how does suicide of a mother effect children later on?

[sailawaywithme91]

Please be kind. This is hard for me to write.

I am looking for any people that have lost a parent to suicide as a young child. To share (if they feel comfortable) their experience and how this has affected them later on?

I have a 9 month old. Who despite what many will think reading this thread, I love with my whole heart, I am to all intents and purposes a very good mother. Except I don't want to be here anymore, life feels unbearable. I am on medication, I am having therapy, I have tried and tried to change this feeling.

I haven’t experienced this OP but I’m so sorry you’re feeling this way, keep getting support and engaging with help. Have you always felt this way or just since the baby?

Im so sorry you feel like this. I have not lost a parent but I have lost a close family member. 2 yrs on and there's so many u answered questions its horrible. I think your child would definitely be left wondering why :(

My DH is a very good dad and they have grandparents too who would love them and look after them.

Deep down I know no one can love them or do what I can as their mother. But somehow I still feel they'd be better off without me and the younger they are, the less it will damage them.

This has been me so many times. A number of years ago now I did make an attempt that left me in a coma for a week. Miraculously, I’m still here. And I am eternally grateful that I am. I won’t lie and say every day since has been great, because it definitely hasn’t. But seeing the fear and devastation it put my children through is something I never want to experience again, I will spend every day for the rest of my life regretting that.
A few years later, I lost a friend in the same circumstances and her two sons walked behind her coffin. Those boys have not recovered to this day. And I don’t say that to make you feel guilty, I say that to show you that however bad you feel about yourself, your children would ALWAYS rather have you here than not.
It sounds like you’re really in crisis at the minute and I’d strongly advise calling crisis team if you’re open to your community mental health team, or another crisis line. You absolutely need support. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, as trite as that sounds. You can and will get through this but you really need someone with you while you’re feeling like this. Do you have any irl support?

I work with and am friendly with someone whose mother took her own life when she was young (around 5-7 I think), her father is lovely they are very close and she had both sets of grandparents on hand, they were comfortable financially and by her account she very much knew her family loved her dearly. She has struggled tremendously with her mental health, feelings of rejection and abandonment in relationships and professionally. When she became a mother herself she really suffered with post natal depression and anxiety and psychosis with her first child. She's also married to a very very controlling older man. She's now several years into therapy. She has shared a lot with a few of us at work as she's needed support on phased returns etc and there are certain cases she just can't work.
I'm not telling you what decision to make or that you're own child would end up in that situation, but you asked for experiences and she's the only person I know who has lost her mother at a young age to suicide.

I was signed off work for anxiety and depression. I understand what it's like to have suicidal thoughts. I even debated taking the kids with me to drive off the cliff so they didn't have to suffer the loss. 15 years later I am still here and so glad I didn't. It's better for your child to have you even if you're not 100% rather than not at all. Please seek the help you need. You will get through this. It may seem like you never will but you will. Please seek advice of your GP and any mental health services in your area that do self referral or through your work. You are worth it.
Therapy and meds really do take time to start to work. How long have you been on them? The fact you have written on here shows me you don't really want to die. Big love to you x

I’ve no experience of family suicide, thankfully.
But I can tell you losing a parent too young fucks you up in a thousand different ways. It separates you from your peers, it stays with you, and is felt by the next generation too - my kids have no grandparents and that makes them feel different to their friends.
My parents dying young is my constant reference point to every decision, thought and process I’ve ever made. Seek help OP, you’re most likely still in a maelstrom of pregnancy hormones - I think I read it takes at least a year for hormones to return to normal. This will pass.

Hello OP, we are really sorry to hear you are feeling this way.

We hope you don't mind, but when these threads are flagged up to us we usually add a link to our Mental Health Resources. You can also go to the Samaritans website or email them on [email protected].
Support from other Mumsnetters is great and we really hope you will be able to take some comfort from your fellow posters, but as other MNers will tell you, it's really a good idea to continue with help and support.

We also like to remind everyone that, although we're awed daily by the astonishing support our members give each other through life's trickier twists and turns, we'd always caution anyone never to give more of themselves to another poster, emotionally or financially, than they can afford to spare.

You have asked for honesty and kindness. I have so much sympathy for the torment you must be feeling but my honest experience may hurt you.

It is painful in a few different ways. The worst one is believing that they found the thought of death more comforting than staying alive to see you through your special days, when it's your birthday and what goes through your head is that your parent preferred to die than to be there on your birthday for you. Then you pick apart the method of death they chose and on your wedding day you think wow they really preferred to do that to themselves than to be here for me.
When your going through school and have to make family trees and talk about people on there. When you meet your partner's parents and they ask you about your parents and there's many people who would not hesitate to ask you at the dinner table how your parent died.
It's a sore wound for a long time. I have cried at other people's weddings when they had their father daughter dance. Because it was suicide the family barely want to talk about it because you all feel tortured by the choice they made to leave you behind in this world.
My brother never got over it and died young from his addiction problems because of it.

I have kids now and every day when they do something funny I just know my Dad would have absolutely loved to see it. But he was very ill mentally so I know why he made his choice, I know deep down it wasn't really much of a choice for him.

