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Feeling angry about the effects of a suicide - not what I expected to think.

28 replies

thisisnotwhatiwanttofeel · 18/05/2012 20:50

Have namechanged because of sensitive issue and knowing people in RL.

I think (thought?) I have a pretty good understanding of mental health issues in general and issues around suicide. I have never 'blamed' anybody for suicide nor felt anything other than compassion for those who take their own lives.
However recently I spoke to someone who it turned out had discovered the body of a colleague who had commited suicide. This person appears shattered by this event. It will clearly affect their life for years to come and as they were telling me about it all I could feel was rage with the person who did this. How dare they harm themselves in such a way, knowing that somebody they knew would find them. How could they do that. I just don't understand that. Can anybody begin to explain this to me because I am shocked by how angry I feel. The poor soul who made the discovery didn't seem angry at all. Just shattered.

OP posts:
itdoesnthurttohavemanners · 18/05/2012 20:55

My grandmother committed suicide..her elderly neighbour (who had been her neighbour for 40+ yrs) found her, very traumatic, hanging from the balustrades. Then my French teacher threw herself off a bridge, died on impact hitting the water. Finally, 2 yrs later, my bf at uni killed himself by gassing himself in his car, all because he was 'stressed' about his degree course. Well they do say these things come in threes..sigh...

Have to say I was very angry with all 3 of them for quite some time! Very selfish. However, as an adult now, I can appreciate that they were clearly very mentally ill and really do not give any thought to who might find them, or how people close to them are going to feel. I can appreciate...but I still feel it is selfish.

motherinferior · 18/05/2012 20:56

My grandmother killed herself, leaving a baby, a toddler (my mum) and a little girl.

My mother has never forgiven her.

thisisnotwhatiwanttofeel · 18/05/2012 20:58

Oh I'm so sorry. I can't imagine dealing with that three times. I guess it is as simple as that. They don't see what effect it will have. So awful though. This poor person - just seems to me like the other person has made a massive imposition on their life - out of the blue (of course).

OP posts:
motherinferior · 18/05/2012 20:58

And at the same time I have found myself in that level of mental anguish which is so utterly bloody painful you just want to die if that is the only way of escaping it. To shut down consciousness.

thisisnotwhatiwanttofeel · 18/05/2012 21:01

Motherinferior - I hope you feel ok now. It's the essence of tragedy isn't it - something so much regretted that nevertheless cannot be perceived by the person involved.

OP posts:
motherinferior · 18/05/2012 21:03

Oh yes, I am fine now. But it is quite an eye-opener, that depth of anguish.

Having said which, I used to have a best friend who was quite ahem mentally distressed at times, and used to spend ages and ages going on at me about how she wanted to kill herself and I feel, looking back on it, bloody exploited.

bussfucket · 18/05/2012 21:04

A dear friend was a Police Sergeant before becoming a SAHM. Her least favourite job (out of many pretty unpleasant ones) was clearing up after train suicides, she always said it was horrific enough collecting pieces from as much as a mile along the line, but even worse interviewing the drivers, who had sometimes had a view of the person's face as they jumped out in front.
I can still feel compassion for anyone who feels driven to make such a drastic step, but I feel far more for the families and the random strangers who get dragged in.

3littlefrogs · 18/05/2012 21:05

I have been affected by suicide. The fallout is horrendous and affects so many people, for the whole of the rest of their lives. Sad

BUT - the person who takes their own life is not rational. They cannot think about other people when they must be in such a terrible place that death seems preferable to life.

motherinferior · 18/05/2012 21:06

I used to know a train driver who stopped driving trains after that happened a couple of times.

(Jolly, aren't I? Quite the little sunbeam Grin.)

fairtomiddling · 18/05/2012 21:09

I've been in the position of wanting to end things, and spent hours mulling over how I would do it without causing unecessary pain to anyone else. I decided I would definitely never make someone else responsible for my death (eg. by jumping in front of a train or car) and I would make sure that there was no chance of my body being found by anyone who knew me. The only thing that stopped me was knowing how awful it would be for my friends and my family to lose me in that way - if I could have worked out a foolproof way of making it look like an accident, I probably would have done it.

AreWeHavingFunYet · 18/05/2012 21:10

All I can say from my experience of a relative committing suicide is that they were not thinking rationally enough to see the effects of their actions or they are suffering so much mental torture that feels impossible to go on.

In fact I think that many who kill themselves truly believe that everyone will be better off without them.

My relative who killed herself was no less sick than had she had cancer and yet people speak as if she needed to just get a grip.

motherinferior · 18/05/2012 21:11

A friend of mine did kill herself recently; she had a terminal condition, and in her situation I think she did absolutely the right thing. I wrote an obit of her for the Guardian's 'Other Lives' page Grin.

