Across the Internet and elsewhere, people apply the term suicide survivor to two different groups of people: 1) people who struggled with suicidal thoughts or attempted suicide, and survived, and 2) people who were never suicidal at all, but who lost a loved one to suicide.
In a post last year, I defined a suicide survivor as someone who lost a friend, family member, or other loved one to suicide. I explained my use of the term this way:
The term “suicide survivor” – or “survivor of suicide” – is reserved for those left behind. It is used in the same sense that an obituary will say, “The deceased is survived by ….”
I was hardly alone. For decades, thousands of people – including researchers, suicide prevention advocates, lawmakers, and ordinary people – have used the term “suicide survivor” (or “survivor of suicide”) specifically for people who lost a loved one to suicide. The psychologist Edwin Shneidman, considered the father of modern suicidology, applied the term “survivor of a suicide” to people who lost a loved one to suicide as early as 1965.
Since then, numerous groups have referred to people who lost a loved one to suicide as “suicide survivors” or “survivors of suicide,” including the U.S. Congress, which 15 years ago established National Survivors of Suicide Day (the Saturday before Thanksgiving) to recognize people who lost a loved one to suicide.
In the last 40 or so years, numerous books targeting “suicide survivors” have helped people move through their grief, books like Survivors of Suicide, Suicide Survivors Handbook, Suicide Survivors: A Guide for Those Left Behind, Meditations for Survivors of Suicide, and No Time to Say Goodbye: Surviving the Suicide of a Loved One.
Suicide Language Evolves
Despite the term’s long history, I will no longer refer to people who have lost somebody to suicide as “suicide survivors” on this website, Speaking of Suicide. Instead, I will use the term “suicide loss survivors.”
Here’s why:
In recent years, a great number of people have come forward and publicly disclosed that they seriously considered suicide or made a suicide attempt. These individuals have brought into the light a problem long stigmatized and hidden.
Blogs such as livethroughthis.org contain photographs, interviews, personal accounts, and even videos of hundreds of people who thought about or attempted suicide, almost always with their full names attached. In just the last few months, articles highlighting this movement toward openness and advocacy have appeared in the New York Times, and the Boston Globe.
As more and more people with “lived experience” of suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts have spoken out, the clashing definitions of “suicide survivor” have created ever more confusion. David Webb, PhD, is a suicidologist who survived a suicide attempt. He writes:
“When I first started looking at the suicide literature, I did a Google search on ‘suicide survivor’, hoping to connect with fellow survivors. Google replied with dozens, maybe hundreds, of hits but instead of fellow survivors, I found that this language had been claimed by those bereaved by suicide. I was rather taken aback by this… It seemed like we were invisible to Google and I felt that even the language we might use to identify ourselves had been stolen.”
Increasingly, people who made it through a suicidal crisis are claiming the term “suicide survivor” for themselves – people like Andrew O’Brien, the veteran who proclaims in an online video, referring to his outreach to soldiers, “I am a suicide survivor from PTSD… [one day] I told my suicide story to 500 uniformed soldiers, and I am not embarrassed by it.”
Major suicide prevention organizations are responding to the language controversy. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention changed the name of its International Survivors of Suicide Day to International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day.
Those who got out of a suicidal crisis alive really did survive a battle with suicide. Suicide tried to kill them, quite literally. And they lived to tell about it.
A Disclaimer for Suicide Loss Survivors
If you have lost a friend, son, daughter, spouse, sibling or other family member to suicide, you might identify as a “suicide survivor” even as others move away from the term. If you were to talk with me and call yourself a suicide survivor, I would never disagree or judge. What you call yourself is up to you, and the term “suicide survivor” may hold great meaning for you.
This post is not meant to imply rules or mandates for others to follow. Instead, I simply want to explain the terminology that I use on this website, and why.
Two groups of people with different needs and, in some ways, different agendas are going by the same name. It is confusing, and, to some people who have been through a suicidal crisis, it is hurtful, too.
Which Suicide Survivors Came First?
Suicide loss survivors were the first to adopt the term suicide survivors on a massive scale. Yet they were not the original suicide survivors.
I looked on Google Scholar for the first academic article ever to refer to suicide survivors. Among the many thousands of journals searchable by Google, the term suicide survivor first appeared in 1959, in an article that referred to “a post-slaying suicide survivor who had to be institutionalized for four years before he recovered sufficient mentality to stand trial.”
In 1975, a journal article reported the fates of seven people who survived after jumping off the Golden Gate or Oakland Bay bridge. Its title? “Suicide Survivors: A Follow-up Study of Persons Who Survived Jumping from the Golden Gate and San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridges.”
Still, even though there are a couple early references to suicide attempt survivors as “suicide survivors,” the term overwhelmingly has been used for people who lost a loved one to suicide.
