“Mum, I could write to you for days, but I know nothing would actually make a difference to you,” the note begins. “You are much too ignorant and self concerned to even attempt to listen or understand, everyone knows that.”
More hateful words follow, culminating with, “You are a waste of space, ignorant, and a rotten c***.”
A 17-year-old girl wrote this note shortly before she and her boyfriend reportedly killed a police officer and then took their own lives. Such a letter would be hurtful under any circumstances, but as an adolescent’s last words to her mother, it seems especially cruel.
I know nothing about this mother and daughter’s relationship. Perhaps the mother truly hurt her daughter in devastating ways. Perhaps, instead, the daughter’s hatred toward her mother was typical of so many strained relationships between mothers and their adolescent daughters.
Regardless, a hateful suicide note can provoke feelings of embarrassment and guilt, generate intense anger toward the deceased, and complicate the grieving process for the intended target of the note.
Blame and Revenge in Suicide Notes
The adolescent daughter’s suicide note is one of several anger-laced notes that have made the headlines recently. Another is the note of a father who was in a bitter, years-long custody dispute with his ex-wife.
In the father’s long suicide note, which he posted online, he calls his ex-wife a psychopath, states she bullied and emotionally abused him, and blames her father for his “murder by suicide.” (The ex-wife was awarded the copyright for the suicide note and has successfully required many websites to remove it, but other sites have refused to take it down.)
The actress Julia Roberts’ half-sister Nancy Motes died by suicide in February. Reportedly, she left a long suicide note blaming Julia Roberts for her death.
Most spiteful suicide notes simply go unreported. They may remain a family secret (or a secret from the family), a source of shame, anger or sadness, whether those emotions are directed at the deceased or at the target of the note.
A Painful Goodbye
I first wrote about suicide notes (“Unwritten Goodbyes: When There is No Suicide Note”) because of the pain those left behind can experience when there is no note – no final expression of love, no goodbye, no explanation for why the person died by suicide. I neglected to say that while the absence of a suicide note can hurt, the presence of a spiteful suicide note can hurt even more.
If you were targeted in a spiteful suicide note, then you might experience a complex barrage of emotions, depending on the nature of your relationship with the person who died. Two reactions are especially common: Anger toward the deceased, and feelings of guilt.
Anger is understandable, even instinctive. If a person’s suicide note blamed you, then you are under attack. The letter writer, serving as judge and jury, convicted you of wrongdoing without giving you any chance to present a defense. The verdict stands.
At least, it can feel that way. In reality, the suicide note captures the writer’s thoughts and feelings during only one moment in time, a moment that often is clouded by distorted thinking, mental illness, addiction, or other forces of suicide.
Recovering from a Spiteful Suicide Note
You also might feel terribly hurt by the suicide note’s indictment of you, even more so if you were close to the person who died. The pain of your loss, the intense grief, is compounded by the expression of raw anger. Feelings of guilt often follow, especially if you wish desperately that you could relive events and prevent your loved one from dying.
To place the suicide note in perspective, it can help to ask yourself the following questions:
Do the person’s criticisms accurately reflect the whole of you and your relationship with that person? (Doubtful, but if so, please be sure to read further below.)
Are the person’s criticisms of you highly selective, focusing only on regrettable incidents in your relationship while ignoring the many other aspects of your relationship that were benign or actually happy?
Are you buying into the person’s accusations without defending yourself?
Was suicide a rational response to whatever shortcomings or misdeeds that you are accused of?
It is also important to consider whether you, too, blame yourself for the person’s suicide. As I discuss elsewhere (“If Only: Self-Blame After a Loved One’s Suicide”), many people undeservedly blame themselves after the suicide of a loved one. Sadly, an angry suicide note can feed into your own fears that you failed the person who died.
But What If the Angry Suicide Note is True?
Perhaps the note accurately reports ways that you caused the person pain. Whatever hurtful things you said or did may be justifiable to you, or they may break your heart.
It is impossible not to hurt people from time to time, whether by ending a relationship, saying “no” when a person wants to hear “yes,” loving someone else, expressing needs that a loved one cannot meet, saying words in anger, fighting for what is right, or something else that upsets another person. Causing a person’s pain is not the same as causing a person’s suicide.
If you inflicted harm in ways that go beyond the normal hurts of life, consider ways to change your actions with others moving forward, to make amends, and to forgive yourself. At the same time, be careful to distinguish between guilt for your wrongdoings and guilt for the person’s suicide. Short of handing a loaded gun to a psychotic person who you know hears voices commanding him or her to die by suicide, it is extremely difficult, perhaps even impossible, to directly cause another person’s suicide.
No one person, no one act, and no one event causes suicide. Emotional pain interacts with other forces, such as genetic influences, learned behaviors, coping skills, mental illness, hopelessness, and distorted thoughts.
Keeping in mind the many forces of suicide can help soothe your anger toward the person who lashed out at you. Above all, this awareness can help you heal.
