurBlanche.

Of course anger can be a natural response to suicide, of course he has a right to be angry. But the crux is what is he angry about and where the anger is directed. I feel there's not enough discrimination on this point.

The problem is that he is angry with her for being the person she was: he's critical and judgmental of her from childhood, she didn't react the way he thought she should. She was always turning happy things sad he says. He's angry with her because he has taken so little time to understand mental illness before writing this article, that he blames her for an illness she couldn't control.

He slyly shifts his own judgments of her as attention-seeking, fame-seeking and a 'bad seed' onto supposed other people, which is, as has been noted, one of the oldest tricks in the book. Even it it were true, they are certainly not the words of mental health professionals, with whom he would have had no contact, so why is he quoting ignorant people who dismiss anorexia and sucidal depression as attention-seeking?

If he had written a balanced piece that described her positive attributes, did justice to her as a person, and then directed his anger at the terrible effect mental illness had on her and the family, anger that she snuffed out her own young life, that's fine.

But his anger has produced an article on her illness and death that is all about him. He has deleted her from her own narrative and her life - we get no sense of what kind of person she was - and superimposed his own unreliable narrative of harsh, uncomprehending judgment and criticism. And she's not even her to defend herself.

listening and accepting it isn't easy

I think he is just being honest

its not happy nice warm fuzzy reading and the subject isn't but he would get a completely different reaction if the article was full of love and remorse and guilt but would that be him being true to himself

it would certainly be easier for us to empathise with

Agree with iPost's really thoughtful and honest thread. especially this:

It's right and proper that the person with the mental illness is considered the protagonist of their life. But I saw the extent to which everybody else can be relegated to mere bit players in the movie of MIL's self destruction. And I noted that, according to the observers, the cost to us was supposed to be borne, absorbed and moved on from. It got to the point where I started to wonder if, in our prescribed role as the family of a very unwell woman, we somehow ceased to exist as real, live people in our own right

The article was a very uncomfortable read but he has a right to express it as he experienced it. Family members and especially carers are often expected to become professional MH campaigners and advocates for their loved one. But they might also be thinking 'what about me? And what about the rest of the world'. An ill person is at the centre of their illness and other people are supposed to understand it but actually they have a right not to get sucked into that vortex. Remaining outside the sphere makes him sound callous but actually I think he has every right to stand outside in this way.

Rambling now and iPost said it better

Let's just take the discussion away from the personal for a moment. And from this particular case as all we know is what is written in the article. And that is not much.

There are clearly strong feelings on all sides especially from those with personal experience.

Some posters have said how relieved they are that the discussion is out there.

The fact that Emma killed herself changes the way we see her life; it defines it. And we forget the life.

Many people suffer the consequences of living with a parent, child, sibling who makes life hell. For years everyone suffers through violence, rages, absences, unpredictability, lies, being let down, humiliation, constant negativity. (Obviously this is only some illnesses - some do not impact on families very much at all - and the person who is ill suffers most - that is clear)

The "advice" varies. LTB, go NC, she/he is abusive, toxic, save yourself, put your kids first. The degree of mental illness involved is not always clear - indeed it may ebb and flow. Depression can be manageable for long periods and then force a crisis at certain times.

There is also advice on how to help, on NHS resources, on books to read or therapies to try., money and time to spend on helping. And frequently it is futile and you know it. Year after year.

Should you, can you, be angry, abandon this person in order to save yourself and other family members?

If however someone has committed suicide the judgement of others on those left is that they should have done more, they should have been more understanding of the illness, maybe even that they "caused" or "triggered" it. Yet the difficulties of dealing with that person during life, for years, are unrecognised.

Not by everyone - but it is not uncommon.

to all those suffering from mental illness and to those who are close to them

I hope in the three years since his grand daughters death, he and his family have found some healing and that he did have his daughter's permission to publish the piece.

iPost- absolutely right. You said it well too Backingvocals

Agree Enthusiasm, it's not warm and fuzzy, and no it's not the right mental health language.

That's probably why I read it all. It has its faults but I prefer it for that, and glad that others get something from it (your reactions are understandable OurBlanche and Stoic, nice to see your posts at the end)

I still don't read as much as the criticism of Emma as others see, we can read it differently.

OurBlanche and Stoic - good posts - I have read the whole thing and have also learnt a lot. Very helpful to talk about something that is fairly taboo in RL.

Such a painful thing

I have not been as close to this subject as some of you sadly have, but more indirectly, and right now.

My heart goes out to you

Thank you for that post, BadKnee.

Gloria you have one interpretation of his article other pp have seen it in a different light. Your interpretation is no more valid than anyone else so when you say the piece is all about him, you are entirely correct but that doesn't mean the article is somehow wrong. He has expressed his feelings publically and people can agree or disagree there is not a right or wrong here in my opinion.

I remember after my Dad died, I was 18 and people came up and spouted all sorts of meaningless bollocks to me at the funeral. How he was looking down at me from a cloud for instance. I barely registered most of it as I was busy feeling stuff, whatever I felt at the time and now was valid, they are my feelings, he was my Dad and it was my pain.

I have known several people who made suicide attempts only one has actually ended his life. All of them are human beings who felt what they felt, and no one could tell them how they should feel, the pain they felt it is all about them. Generally there is nothing you can do to save someone from themselves. You can try of course, you can make sure they know you care, but they have to believe it. So to say someone shouldn't be feeling anger and disillusionment after the death of a loved one from suicide, seems especially cruel.

You are expected both to carry on without them, grieve and honour their memory, but part of that memory is knowing that they could have made a different choice and stayed with you. That may seem unfair, the person was ill they didn't really have a choice, but you can still feel that if you are forced by your pain and loss, to look back over your time with them looking at the mistakes you made, then some of that reexamination is going to be directed at the person who died. It is not fair but it is normal to feel some resentment. There is so much anger in grief, to be directed at the world, at yourself, at the cause of th e death, at the loss of potential when the person is young. So it is messy, it gets everywhere, unexpressed or shouted from the rooftops.

I think he is just being honest

All manner of bêtise that is used to justify...

If it were only written better .....

Any one of you could have done that. There's been such heart-felt eloquence on here

I thought it was a really interesting artical.

Why should he have to write to please the masses and the popular facebook culture of raising every dead person to saint statis.

He had to watch his daughter go through hell for two decades, trying to help her own daughter. The grand daughter was clearly very ill, and very hard to help.

I didn't feel that he was laying 'blame' at his grand daughters fret, merely being honest that it is really really shit for close family to deal with someone so sick and so unhappy.