Suicide causes so much devastation in the living – so many overwhelming feelings, so many should-have-done’s and could-have-been’s, so many questions.
Amid such heartbreak, many survivors also agonize about why their loved one did not leave a suicide note. Melinda McDonald, a blogger who lost her husband to suicide, wrote about this agony in a deeply moving blog post:
I have struggled off and on with the fact that my husband did not leave me a suicide note. I am once again struggling with this. I have been for weeks now. Through talking to other suicide widows, I know that the suicide note doesn’t always bring comfort. It often times places blame, doesn’t make any sense, or just flat out, doesn’t bring ENOUGH love and affection to such a horrible situation. But there are times like now, that I wish I could pull out the note, and read it. Maybe to be reminded of what a dire state my husband was in. That death was his only option. Or just to see “I love you” one more time.
The Uncommonness of Suicide Notes
Thanks to movies and TV shows, many people believe that suicide notes are common, and that such notes provide answers to tormenting questions. The real world is quite different. Only 15 to 38% of people who die by suicide leave a note, according to results of 5 studies published in the last 10 or so years.
For survivors of the other 62% to 85% of suicides, the expectation of finding a note can lead to more pain. Another blogger who lost her partner to suicide wrote in a blog post (which is no longer online):
“I searched for a suicide note, not recently but back when I thought there might have been a note left for me. In the days he was missing, and intermittently after he was found, I vigorously ransacked Mottsu’s belongings. I turned everything inside out and upside down, looking for a last communication. No note was ever uncovered. I did worry I might have overlooked a final message of…. of what? The phenomena of a suicide note is perplexing. It is almost the expected protocol that someone who leaves unexpectedly, and without explanation, should leave behind a helpful note.”
What Suicide Notes Do and Do Not Say
It is natural to yearn for a suicide note in the absence of one. You may wish you had a window into your loved one’s mind in his or her final hours, perhaps even minutes, of life.
In the first blog post that I quoted above, the writer Melinda McDonald did ultimately remember a note that her husband had written her – not before his suicide, but before his first suicide attempt. Rediscovering this note brought her great solace.
But many times, a note leaves people aching for more. This is because suicide notes seldom contain dramatic answers to painful questions.
The most common theme in suicide notes, according to one study, is instructions. These instructions concern financial affairs, funeral arrangements, people to be notified about the death, and even trivial matters like cancelling the newspaper subscription.
The mundane instructions found in suicide notes prompted a psychologist, Roy Baumeister, Ph.D to state in an interview:
“Instead of explaining why they are in a suicidal state, most [notes] relate to feeding the dog and taking care of the plants.”
When notes do go beyond mere instructions, the most common emotional themes include depression, guilt, shame, hurt, and anger, according to another study.
It can be hard to make sense of the depression and other painful emotions that the suicidal person endured, let alone understand how those emotions could demolish all desire for survival. For this reason, suicide notes that describe the person’s emotional state may become the proverbial riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a puzzle: whatever answers that suicide notes provide may lead to yet more questions.
Only rarely, if ever, can words on paper make the illogic of suicide logical.
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© Copyright 2014 Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW, All Rights Reserved. Written for www.speakingofsuicide.com. Photos purchased from Fotolia.com.
My neighbor across the street, apparently committed suicide last night but he loved his dogs so wouldn’t he have a reminder for his partner to take care of them or such
I stand on the edge tossing dollars to the sea .I can’t buy back what I’ve lost . I can’t be who I’m not . No punishment in this life for my sins shall be their judgement. I am vividly aware of the glitches in my programming and have no code to reset .
Only god can judge me right..
It’s time we meet .
And I’ve pondered who’s selfish.
Those who choose to suffer no more .
Or those who think they should have to suffer
American Feral,
Very powerful missive! I hope you’re OK, or will be, though I fear the implications of your words. Please remember there are places you can call, text, or email for help, which I list on the Resources page. That’s a small solace, I’m sure, amid the pain you convey so forcefully above, but it bears mentioning, and I hope you’ll consider it.
