“I should have _________.”
“If only I _____________.”
“Why didn’t I ____________?”
Different people may fill in the blanks with different words, but the sentiments are the same: I am to blame. I should have been able to stop my loved one from dying.
Feelings of self-blame affect many people who have lost a loved one to suicide. Such feelings are raw, painful, even toxic. They infect the open wound of suicide loss, adding hurt to hurt.
It does not have to be so. You can talk back to your self-blaming thoughts. Even if you regret words spoken or unspoken, actions taken or not taken, or other mistakes that you think you made, you can replace condemnation with compassion.
Suicide and Hindsight
If you have lost a loved one to suicide, you may feel that your self-blame is justified. Perhaps you believe adamantly that you did or said too little. Perhaps you believe adamantly that you did or said too much.
Whatever you believe, two important words may apply: “hindsight bias.” Hindsight bias is the clinical term for that familiar adage, “Hindsight is 20/20.” More technically, according to two trauma researchers:
“Hindsight bias occurs when an individual possesses knowledge about the outcome of an event and falsely believes he or she was capable of predicting (and, by implication, affecting) its outcome.”
If you knew then what you know now, then yes, you almost certainly would have said something different, done something different, shown something different, felt something different – and so on.
Sadly, you did not know.
Trauma and The Illusion of Control
The tricky thing about self-blame is that, even though it hurts intensely, it also protects us from a greater pain. In blaming ourselves, we nurture the illusion that we have some control over life.
Consider this. If we caused the suicide in some way, then we can learn from our mistakes and act differently. This means that we can prevent suicide from happening again to someone else we love. Or so it seems.
In reality, tragedies all too often occur beyond our control. It is more devastating to realize how random events are – and how random they will continue to be – than it is to believe that we failed.
What We Can Control When Someone is Suicidal
This is not to say that nobody has any control over a suicidal person’s safety or situation. There are things people can do to help someone who is suicidal:
Ask questions. Listen deeply. Involve others. Wrap the person in love, understanding, and support. Be available to them. Check in. Stay with them. Remove firearms and other instruments of death from their home. Provide resources to the person or take them somewhere for professional help. Pray, if that is in your belief system.
But even if you did not do all of those things, even if you did not do any of those things, it does not mean that the person’s suicide is your fault.
Even when people do all of those things, still the person may die by suicide. We are limited in what we can know and what we can do to stop suicide from occurring.
Suicide is a formidable foe. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, suicide wins.
Placing the Blame for Suicide Where It Belongs
When someone dies by suicide, it is never one person’s fault. Not yours, not someone else’s, and not the suicide victim’s.
Instead, the fault belongs to the natural forces that create the potential for suicide.
Most often, these forces are mental illness. By many accounts, 90% of people who die by suicide have a diagnosable mental illness. Other forces besides mental illness also can cause suicide: trauma, stress, loss, and any other event or condition that creates excruciating pain.
The forces of suicide cause irrational thoughts. They rob the person of the ability to see any possibility for change. They connive to make the person believe that suicide is the only way to end the pain.
Usually it is not just one problem, but instead a multitude of problems, that lead to suicide. There are no simple explanations.
If You Made Mistakes with a Suicidal Person
Maybe you are reading these words thinking, “She doesn’t get it. I really did fail. It is my fault that ________ died.”
Maybe, painfully, you are even thinking, “I failed, and I hate myself for it.”
Maybe you did know your loved one was struggling.
Maybe you discounted the enormity of their pain.
Maybe you said things you regret, like, “It’s not that bad,” “You don’t really mean it,” “You just are trying to get attention,” or any one of a million other statements that are regrettable in hindsight.
Maybe you refused to take a phone call, or said words in anger, or gave up on the person.
Maybe you failed to keep the person safe. Maybe you felt too afraid to recognize the possibilities for death. Maybe you believed that your loved one would not ever die by suicide.
No doubt, such feelings of regret cause searing pain. I do not mean to diminish or discount your pain. It hurts.
At the same time, no matter the ways you believe you failed, I would encourage you to ask yourself the following questions:
Am I telling myself that I could have prevented my loved one’s suicide?
How do I know that, even if I had done things differently, my loved one would still be alive?
How could I have known then what I know now?
Can I feel compassion for myself for having said or done things that I desperately wish I could change?
Can I forgive myself for being imperfect?
Self-Blame and Grief after Suicide
Feelings of self-blame can distract you from grieving and, in the process, from healing. Think of self-blame as an itchy blanket thrown over your grief. When you focus on the blanket, you do not see or feel the naked grief that lies beneath.
