“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 writing that article which I have just finished reading.
I’ve struggled with grief and guilt for the past couple of years over a suicide.
Even after reading all the articles and books and I know everything is true and makes sense, It’s still Very hard to understand it and accept it.
Thankyou for this article. I could relate to a lot of the things mentioned here.
These are the things I wish I could tell my Dad and Sister who committed suicide 10 years apart.
https://thingsiwishicouldtellthem.com/
I need to start living and stop blaming myself. I did not see it coming. I did not know until afterwards that he was suicidal. There were things he said in hindsight that I misunderstood. We were downsizing because of his illness He wanted to give a family heirloom to his sister. I asked why and reassured him we had room for it in the new house.
He told me once he was depressed. We talked. He said he was depressed with his medical situation but was okay otherwise.
He was not.
I spent almost half my life with him and didn’t see it. Then after telling me he loved me and was going outside for a bit. The gunshot changed my life.
In hindsight I can see things. Some which may not even be there.
Teresa,
Your comment poignantly captures the terrible pain of losing someone to suicide, along with the second-guessing and self-blame that can come as a result. Thank you for sharing. I wonder if you’re familiar with the Alliance of Hope, an online community for people who have lost a loved one to suicide. If not, I recommend checking them out, as I know there are many people there who will relate to you, and vice versa. Here’s the link: https://allianceofhope.org/.
Also, I list other resources on the Resources Page, at https://speakingofsuicide.com/resources/#survivors.
This is the realization I have come to now after the loss of two sisters
to suicide. The first one died from a drug overdose, no note, she just could
not get off the drugs. That one was very hard on me and I am still able to
think of her with love and sadness and value our memories. The second one
shot herself in the head on the 7th anniversary of the first sisters death. She
left a hateful horrendous note for everyone. Just mean. I don’t feel anything
for her but disgust and anger. But most importantly she killed the love and the memories we had, they are as dead as she is. Blessedly, I just don’t feel anything still after 2 years.
I think I have just been thru to much.
So that’s what you leave people with when you commit suicide with hate in
your heart. Everything you shared with them in life is dead, forgotten. So what was the point …..
Anonymous,
That is so sad, and I’m sorry you and your family have had such tragedies. A mean suicide note can make what’s already excruciatingly painful even more painful. This post might interest you: “Mightier than the Sword”: Healing from a Spiteful Suicide Note
Also, I hope you’ll check out the resources for loss survivors on the site’s Resources page. If you’re not already involved with the Alliance of Hope, which offers online support groups, you may find that resource especially helpful.
Thank you for sharing here!
Thankyou for this article. I could relate to a lot of the things mentioned here.
These are the things I wish I could tell my Dad and Sister who committed suicide 10 years apart.
https://thingsiwishicouldtellthem.com/
This is the only way i could find I could write down and share all the million things running in my mind everyday.
It’s been a little over a month since I found my friend and roommate dead by her own hand. I had no idea it was this bad but I still blame myself because our last conversation was an argument and I pushed her away and rejected her care for me. Something had to be the last straw, and I’ve convinced myself it was me. I feel like I don’t have any right to feel this shattered, but I didn’t recognize how much she meant to me until I couldn’t tell her anymore.