This poetic comment has resonated with me deeply. I don’t suppose we will ever interact, but if you wish to chat I can be found at alistairknowles (at) gmail.com
I would be happy to hear from you.
Just about 2 hours ago my bestie told me that she can’t keep going and has found some ways to end her self. She said that she likes life but there is no meaning in living and no purpose for her. I know she is so damn serious. She had made her self a bucket list and done it completely and now it’s just the matter of time. We had depression for ages now and we have always been talking about giving up but this time, as she said she didn’t know what ” I just can’t anymore ” mean. And now I don’t know what to do!!! Should I wait for her death to come or should I have to try to save her? In this case what can I say? What can I do? Do I even have the rights to try to stop her eventhough I my self hate living and aware of the fact that life isn’t worth living? If I respect her decision how should I act ? What should I say?
I don’t know anything….
Cyrus,
I personally hope you will do what you can to save your friend. In the months or years to come, she may well thank you, and you will know you did what you could. I’m sorry that you hate living and that your friend does, too. Those feelings are painful, and they also can change. Life can get better.
Thanks for writing here. You obviously care deeply about your friend!
Thanks for replying.
You know a big part of me wants go save her but I really don’t know how! She even said that I can not save her! I’m so bad with people and understanding them in any cases and she in particular is a hard one to understand, I just don’t know what should I do or say
GO TO HER FAMILY MEMBER> A MOM OR DAD> someone who is close to her. period. They have a right to know too
I don’t know what the best solution for her is, but I can tell you this:
You can’t hold yourself responsible for somebody else’s conduct. Whatever she does is ultimately her choice. Your action or inaction didn’t cause it.
You guys sound young. She also sounds impulsive. If so then statistically if she attempts suicide she will probably fail. Most suicide attempts fail, you know.
But it’s not that simple. You don’t get to just fail in a suicide attempt, spend an hour in a hospital, and everything goes back to the way it was before. You could be one of those people who blows their face off with a gun because they held the gun wrong or flinched, and they have to spend the rest of their life without a face. You all can google it, there are dozens of people like that out there.
Or maybe the gun is at a better angle, but she just gets unlucky either through aim or because she just happened to pick a bullet which was old or defective and didn’t have the factory standard amount of gunpowder in it. So she ends up as a vegetable or paraplegic.
Not using a gun? You can survive a fall from a lot of different heights and the circumstances of surviving that fall are never pleasant. Even if you succeed, it’s not what you think. I know a guy, or knew a guy, who jumped off the Delaware Memorial Bridge in the late 90’s. His cause of death was drowning. See, the 200 ft fall had paralyzed him and he spent the last few minutes of his life in shock, paralyzed, massive internal bleeding, and slowly drowning in this freezing cold water. No-one ever found out what his thoughts were on the meaning of life or on his own actions in those last few minutes.
Other methods? Drug overdoses are not generally painless. Even if you use the correct drug and the correct amount, you’re as likely to choke to death on your own vomit as to have your standard OD exit. I’ve heard of people throwing themselves through plate glass windows in their death throes, they were in so much pain after OD’ing on a certain OTC medication. And if you survive that attempt, as most do, it’s likely you’ll spend the rest of your life with heart problems, or seizures, or with mild/moderate brain damage. That’s also true of hanging, by the way. The oxygen supply to the brain gets cut off, the person blacks out and they start behaving with pure subconscious survival instinct – making noise or breaking their way out in a blind panic. But by then the damage to the brain has already been done.
Or maybe there’s some other way and she survives AND through a stroke of luck doesn’t end up disabled. But she winds up with scars that everyone immediately knows what they are and she has to spend the rest of her life, on dates, in job interviews, interacting with people at cash registers, whatever, with these marks broadcasting to everyone that “HEY, I’M MENTALLY ILL! DON’T TREAT ME WITH RESPECT”. And it’s messed up that people are like that, but they are.