I am sending all my love and healing thoughts to you. Please consider doing anything it takes to make your life, lifestyle and mental health better before considering it. X

Without wanting to minimise what you may be going through I will also add that I was also feeling quite at peace with the thought of my death until my child turned 18months and then something mentally clicked back into place. X

i have a family member who committed suicide when her children were in primary school, they are grown now, all had problems, the youngest especially with drugs.
I lost my dad when I was 5 due to cancer, and I feel so angry at him for that even though I know of corse it wasn’t his fault so I can’t imagine what it would be like knowing your parent chose to end their life and to leave their child.

Thank you for sharing your experience with me 💙

This was me a couple of months ago. I love my baby with everything I have but I couldn't do it anymore (severe pnd and undiagnosed ADHD). If you need an ear feel free to pm me honestly! I even ended up in a and e suicidal with birthday cards and letters written. I was like you though and worried that no one could love her like me and I didn't want to leave her and her without me. I promise it gets better, I promise.

Massive impact and the child is more likely to self-harm and take their own life when they reach the age at which their parent died-

The researchers found that those whose parents died by suicide had about twice the risk of self-harm or suicide around the time they reached the age of the deceased parent, relative to the 15 years before or after. Those whose parents died from other causes did not have an increased risk during this period of age correspondence.

Full ACL article here.

I must add I grew up without a mother myself, she was alive but just didn't want to be a parent. I was raised by my grandparents who were amazing. The mother wound I have cuts deeps and is perhaps why I am struggling so much myself now.

But I am a girl and she was alive. So I feel like I can't compare my feelings to that my son may potentially have.

My mum attempted to take her own life when I was 10. I found her, she'd cut her wrists. She survived but died just over a year later to a brain haemorrhage after a kidney transplant.

All my life ( in my 50's now) I wondered what led her to that moment, did she know how sick she was? Was it a moment of such darkness? I have so many questions and unanswered ( made up ) scenarios that have affected my whole life.

Ive suffered from mental health since I was a kid so I understand the dark places but if you can, please stay.

I’m sorry you are feeling like this. Please reach out to someone and talk about how you are feeling xx

My Mum made a very definite and traumatic attempt to end her life when I was a teenager. She survived and never made a further attempt although had some long lasting medical impact from it. Even that attempt has deeply affected me and all my siblings to a greater or lesser degree for all our lives. My sister never recovered from being one of the ones to find her and is now much much iller than my Mum ever was and unlikely to recover. It wasn't the only cause but a massive factor. My Mum isn't a natural parent and frankly she wasn't great at it. She's not maternal. I don't even see her often. But I am absolutely sure that if she had ended her life the impact would have been 100 times worse. I've worked with children whose parents have ended their life and its had a major impact one way or another. You can get through this. Bad depression is so common when you have small children. Just take it one little step day by day and work on recovery and you can do it. Hopefully down the line this will just be a memory of a time of your life that will be really hard. Look at all the people cheering you through this 💖

Timeforsnacks I can absolutely relate to your experience.

I can add a comparison, I have experienced death of parent by sudden and catastrophic ill health as a tween and as a sudden unexplained suicide as an adult

Both blew my world apart. But the suicide is unfathomable. And I understand mental illness. It’s impossible to separate your parental role to fully understand and accept the death even if you fully understand the illness aspect of depression.

Death by ill health - that’s biology and medicine.
Suicide - of course it’s severe and enduring mental illness - but as a loved one the idea that was the solution is unresolved and will be for as long as I live.

Please talk and keep talking. You are loved and people around you care for you. Even on days you can’t talk. Just seek the company of those you love. They won’t always know what to say but will love you and support you with whatever you need. Trust them.

You won't always feel like this, life will be rewarding again. Please hold on and get help

My Mum very calmly sat down at the kitchen table when I was 13 and told me she'd taken an overdose. I had a complete panic attack, and rang my Nan who told me to phone an ambulance. Mum ended up being sectioned and we didn't see her for over a year. My childhood ended abruptly that day, and honestly I've never really forgiven her for wanting to make our Dad suffer (he'd just left) and leave my sister and I without either parent. You're in crisis and you need help - please reach out and get it. All you're going to do is take the pain you're feeling and inflict it on those who love you for the rest of their lives.

I’m going to be really blunt and I apologise as I realise you are clearly emotionally struggling right now and I say this hoping you will fight to be in their life.
Your child will always feel like you didn’t love them enough to stick around. No matter what people tell them, it will eat away and erode their self belief. Nothing will take that feeling away that you just didn’t love them enough to fight this feeling. The outcome could be many things but it’s very likely to scar them emotionally to the core.

Please think again
The child will be affected for the rest of their live.. I know a thirty five year old who suffered extreme childhood trauma caused by something similar and it it still affects her now. She can't sustain a relationship, she can't keep a job for more than a few weeks and she struggles with everyday life. She feels unvalued and unworthy.
Please talk to someone in real life . If you can't talk to anyone you know talk to the Samaritans and see your doctor.
I hope things get better for you.

You can call NHS Direct option 2 and speak to the mental health team.

So sorry you are feeling like this.

I lost my mum to suicide and it affects me every single day. My sibling can’t function well at all and my dad doesn’t speak to anyone anymore. I have two children now and it pains me thinking of all the life events we could have shared together.

Please take yourself to a&e if you feel in immediate danger, I am so sure one day you will look back and feel so glad you didn’t go through with it.