Some people refer to suicide loss survivors by other terms. John R. Jordan, Ph.D., states, “In Europe and Australia, the more common language used to refer to this category of mourner is ‘the suicide bereaved’ or ‘the bereaved by suicide.’” I dislike these terms, because ideally bereavement is a time-limited period of mourning. Suicide loss is permanent.
Do Suicide Survivors Really Exist?
Regardless of who it is applied to, I have struggled with the term “suicide survivor.” Yes, someone who lost a loved one to suicide did not survive suicide. But really, nobody can survive suicide. Suicide is death. The only “death survivors” or “survivors of death” are those left behind. I presume this is why family and friends were called “suicide survivors” in the first place, just as people who lost a loved one to murder are called “survivors of homicide” and “homicide survivors.”
But “suicide survivor,” when applied to people who have seriously considered or attempted suicide, is a sort of shorthand. No, people do not survive suicide, but they do survive a suicidal crisis or a suicide attempt. “Suicidal crisis survivor” is clumsy. Really, who talks that way? “Suicide attempt survivor” comes more naturally, and its use grows as more websites, organizations, and news articles refer to attempt survivors.
The term “suicide attempt survivor” is imperfect, too. It excludes people who fiercely battled – or still battle – with suicidal thoughts and impulses without acting on them. Say that suicidal thoughts stalk a woman day in and day out. Finally, one night she lies in bed, tearful and clutching in her hands the means to kill herself, even rehearsing using it in various ways without actually harming herself. For hours, suicidal thoughts assault her. Despite her pain, despite her hopelessness, she exerts tremendous restraint just to stay alive.
Isn’t she a survivor, too? If so, a survivor of what?
A Caveat about Labeling, People, and Suicide
I expect that one criticism of this post will be why I feel the need to label people at all. Labels can be seen as dehumanizing – isn’t someone who survived a suicidal crisis or a suicide loss really just a person first?
I agree with person-first language. As a social work professor, I teach my students that there are no “borderlines,” only people with borderline personality disorder, no schizophrenics, only people with schizophrenia.
Labels can hurt, yet labels also can help. Whether we are talking about cancer survivors or suicide attempt survivors, trauma survivors or suicide loss survivors, the survivor labels can give people a way to connect with others like them, a sense of belonging, even a touch of pride and identity. They have survived.
Talking about Suicide is a Work in Progress
For now, at least, this site will use the labels “suicide attempt survivor” and “suicide loss survivor.” This certainly does not mean that Speaking of Suicide will exclude people who survived a suicidal crisis without making a suicide attempt, only that it will not refer to them by a shorthand label.
Ultimately, I would like to see the term “suicide survivor” apply to people who have survived a suicidal crisis – any suicidal crisis. The suicidal thoughts or suicide attempt could have killed them, yet they made it out alive.
At the same time, I worry that the term “suicide survivor” for survivors of suicidal crisis creates too much confusion, because of the term’s use, as well, by suicide loss survivors.
What do you think about language around suicide and survival?
© 2014 Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW, All Rights Reserved. Written for Speaking of Suicide.
I am a suicide loss survivor. I at times thought about suicide but never attempted it. I have been depressed and have had much anxiety. I have even had ECT but I never really wanted to die. I only wanted to feel better. I was pregnant with my third child when I received ECT and wanted nothing more than to be well enough to take care of my children. I managed to get through this period of my life and with a lot of therapy I made it. I’m seventy six years old and have been mentally well for many years even though my life has not always been that great.
I lost my mother to suicide when I was 8 years old on July 2, 1949. I was the oldest of 4 children. My sisters were 6 and 4. My brother was 10 months old. It was devastating. She jumped from the window of a hospital. Life was never the same after that. My father might as well have died as well because he was not there for us at all. We lived with several relatives for 2 years until we moved in with my father and his mother-in-law, my grandmother. It was a house of doom and gloom. My grandmother drank and was very abusive to us children. My father never once stood up for us. He just let her say whatever she felt like saying to us. It was a nightmare.
When I was 17, I became very depressed to the point of almost passing out from depression. I was working at a beachclub for the summer and somehow managed to pull through without any help. I don’t know how I did it but I did. I was terrified that I was sick like my mother and did not want to face the fact that I might be mentally ill. I had no one to talk to so I just kept it all to myself. I briefly saw a therapist but only went a couple of times because I didn’t want my family to find out.