NeverKnowinglyUnderstood · 18/05/2012 21:12

I can totally understand the rage that you feel.
Just to add a different side of the equation, a friends partner killed himself when their child was very young.
At the time (unknown to my friend) I had just had a very bad breakdown, resulting in a suicide attempt. The only thing I felt when she told me was envy.
Envy that his turmoil was over. That he was at peace. That he didnt have to face this shit thing called life any more.

I am now totally better and have every desire to live a long life however it did VERY much annoy me that being told that I couldn't go ahead with the only thing I could see as the solution because of what it would do to other people. I really felt that this was another thing where my feelings weren't important and that the only thing that mattered was that I didn't upset anyone. I wanted and did scream but do my feelings not count??

I know I was ill, and truly hope that had I succeeded that my dh and the psychiatric team would help the boys to realise that I was really very ill.

AreWeHavingFunYet · 18/05/2012 21:12

That's not people on here saying she needed to get a grip, I mean my family

People find it so hard to understand mental illness. Like it's a choice

invicta · 18/05/2012 21:12

Fairtomiddling - I hope you are in a better place now. If not, get some help (doctor, Samaritans).

AThingInYourLife · 18/05/2012 21:13

4thought tv this evening was about a man forgiving his son for committing suicide. It's quite touching.

Is there a limit to forgiveness?

I know a woman whose 19 year old daughter committed suicide. She was furious with her for doing it for a long time. As well as utterly devastated. :(

CMOTDibbler · 18/05/2012 21:17

My grandmother killed herself. She'd been mentally ill from the time my dad was born, but tipped well over the edge when pg with my aunt 13 years later when she first tried to kill herself, but never succeeded till I was 13.
I was angry for a long time that my memories of her are occluded by the day the police came looking for her - not getting to say goodbye etc.
But I know she was terribly troubled, and I can't imagine what she went through for 50 odd years

Springforward · 18/05/2012 21:21

My mother made a suicide attempt during my childhood. I never forgave her for it.

AreWeHavingFunYet · 18/05/2012 21:23

NeverKnowinglyUnderstood Your story has given me goosebumps. I am so very glad that you are now feeling better

ClaireFromWork · 18/05/2012 21:24

When I was only just 12 our lodger attempted suicide. I didn't find her but her friend did and in his infinite wisdom he asked me to sit with her whilst he waited outside to direct the ambulance (we lived at an unobvious address ie. house not visible from the road so he went to spot the ambulance).

It was dark, she had made her room very oppressive and untidy. She had vomited blood and there were loads of tablets everywhere. She was totally unresponsive and unconscious and I remember trying so very hard to elicit some kind of reaction from her.

I felt at the time I coped quite well. I was mature an unsensational about it. That night, though, my mum suggested a nice hot bath to help me sleep. I ran said hot bath and got into it. I relaxed in it for a while, enjoying it. I then went to wash my face. It didn't feel right and when I took my hands away from my face they were covered in blood. It was horrific and I will never forget how upsetting it was; it was a physical manifestation of the horror I'd witnessed earlier. The stress + the heat had given me an enormous nose bleed that didn't stop for ages.

I am 40 this year. I have not had a bath since that night. My best friend said I changed overnight from a positive person to a negative one and I fight to suppress that negativity every day now.

This girl luckily didn't kill herself but I still hate her for her selfishness. I am still hideously angry at her friend who misjudged how to handle the situation, although, in his defence it was dark and he probably weighed up the pros and cons of sending me down a long dark driveway on my own to flag down an ambulance versus being in my own home (forgetting the crux of the problem was in the home).

When I hear of suicides I always try to feel pity. Sometimes I do, but deep down always I feel seething rage at their selfishness.

NeverKnowinglyUnderstood · 18/05/2012 21:24

is she still alive Spring?

MsIngaFewmarbles · 18/05/2012 21:33

An exes DF killed himself whilst we were together. He was the one who found him, he had hanged himself. He left a note saying that he was sorry but he couldn't cope without his wife :(

I know my BF had a really hard time with anger and grief battling, it's definitely not uncommon to be furious with the person who committed suicide, even if you completely understand why.

Springforward · 18/05/2012 21:33

No, she died of natural causes a few years ago, about 20 years after the attempt.

I was about 10 when she made the attempt, it seriously affected our relationship from then on (DDad had died two years earlier).

After she died, I sought forgiveness from my priest for my anger towards her (I am kind-of-practising RC). He told me that God would forgive me, but also said that that wasn't the point - I had to forgive myself. Still working on that, frankly.

fairtomiddling · 18/05/2012 21:34

NeverKnowinglyUnderstood - I know exactly what you mean. I felt/feel exactly the same. I'm glad you're feeling better now. :) (I have help, a CPN and psychiatrist and whatnot - bloody long uphill struggle, but I hope to be coming out of the other side one day!)

Springforward · 18/05/2012 21:38

One thing which I suspect relates - I have had bouts of depression during both childhood and adulthood, with some experience of suicidal ideation. However, I have never had the urge to act on it, IYSWIM - I do wonder if that relates to the childhood experience, as I could not do it to my DH and DS, or wider family and friends.

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