“You will probably need to put yourself on trial about this suicide. My goal is that you and I [therapist] work together to make sure that you have a fair trial and that we carefully consider all the evidence.” – Dr. Jack Jordan & Dr. Bob Baugher, After Suicide Loss: Coping with Your Grief
For several years, I’ve featured this
quote in presentations for fellow survivors about suicide loss and my grief memoir. Yet until the 8th anniversary of my son Noah’s death this year, I
never took the time to actually put myself on trial. I’d been reading The
Sacred Art of Lovingkindness by Rami Shapiro and learning how the
guilt we carry is baked into the stories we tell ourselves—and that we may need
to reassess those stories to move toward self-forgiveness. Guilt is one of the most
common and corrosive responses in the aftermath of suicide, and one of the hardest to talk about. I’m sharing a
little about my “trial” here in the hope that it helps others lighten their
burden.
Mine was trial by journal. I began by brainstorming
some of the indictments I’ve been living with since 2013. I’ve blamed myself
for so much. For not being able to save my child from his demons, first and
foremost. For hardening my heart in frustration and impatience at his behavior
when we were estranged. For not understanding mental illness or how to live
with a seriously depressed person—the list goes on. I chose three of the worst charges
against myself and listed all the evidence I could muster, pro or con.
Under “I was unable to help my child in
his crisis,” I surprised myself by naming all the ways I actually did try to
help Noah. These ranged from first detecting his depression and encouraging him
to see a therapist almost two years before the suicide to spending lots of time
with him to keep him safe and calm during a psychotic break a few months before
his death. Both during that break and when I flew cross-country to bring him
home from college on medical leave, I was a gentle, caring listener, helping
him to navigate some of his most difficult moments and preserve his dignity with
friends.
Did I make mistakes, like fail to inform myself
about suicide risk and panic when I asked Noah if he was suicidal? Yes, and I
will always regret these and other colossal failures. So the evidence is mixed.
But had I not been deliberate about setting out the evidence on paper, I might
never have given myself credit for what I did manage to do.
The aftermath of suicide with its desperate search
for answers and fits of guilt confronts us with our own
limitations. “What lies beneath your self-blame
are the terrible facts that you cannot control,” writes suicide expert Stacey Freedenthal. “Suicidal forces overtook your loved one. You have suffered an
unfathomable loss. You cannot turn back time, do it over, do it differently.
Each of these is a loss. Mourning these losses is the essence of grief. Your
grief deserves your compassion.”
As therapists have pointed out, I couldn’t
see the whole picture in part because of all that Noah hid from us. As fellow
survivors have taught me, it’s possible to be well-informed about mental
illness, proactive about trying every possible treatment for troubled loved
ones, and vigilant about suicide watches—and still not be able to prevent a suicide.
After a lot of crying at the trial, I felt
depleted but also lighter. I concluded that the evidence is mixed. I will never
have all the evidence needed for a fair trial absent Noah’s input and an
updated psychiatric assessment. And there will never be a clear causal line
that can be drawn from my actions to Noah’s death since suicide is complex and influenced
by many factors. I will never know whether what I managed to do or failed to do
during his crisis, or over his 21 years, made a difference one way or the other
for my son.
What I can do is to bring honesty and
compassion to the stories I tell myself about Noah’s suicide. And take my spiritual
teachers’ advice to do a “befriending” meditation, in which I give myself the understanding
and encouragement I would want to hear from a good friend: You were there
for him at key moments in his struggle. You loved him through it all. You don’t
have to live with guilt for the rest of your life.
A day after the trial, a friend happened
to send me historic videos I’d never seen of Roza Eskenazi, a Greek singer who I love but hadn't thought about for many years.
I found myself singing along and dancing, euphoric to see her performance. Though
still tender from my inquisition—or maybe because of it—there was room for joy.