I met my first husband when I was sixteen. I thought a loving relationship was the answer to my life. I thought getting married and having children was the way to go. We married when I was twenty and he was twenty-five. Two years later, I have my first son, two years after that, my second son and two years after that my third. All this time, I had no idea anything was wrong with my husband. Before my third child was born, I was suffering from so much anxiety and depression I required seven shock treatments. The doctor did not want to prescribe medicine since i was pregnant. I got through the remainder of the pregnancy and the birth but the symptoms started again. I became so agoraphobic that I couldn’t go into a store and could barely feed my children. I lost forty pounds. Luckily, I found Recovery where I learned to deal with the symptoms and after a year I managed to stabilize and take care of my children. In the meantime, my husband was not doing very well and he eventually had a breakdown. He was admitted to the hospital and diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. He was there for a few days and released. He would not take medication and kept telling me I was sick and needed help. Luckily, I started working and was able to move out. My children were two, four and six. On December 1, 1969, my husband drove in front of a train and took his life. I was now a widow at twenty-eight with three children. I didn’t know what I was going to do for money. I was working and needed to pay for child care. Luckily, Railroad Retirement kicked in and saved us financially.
I eventually remarried a widower with two daughters. We were now a family of five. While I was married to him, life stabilized somewhat. We had another child, a daughter.
For some reason, I became discontent is this marriage and we eventually divorced. I went to a two year college and earned a degree in computer science. My career started to get better and I started to make enough money to support myself.
I remarried a third time to a horrible human being, if you can call him that. While we were married, my sister Diane, took her life in August of 1990. She took an overdose of her prescribed medication. She had made several suicide attempts and spent a year in a mental hospital. She did very well after she came out of the hospital but unfortunately, it didn’t last. This is now the third suicide in my life.
My oldest son was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when he was eighteen. He had always had some problems but they became full blown his first semester of college. He came home and and that’s when when it really manifested it self. He eventually was declared mentally ill and went on disability, where he remained for the rest of his life. He had a very tumultuous life. In and out of jail, being picked up by the police regularly, etc. He eventually spent seven months in a mental hospital and stabilized for quite a while after that. He finally started attending a mental health clinic on a regular basis and did very, very well. He went several times a week and took his medication religiously. He learned how to be appropriate in public. He had a beautiful apartment which he decorated himself. It was a work of art. He ultimately graduated to a program where many transition from the day program he was in to the working world. He loved the program and went every day. He was their poster child for how the program worked and went all over the state advocating for them. He was doing so well I would invite him to parties with my friends. There was a time when I couldn’t do that so he really excelled for a long time.
Suddenly, I receive a call from him from crisis unit. Mom, “I feel homicidal and suicidal”. I felt like I was kicked in the stomach. I rushed over to the emergency room and he was admitted to the hospital where he remained for ten days. He didn’t stay quite so bad while he was there but he didn’t recover to his former state of wellness. The day he was released I flew to Costa Rica for a trip I had planned months earlier. I was worried about him while I was there and called several times to check on him. He didn’t sound great. I couldn’t wait to get home to make sure he was all right. I called him the day I left and spoke to him. He sounded down. I arrived home late Saturday night. The next day, Sunday, March 26, 2017, I called him in the morning to tell him I was having him over for his birthday. He didn’t answer the phone. I wasn’t too concerned since he would run errands and come right back. I called several more times and started to worry. I drove over to his apartment and knocked on the door. No answer. I tried the key but the door was chained from the inside. Then, I really worried. I called 911 and the police came and broke down the door. They came out and told me he had passed and it looked like he took all of his medication. I was devastated and couldn’t stop crying. This is now the fourth person in my life to die by their own hand. It was especially tragic with my son since he was doing so well for so long. I was very proud of him and called him a miracle.
Why. Why. Why is this happening?
Each suicide was devastating. My mother left four children and a grieved father who never really recovered. My husband left three children as well as many other loved ones. My sister left five grown children and several grandchildren all who missed her terribly. My son left a huge hole in our family.
Suicide is a scourge and needs to be understood better. I don’t know what to say except that they don’t realize the devastation they leave behind. I pray someday a cause is found.
Ingrid,
I am very sorry for your losses, as well as your own experiences with depression and suicidal thoughts. To lose just one person by suicide is painful; the loss of four family members across your life is enormous.
I often wonder why some people suffer so much loss and hardship while others experience relatively little. This is one of life’s mysteries. You are truly a survivor.
I thank you for sharing your story here, and I wonder if you’ve shared it before. If you want to talk with somebody about what you’re going through, please check out the Resources page on this site. In particular, there are a couple listings for support groups for people who have lost a loved one to suicide.
Thanks again for sharing.
Ms. Freedenthal, I’m two years late, but what you wrote back in 2014 is still as relevant as ever — as online searches for the term “suicide survivor” indicate. (e.g. One of the most frequent comments that I hear from folks who call the hotline at which I volunteer seeking support as they recover from an attempt or suicidal depression is that they first searched Google, Bing, Duck Duck Go, or even Amazon for support resources for fellow travelers and came up empty — yet were deluged with resources for the loved ones of successful suicides. Surely, in today’s information age, we can do better than this! Adding precision to terminology is a critical step in the right direction.)
