Real Voices:
 

"I think that too little attention is paid to the anger embedded in nearly every act of suicide. It's easy to discern and sympathize with the hopelessness and pain that those who kill themselves are experiencing. But I think that it's important for families trying to come to terms with these losses to confront the reality that any person contemplating suicide has to weigh the devastation that he or she is about to inflict on loved ones.

-Dr. Gordon Livingston, psychiatrist and author, whose son Andrew killed himself in 1991 at the age of 22

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Well Dr. Livingston said a mouthful when he wrote that. I was so furious at Michael for taking his life and that anger added to my guilt. And no one, including me, could understand how I could be so mad at someone I loved and who had died! I remember going outside and shaking my fist at heaven, cursing a God who would let such a thing happen.

Acceptance, understanding and Peace were years away from us at that point in time.
My former neighbor is struggling with her anger at her son...now in her second year to grieving.

Mark is right....we all matter. Tom, are you with us? :grouphug:

Hello, Alffe: Thanks for your post. No doubt anger is involved in suicide, but so are many other emotions -- probably all of them. Which one or ones prevail depends on the individual. A young man just starting out in life, aged 22, who isn't suffering from some incurable disease but who commits suicide, will probably be more angry than a 66-year-old man or woman with a debilitating disease which (apparently) cannot be cured.

I think that all someone can do who is contemplating taking their own life is to make a written record of what they are going through; that will lessen the burden -- not get rid of it, lessen -- for loved ones. Why they did it and what someone might have done about it: such questions are thereby answered to a large extent. What I'm trying to do here (and elsewhere) is provide such a written account.

Again, I'm beginning to see a difference between taking one's own life (as did 200 people in the burning Twin Towers who jumped) and commiting suicide. A 22-year-old in good health has, objectively -- existentially -- speaking, a choice (even though he or she may not realize it); other people do not -- not really. The "really" is of course arguable, but when you shake it all out, there is something left at the bottom.

I suppose that your and the doctor's sons did not leave behind a coherent explanation. That lack makes me think that anger was indeed a major reason why they did what they did, i.e., commit suicide. However, there are other people in different phases of life who take their own lives without anger being the chief motivation.

Maybe, in fact, anger is a major distinction between "taking your own life" and "suicide."

Tom, the anger I was referring to was my anger at him, for taking his life.
No, no note, but nothing he could say would justify his actions. Granted, he found "peace...maybe" but left the rest of our family in agony.

That's why so many people call it a selfish act. I try very hard not to judge people because I hate being judged.

I think journaling is a good idea...please make it at least as long as War & Peace. :grouphug:

Hello, Alffe: I'm wondering if the confusion on my part is not revealing...

I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist, but I have read a lot of Carl Jung's works. All of us nonprofessionals are exactly that; however, we are free to speculate. Jung wrote about projection, i.e., we project onto somebody else our own attributes we think are "bad," thereby obtaining some temporary relief. The projection is an unconscious process, so there's no point "rationally" refusing or debating it. I wonder ... is the incredible anger you felt, maybe still feel, perhaps your son's anger which he projected onto you while he was of course still alive? I say this because I get the feeling in reading your words that the unconscious is running the show. You look for a rational answer from the heavens -- "WHY?" -- and do not get one, perhaps because the origin of the problem itself is unconscious, that is to say, not rational.

And so, whose anger is it -- really? Yours AND your son's? There may be a highly complex interplay at work.

Dear Tom,

oh, revealing it is... but it says more about you than it does about Alffe or Michael. you claim not to feel angry, but you have an unconscious too...........

~ waves ~

Well let's go back in time Tom. When Michael killed himself 21 yrs ago this coming January, he was 31 years old..was a juvenile probation officer, was engaged to a lovely young woman..she would have been his second wife and he left behind not only three sisters and his dad and myself, he also left an 8 yr old son.

Mr.Alffe, thinking he was protecting me, told everyone (our friends, dentist, doctor, minister etc) NOT to talk to me about Michael...that I was too distrought and couldn't handle it. So no one did...therefore I spent 8 years NOT talking about him...if you can't talk about his death...you can't talk about his life. It was like he didn't exist at all.

After 8 years of this not talking I stumbled upon BrainTalk forums..it was out of Mass.General Hospital and the man who ran them, John Lester, was kind enough to start a new forum when I asked him to...Survivors of Suicide. It was there, with a handful of people that I finally talked about him and what he had done and how angry I was and how I missed him.

Once I started talking, I couldn't "shut up"..:rolleyes: Those people, one in particular..Pter whose words are stickied at the top of this forum, picked me up off the floor and gave me back my life.

Michael wasn't angry, he was depressed. His fiancee had gone to Florida with her parents for a month, he was poor, wanted to buy her the ring she had picked out, couldn't afford it, he missed his son who lived hundreds of miles away with his mother, the Bears lost that night (football..he was a huge fan) he had a bad cold and that damn hand gun with right there. I think he just said "F*** it" and impulsively put it in his mouth.

Angry? You bet I was angry!! Spent years talking about it and finally, finally accepting it. I frequent suicide events, forums and support groups to try to give meaning to his senseless act. And I'll never, for sure, know WHY but I can live with that. And he is somewhere, shaking his head at me for continuing to talk about it.

You would have liked Michael....he had a huge laugh, and a wonderful mind, he loved to read..used to read aloud to his fiancee...and he had a wonderful sense of humor. Such a waste!

Live Tom...life is short enough without shortening it even more.

first i want to send you a hug.... (((((( Alffe )))))))

anger is a normal part of grief - through "natural" loss. and even then, there can be some guilt at feeling "why did he have to leave me" about the one who left, although there was no choice involved.

when in fact a choice was involved, that anger is HUGGGGE and more directed. i mean then, it even has a leg to stand on, two legs in fact. i've seen survivors whose initial reaction was outrage, simply shut it down, and focus on grief for other survivors... rather than admit their anger. i'm guessing because big anger breeds big guilt.

i am glad you have been able to accept your anger about Michael's action, along with all the other emotions. it is legitimate even if it is hard. it is good to see you write about Michael. i am glad you were able to carve back the space in which to celebrate his life, miss him, mourn him, AND be angry with him.

~ waves ~

thank you for the hug waves and for the understanding. :hug: It's my pleasure to talk about Michael. :Heart:

Hello, Waves: Nowhere did I claim not to feel anger. Please look at my earlier post on this string; anger is part of the suicide equation, but there are a lot of other elements as well. circumstances as well as emotions (maybe all of them).

The great thing about strings is that they keep the topic of conversation in front of us, an inch or two away. This particular string is not about me; it is Alffe's. Let's keep it that way. Psychological digressions in this case are endless, maybe because the forces behind suicide are endless.

Alffe, I apologize for answering Tom's post in your thread (again).

Tom, i've answered the above in your thread.

~ waves ~