© Copyright 2014 Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW, All Rights Reserved. Written for Speaking of Suicide. Photo purchased from Fotolia.
My sister was mentally ill, angry, threatening, and attempting suicide for 6 decades. I thought it could happen one day, but was very surprised when she savagely killed herself on my birthday with a note left profanely blaming me for her suicide because I befriended her daughter on Facebook. She also had difficult words for her daughter.
I have sat on her words for 7 years now, waiting for my heart to digest them. Waiting for something to make this heartless, painful, punishment not so like an invisible knife in my heart that I still must work around daily, but no relief comes.
Suggestions? I’ve only SSDI to work with, but will try.
DO NOT FEEL GUILTY ! Your life is yours to live without other peoples baggage and judgement. They made the bad decision to kill themselves. I’ve lived thru some really, really tough times and I’ve lived long enough to know 70 years now, that you never know what is just around the corner in life. I’ve lost 2 sisters to suicide one was a drug addict and the other a needy, always the victim narcissistic personality. I loved them both, helped them both greatly still it was never enough. The last sister left with hate for everyone in her heart and blew her brains out on the anniversary of my 1st sisters death, she blamed everyone in our family who had taken care of her, she was just a bad person. I had spent my life crossing oceans for someone that would not jump over a mud puddle for me. But I digress, there was nothing left to grieve for, and what I learned is that we are here as ourselves, they are separate, we can have all kinds of horrible things happen to us from other people, but you need to go on as just you, yourself and you are alive to live each day. Crappy people are only going to drag you down into their darkness. Be one in your own soul, because in the end thats all thats left. We are all a lone soul. Be the best one you can while here on earth, because where you are here there will you be also after life is over.
Hello! This article gripped me. I have found nothing like this as of yet. I have been blamed by my husband (in his note) and his family, for his suicide. It is a very crushing situation to be in. I need help and don’t know where to find it. The guilt and anger are unbearable. If you know of a book or a group I can look into I would really appreciate it. Thank you…
ON FACEBOOK:
Loss Of A Loved One To Suicide;
Stigmatized: The Suicide Survivor’s Journey;
Bipolar Disorder Support;
THERE ARE MANY OTHERS ON THE WEB
SEEK AND YOU SHALL FIND
truly appreciate the article… first one i have read that focuses on the effects of suicides and the very difficult circumstances that can come from unfinished business, suicide notes and the power that they can generate even further destroying the lives of those left behind… the linked article is a expression of my own experiences with suicide from both sides of the equation… an attempt to help dispel many of the myths, stigma and ignorance about an enigma that can be so destructive and illusive… please share if you feel it may be helpful… blessings, Mark
personal article meant to help others connect to some of the realities of suicide and mental health. please share if you see it as helpful… blessings, M
Thank you so much for this very accurate description and understanding of being a self blaming and very guilty widow… I was left with a very nasty and hurtful letter I can never defend.. It hurts me every second of every day.. Hopefully tine can heal x
Tanya,
I feel we are in the same situation. Very shortly after my divorce my husband ended his life. He left me a very hateful suicide note and his family blames me entirely. I am having trouble coping…as I’m sure you are. His suicide was in March 2018, so longer ago than yours. I would imagine we are going through the same stages of shock, grief, legal battles. Lmk how you are doing and if you have found any helpful reads or groups. Our situation is unique but equally painful. Anger, guilt, and raising my kids alone is a lot. But dealing with trying to understand and rebuilding my life adds even more. And the guilt…
I’m in the same situation. Six weeks after I insisted my husband move out due to his alcoholism and erratic behavior, he ended his life, leaving a changed will and a very mean suicide note. The guilt and anger can be unbearable. And I have three kids to raise and a job to go to amidst this pain.
I haven’t found anyone in a similar situation in the survivors of suicide support group I attend. It’s a lonely grief.
Hi Jennifer,
My husband of 30 years took his own life after leaving a spiteful letter on a public forum and a will change. If you need to talk I can empathise with you. The grief guilt hurt anger sadness are all too consuming
Oh please. I fucking hate my parents. I want to die because of them. And you’re saying I should not speak out about their awful behavior in a suicide note, where it’ll have the most impact/virality?
Yes, THIS!
My husband left a spiteful suicide note, blaming me for his death… making sure our children would blame me, too. It’s been a living hell with my children who are cruel, spiteful now. Why won’t they go to therapy? My husband was a community hero in a high profile job, but he was also diagnosed with severe major depression who stopped taking his medication, wouldn’t go to therapy, wouldn’t follow his psychiatrist‘a advise to reduce his workload… fired his psychiatrist because he didn’t want to hear it. Attempted suicide in previous years and would threaten suicide when he didn’t get his way. He was a selfish man, loved his high profile job more than his health or our marriage. To public eye he was funny, kind, hero, but at home he was angry, abusive, controlling, selfish. Due to his suicide in 2018, 1, maybe 2 of our children act just like him.