I know you don’t like hearing this but depressed people are absolute realists, particularly with each other, and I’m showing you respect by being real. I’m fifty. I’ve been in and out of severe depression for the last 8 years. I’ve been on 3 different types of psychiatric meds before giving up on psychiatrists altogether because while I feel psych meds are useful in an emergency, overall healing has to come from within. And I know way too much about suicide. I wish I had spent the last 8 years on more constructive pursuits, but I couldn’t and that’s that.
Just know what you’re getting into. Not just with actions, but with this line of thinking. This way of thought reinforces itself.
Cyrus,
Please I beg of you. Baker Act her to the hospital. I just lost my uncle who was saying very similar things and he is now dead. They found him hanging within a few hours of his wife going to work. I am in so much pain. Please try to take her first. If she will not go. Call a hotline, 911, I think you should Baker Act her immediately. Even if she gets mad at first who cares. Trust me she wants somebody to help her. God Bless You.
My sisters partner of 10 years committed suicide 30hrs ago, no note, no signs of suicidal thoughts , no depression as far as she knew. two days before they discussed getting married, their honeymoon etc.
WHY?!? why has he done this?!? that’s all that’s going through her mind, she’s not stable now and we are worried she’ll follow him. He waited until she had to take her daughter to a&e, went home, locked the bedroom door and was found by police. Her sons blame themselves as they were in the house, her daughter & my sister blame themselves for not being there…
Dear Charmaine, I am so terribly sorry to hear about your and your sister’s tragic loss. It is a path I am all too familiar with after losing my husband to suicide 9 February, 2012. There is absolutely nothing that can prepare one for such a horrific experience. There is also absolutely nothing that anyone can say that will dampen that pain. Statistically speaking, the literature often quotes that only about 1 out of every 4 people who take their lives leave a note. So it must not be taken personally if a note is not left behind for loved ones left behind. My husband never left me a note, however scribbled a message on the back of a photograph of our then 6 year old daughter that he would always love her. I don’t believe that he would have gone to the trouble of doing that if that particular photo was not stuck up on a kitchen cupboard where he stood and knocked back some sedatives before proceeding to hang himself. Learning that most suicide victims don’t leave a note was a comforting fact for me because I was disappointed that he hadn’t. I was relieved that he left his message for our daughter so that she could be reassured that he loved her and that his suicide had nothing to do with her. Regarding the “Why?” question which haunts all of us loss survivors; the answers are a culmination of many, many complex factors. I have spent the last almost 10 years researching and writing to address this very question for myself which I hope to share with others. I have reached a point of acceptance and much better understanding as a result. In a nutshell, the brain is also an organ which can become unwell. Since it affects our thinking and rationalising, it follows how our actions can also be impacted. My advice as a loss survivor: don’t try and walk the journey of suicide grief alone – reach out for support from a mental healthcare provider, support groups, books & websites which offer support for loss survivors, and journaling. Writing about your pain has been proven to help tremendously. Perhaps you could give your sister a journal in which could pour out her pain through writing. There are also numerous helpful websites for survivors of suicide loss where you could download and print a booklet for your sister (which you should read too). If there is a support group in her area, that would also be helpful. Sadly, your sister is at a higher risk of suicide – as are all loss survivors. This is why it is critical that she gets the support she needs. This would include her children too. As a way of helping, you could guide her with this. I would like to end off by saying that as impossible as it may seem right now, the sun does shine again. As loss survivors, our lives are forever changed – no getting away from that. However, we do manage to find joy again. I pray for comfort for you all at this very sad and difficult time.
My husband left a torn piece of paper. It reads, I love you and I am so sorry.
He left my phone number and was found in a hotel room.
I am so sorry Ashley.
My only prayer is you find love and comfort in the days to come.
You are loved