Language matters. Your coinage and championing of “suicide loss survivor” as a distinct category from “suicide survivor” — and your ongoing efforts to persuade other writers, practitioners, and advocates to reserve the latter term for those who’ve either attempted suicide themselves or lived through their own severe suicidal depression — go a long way toward relieving stigma and alienation while helping to build community. Suicide loss survivors deserve study and compassion, and it is right that there is no shortage of support groups and written material aimed at them. yet it is also true that the same plenitude of ink and attention has, sadly, not been extended to folks who’ve survived either suicide attempts or the serious contemplation of same. Ensuring that folks in this latter group of ‘survivors’ at least have a name to themselves is a step in the right direction. Indeed, it might even save lives by making it easier for such ‘survivors’ to connect with the resources that they need online and elsewhere and thus stave off relapse/further attempts.
Thanks so much for doing what you do! Best wishes to you and yours for the ongoing holiday season.
I appreciate your reply, as well as the article. I searched the term “suicide survivor” this morning in an attempt to connect to someone who could help me navigate a state that seems to virtually assure another, one would hope more competent, attempt. It seemed reasonable. Hurricane survivors are the ones who survive the storm, not the ones watching on tv. All I found was an endless supply of agreement that I am nothing. I don’t matter, may as well not exist anyway because I already don’t in the eyes of pretty much everyone. But hey, all those people bitching and rolling their eyes at my pleas for help? At least they will get the support they need for having had to endure me. Perhaps others will keep pushing to make the inconvenient exist enough that others will be served.
I made a very serious suicide attempt 12.26.08 n miraculously survived and then my beloved eldest son, specialist Adam Patrick Curren, killed himself 3.7.14. He tried 2 call me 3x’s minutes b4, but i was in a freak 5 day coma. My ex relayed that 2 me over the phone when i woke up. I knew something was off base a few weeks earlier and begged him to come home 4 a week. I had said to him god doesn’t make mistakes when i had asked him if he had any prejudices against gays n he said no. I said “good, god doesn’t make mistakes.” he said ‘yes mom, god does’. My alarms went off! His thinking was off base. He said he was too busy with (gods work) as the owner of a remodeling (carpenter) co. N he n his girlfriend were going on vacation. Our last words were that we loved each other.
Anyways to the point, i have had enuf of the senseless loss of life due to suicide n i am doing something about it. Or dying trying! Pls help me get the word out 2 loved ones to see eve’s legacy at GoFundMe. My goal is 2 open up 24/7 memorial outreach centers. I want 2 put an end to suicide once n 4 all. Although my story doesn’t indicate it, i want 2 honor all of the lives lost 2 suicide (think along the lines of the aids quilts).
Pls pls pls help me spread the word as far n wide as possible. I have 2 limited knowledge with the web.
Thank you n god bless!
Evelyn m. Curren
When I first came across the term suicide survivors and the group the phrase is attributed to, I too felt uncertain about the usage of the term and the people it identifies with. However, after reading and thinking and diving into the topic, the issue that is suicide, I felt like it fit perfectly. Someone once told me that they survived suicide, and I know when they spoke the words it was meant to connect and reach out, but instead I took extreme offense of the context as if it was implied they were strong enough to live through it and that my sister just didn’t have enough character or resilience- like that suicide can be beat…There is already a huge stigma that is associated with the term suicide and the people it associated with and the usage of “suicide survivors” only adds to that as if suicide can be overcome and that it is an issue of character or perseverance…No. Suicide is finite. It is a period that marks the end of a sentence to signal nothing comes after. You don’t survive death, you don’t overcome death, instead you have a near death experience. You attempted suicide, you thought about it, but you don’t beat it. Instead you beat depression you beat whatever underlining mental illness or traumatic experience that leads you to that situation. People that have been lost to suicide can’t post their thoughts and write how they feel because they are no longer of this world. I applaud all those that have attempted or thought of suicide and fought through depression to tell your stories because it is hard and underappreciated, but that does not make you a survivor of suicide contrary to whatever fancy term you wish to be associated with to validate the merits of your experience. To try and disagree, feels like your part of the problem that thinks light on depression or mental illness which almost always goes hand to hand with suicide, but depression isn’t as powerful or sexy or thought provoking or as real as suicide. Suicide isn’t a cause or symptom, it is the end. Although, I know you don’t mean to make it seem like you are stronger or more resilient, when you say you are a suicide survivor then those that have passed, but the truth is there will always be an underlining message associated that says this or something similar when you imply that you survived suicide. No one beats death and no one survives suicide.
Suicide attempter