Gareth O'Callaghan: Suicide leaves behind so many unanswered questions for loved ones

Suicide is not a natural end to a life well lived, and it leaves a mark on everyone who encounters it

‘When someone dies by suicide, questions remain — raw and personal. There will never be answers. Family and friends often start to feel as though they never really knew the person who did it.’

In September last year, an old school friend sent me a song. Have a listen to this, he said. It’s called ‘The First Leaves of Autumn’ by Scottish duo Gallagher and Lyle. It’s one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard.

Six weeks later he took his own life. A long and distinguished life gone in an instant. “I get the same old answers, but the questions still remain” is a line from the song that still plays on my mind.

Suicide is part of the general taboo that exists around death, loss, suffering, and finitude. But it’s seen as an objectionable act by many because it’s not a natural end to a life well lived. It’s a complex topic that terrifies people.

I have an interest in the subject, which stems from an incident years ago when I was the one to find an old friend who had taken his own life.

The image has stayed with me, forging the belief that if he could do it, there was no reason why I couldn’t if I found myself at that same junction. Or any one of us, for that matter. No one knows their ultimate fate.

The manner of his death traumatised me. It’s only in recent years I realise just how strong that trauma can still be. Like the song says, I get the same old answers but the questions still remain

Suicide is not unlike driving down a busy one-way street, unaware you’re going the wrong way because you’re being chased by something that’s not visible to anyone else, something that terrifies you. In the deepest recess of your mind it’s there, and you’ll do anything to get away from the pain it’s causing. You don’t see any other choice.

Psychologist Thomas Joiner makes a strong argument for why some people go beyond that point of no return. In his book, Why People Die By Suicide, he cites three factors that mark out those most at risk of dying by their own hands: the feeling of being a burden on loved ones; the sense of utter isolation; and the capacity to hurt oneself.

One man I spoke to some years ago who had survived a suicide attempt told me he had felt his wife and children would be better off without him in their lives. I asked him why he didn’t just leave the family home. He told me the level of helplessness he felt left him frozen in time, unable to think, or see anything worth living for.

His failure to be the breadwinner and to show them he had a role to play in their lives made his life pointless, he said, and the pain drove him down that one-way street.

His brother found him, on the edge of death but having changed his mind, fighting to stay alive. Thankfully, he did.

A woman explained to me how she had driven to a location by the river in Cork city one morning and sat facing the water with her engine running for almost an hour. She was waiting for the courage to do it, she told me. Her marriage had ended and she felt so isolated she couldn’t cope. Unexpectedly, her phone rang. It was the school. The secretary told her that her daughter was unwell and could she collect her and take her home, which she did.

I asked her what made her change her mind. “It was like I snapped back into a reality where I had a purpose. My daughter would have missed me for the rest of her life.”

One man explained to me how the thought of suicide often helped him get through his depression, which he described as an ocean of loneliness.

Misery and loss of hope

In his bestseller, The Noonday Demon: An Anatomy of Depression, Andrew Solomon describes it better than I ever could: “Nourishing your own misery can grow too weary to bear, and that tedium of helplessness, that failure of detachment, can lead you to the point at which killing the pain matters more than saving yourself”.

In the moment you feel you’ve lost control, it’s impossible to sense anything positive. But it is there. Without a sense of hope, the inability to regain control is like driving that car in the wrong direction. Many of us have been there, whether we like to admit it or not. Suicide is like a hurricane of flawed judgement. But hurricanes pass.

When someone dies by suicide, questions remain — raw and personal. There will never be answers, so those questions float in the air like angel clouds that can never be held. Family and friends often start to feel as though they never really knew the person who did it.

A suicide note I was shown by a mother read, “I am so sorry for all the hurt I have caused you, Mom. I will always love you but your life will be happier without me in it. Lots of love, A.” If only this young girl could have known that her mother would spend the rest of her life carrying that letter, which is now her pain, showing it to anyone who might listen, asking why couldn’t she see how much she had been loved.

Is not showing enough love — often the fear of parents or a partner in the aftermath — the cause of suicide? No; but it’s one of those questions asked over and over. The chance to connect is gone forever, and that’s the greatest pain of all.

Trauma

Trauma has a very real link to suicide. I have no doubt if we educated ourselves better in what trauma is and what it’s capable of doing to a mind and body, we would have a better understanding.

Trauma is defined as a deeply distressing or disturbing experience that can have lasting effects on mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing. Loss of control, an ongoing sense of helplessness, and an inability to cope are all linked to trauma.

They’re also linked to suicide.

Why did the suicide rate in Northern Ireland double in the 10 years after the 1998 peace agreement? Mike Tomlinson, a sociologist at Queen’s University Belfast, identified adults who as children had lived through the worst period of Troubles related violence (from 1970 to 1977) as the age group that experienced the most rapid rise in suicides in the decade after 1998.

Trauma became the bedrock of life in the North during those years. The Troubles might be over, but the trauma remains.

Trauma damages the need every one of us has to be part of what I call a common cause, through which we each find our individual purpose in life. It distorts how a child interprets the world and their place in it. They become traumatised adults, vulnerable to triggers that can lead to self-harm.

Suicide rates among children and young people in England have increased by 50% in the last decade, according to figures this week. As Andrew Solomon says, adolescents who die by suicide have often been protected from a bleak view of death. It’s time that changed.

The subject needs to be brought to light and openly discussed, rather than kept in the dark and ignored. 

Have you ever felt suicidal? It’s an important question each of us should ask those we love. You might be surprised by the answer.

That question has saved many lives. In the words of psychologist and author Kay Jamison, “the privacy of the mind is an impermeable barrier”.

There is no future as bleak as a family trying to come to terms with suicide. Those who take their own lives might think they’re killing their pain, but all they’re doing is passing it on to those they leave behind. For them, the questions still remain, and will forever.

- If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please click here for a list of support services.