Remember, condemning yourself can build some illusion of control. What lies beneath your self-blame are the terrible facts that you cannot control:
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.
***
© Copyright 2014 Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW, All Rights Reserved. Written for www.speakingofsuicide.com. Photos purchased from Fotolia.com.
Thank you for this article! It’s been 1 1/2 years since our youngest son took his life at the age of 31. We’ve worked through our feelings of guilt and know his actions were not our fault, but it’s so easy to keep pulling that guilt back in over our heads anyway. The questions you gave us to ponder help tremendously!
K Woz,
I’m very sorry about your son’s suicide. So tragic! And I’m grateful the article is helpful to you in some way. Thank you for sharing here.
To ALL OF YOU : Acts: 24 verse 15: And I have hope toward God, which hope these men also look forward to, that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous. Remember the miracles jesus showed us as a pre
View of what is to come and of the power he can do if we excersise faith in him. We all have a hope. Sending love to you all.
When you realise you’ve left two very similar comments in 2 different years.
Thank you for this article. I lost my husband and life partner of 33 years and father of our 3 children in November 2021. Each of us have felt guilt in our own way. At the time, I had moved from the family home as we were not in a good place, following his affair of 5 years, that I finally realised I could no longer try to fix. I don’t think he thought I’d ever give up. The morning of the dreaded day, we has a massive argument over the phone. He had previously sent me pictures of ropes, and I once caught him attempting suicide, several times he had also told me he was going to, then wouldn’t answer the phone, so I’d go there to find him ok. For these reasons, I knew he wasn’t mentally stable. I fostered relationships and respect between the kids and their dad, knowing the terrible things he was saying about me, fully knowing that he needed them for support and knowing my relationship with them was close enough that they would come to me if they had an issue with what he was saying. At this time, they were 19, 21 and 23. On this particular day, I did not fathom this would occur. I received the call from my daughters boyfriend who had been part of our lives at this stage for 5 years, and completely adored him. He had found him! He had to make all the calls, to 000, to us, his parents, his girlfriend, our daughter, who was a daddies girl. My eldest son had spent the last month, concerned about his dad, watching his pain, checking he was ok, supporting both of us. Having those deep discussions with his dad, who told him he wouldn’t do this. My eldest boy told him that if he did, he wouldn’t cope, and would probably do the same….so for this to have occurred made him feel unvalued.
It was a day where the world ran in slow motion. I got the news at work, and fell into my bosses arms, handing the phone to her before collapsing on the floor. She knew the situation and just held me. They had to remind me to breath. The pain was tremendous. She drove me to the house and as we entered the street, I could see my daughter crouched on the ground with her boyfriend beside her. I went to open the door and jump out of the moving car to get to her when my boss grabbed me. It all seemed so unreal, not possible, WHY?
How was I going to get our kids through this? Time stood still. It was like I left my body and was observing from a far.
All I knew in that moment was that our lives were about to change-FOREVER.
From that moment on, I was going to have to dig deeper than I ever had before to find a strength I did not know I possessed to ensure that everyone was okay. To ensure that all the happy memories were spoken about and remembered, and that he was honoured for the amazing man he was. We had our problems, but to the end, I know we loved each other and he was my best friend. I miss him dearly, but I choose to live life the best I can and to make sure that the kids still strive to achieve their own dreams in their own time and to know how much they are loved.
This did not help one bit
This story resonates with me having lost my husband of 33 years and father to my 3 adult children in November 2021. Each of us have tackled grief in different ways, different stages of grief in our own time, and our own guilt for what we could have said or done better. Me, for finally leaving after a 5 year affair he was having, my daughter for not living at home and missing time, my eldest who was staying with his dad, sleep deprived in fear, facing the hard conversations and arguments with his dad, and my middle son, who was so like him, who I advised not to get into confrontations with him, out of fear they’d but heads and it could turn ugly…..uglier than the current mental health we were already facing. Then there’s my daughters 19-year-old boyfriend, who loved him like a second dad, who found him that terrible day…. the one who had to call for help, assist in the situation and let us all know. The one who retains more sense from that day than any of us will ever understand. We have all had to rally around each other through our bad days, and I am sure there are so many more to come. This year, we face our second Father’s Day without him, and it strangely feels harder than or as hard as the first. We all miss him so desperately and would give anything to have him back here with us, to have the days prior to this horrible event to change what we did and said. The reality is we can’t, and somehow, we have to continue to set goals and achieve them through the darkest of days, and remember the funny stories that tragically ran out too soon.