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.
PS
I think there should be opportunities for suicide thinkers, suicide survivors and suicide sufferers to go to walk-in places to look for help and to help others.
Not like AA
Open to anyone – even if they only come to listen.
Maybe my son would have gone.
Rinske
Dear Rinske, this is such an excellent suggestion. It just might help get some people through their painful feelings and thoughts. Being able to share in a safe environment is the first step to healing. I think we often do not know what to say and when we do, we try to fix things and not just allow others to vent. Offering advice, suggestions, “Have you thought about…,” such just diminish what a person is going through. But to sit amongst others, to share and then be heard – that is (well at least to me) the genesis of true support for anyone hurting and just trying to make sense of life. And this becomes the means to our possibility to heal.
QUOTE FROM THE ARTICLE;
As more and more people with “lived experiences” of suicide 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.”
…….I AM in agreement with this statement – I sought help on the internet after the death of my son by suicide 3 years ago. I found http://www.theallianceofhope.org
They called us ‘suicide survivor’ – as do many others.
The label did not feel right. I am not a survivor.
Those who live in mental misery or “survive an attempt” are survivors.
The label for me would be more appropriately called ‘suicide sufferer’
My suffering will not be over until after my death.
I am still looking for an answer. Alex’s pain was passed onto me. I am in disbelief. We are a middle class family. Short of nothing. He did not drink, did not do drugs, did not smoke, ate well. He was almost 26. Did not finish high school. Played games online a lot. He had friends. He made several attempts to get his grade 12. Could not be persuaded to learn a trade or profession. We talked about everything. No lack of intelligence. He had jobs were he was bullied. A multitude of problems.
I knew that he wasn’t happy having been born.
Never thought that it would come to this.
He was an empath, super friendly, always willing to help. Eccentric. An old soul.
Always helping kids and old folks. He also had a bit of Asperger’s happening.
I should have watched him closer.
I met up with him onto two separate occasions with the help of two mediums. Lots of things were communicated that the mediums could not have known. He mentioned during those exchanges that he had made a mistake. My mother died this past Spring – she showed up last Summer. She apologized for being so hard on me all of my life. This time my father, younger brother and grandparents showed up as well. My dad said that I would be able to handle what is coming my way. My husband was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma a week after Alex died. Not expected to live. The other kids and husband do not discuss any of it. Thank the universe that I have a few good friends left. My address book has also changed.
Rinske
Maybe I didn’t read all of the details or paid enough attention to this article. I call myself a Suicide survivor because I lost my cousin. I don’t get the point of nit picking the terms and what we should call who. Survivor, loss survivor, whatever – we are all suffering and are literally surviving after the loss. I’m sure you didn’t mean harm but I feel this whole article is pointless and who gives a damn about labels.
April,
I’m very sorry about your cousin’s suicide. That’s such a big loss. I hope you’ll check out the resources I’ve listed for suicide loss survivors at SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources/#survivors.
Regarding terminology, you wrote, “Survivor, loss, survivor, whatever — we are all suffering and are literally surviving after loss.” But that’s the thing. Another group of people who calls themselves “suicide survivors” hasn’t lost someone to suicide. Instead, they almost lost their own life to suicide.
To call both suicide loss survivors and survivors of a suicidal crisis “suicide survivors” is confusing and negates the experiences of people who believe themselves to be “true” suicide survivors. There aren’t easy answers, so I just wanted to explain my rationale for my use of the terms “suicide loss survivor” and “suicide attempt survivor.”
There are also people who never actually attempted suicide but have struggled immensely with internal turmoil. Their mental anguish was enormous as was their wish to be dead. They may have wanted to die but did not ever try because they were concerned with either not being successful and being worse off than they are/were; or the fear of attempting to kill themselves kept them from attempting. But that’s not to say that their desire to die or end their suffering and misery through suicide wasn’t as strong as someone who was successful committing suicide.
I have to disagree. My son died by suicide 3 years ago. I am not a survivor. I am a sufferer and have not been able to get out. When I die I will see him again. Just passing time now.
Tom…..
Thank you
I may have commented here before. I subscribed to whatever sends comments to this thread to my email. I read all of them. It is upsetting to read the pain and anger reflected in posts from people who have lost a loved one to suicide. I am an attempt survivor and I am so thankful to be here. I still fight depression but I have learned to fight it just as I would cancer or diabetes or heart disease. THANKFULLY the people I love also view depression as an illness i have, not as something I am or something I am doing to them. I hope that as depression is more openly discussed, others will see it as a disease to be treated instead of something that should be hidden. I truly believe that there would be less suicide attempts if depression were less a taboo subject.
My heart breaks for those who are grieving the loss of someone they love to suicide. It is my prayer that there will come a day when the anger and resentment they feel is directed toward depression instead of the person they lost. I feel like this would allow people to grieve in a more healthy manner, as they would if they lost the person to cancer or heart attack or a car wreck. While I realize that suicide is different in that we do indeed take our own life, the level of pain and darkness a person is in at the time they take their life is unimaginable to someone who has not faced this demon themselves.
I am so sorry that this is even something we have to discuss. We are not helpless to fight against depression, but it IS a fight. I hope that as time goes on, those who have lost someone to suicide will be able to direct their anger away from the person they lost to the depression who took that person from them.
I would love to see the same outpouring of support for those suffering from depression and other mental illness that we see for other diseases like cancer. I think this would give survivors of all types the opportunity to DO something in response to being a suicide survivor.
I’ve seen this response often. I for one am not in a position to comment on anyone’s anger about a suicide. I’m not sure if you were responding indirectly to my post below. But I am here to say my anger will never go away. And it’s PC bullshit to pretend there are not some of us justifiably anger. He gave up and checked out. You don’t know who he was and maybe I don’t either. But I know this. The survivors have to clean up the mess.
I’m sorry, I don’t mean to hurt anyone here. Obviously folks come here from many perspectives. I feel especially for those who have lost children. That is just excruciating. But anger at someone who kills themselves is not out of bounds. The anger is much easier now, and its hollowed out for me. But please don’t tell me to direct it elsewhere. My father chose a permanent solution to a temporary problem and his family paid the price.
Thank you, Kris, for your comment. I too am an attempt survivor and many of these posts from those who are loss survivors are upsetting for me to read. There is no denying that suicide has a huge effect on everyone involved and it is not unreasonable to feel angry over a loved one’s attempt or death. Being hurt by someone you love is a justifiable reason to be angry. Anger is often part of the grieving process even for car accidents or cancer. But that doesn’t mean anger isn’t hurtful to others.
Allowing that anger to block out any compassion for people who struggle with suicidal thoughts and actions is hurtful. Allowing that anger to prevent learning more about suicide is hurtful. Spreading ignorant cliches about suicide is hurtful (ie “Suicide is selfish,” when in fact many people that kill themselves or attempt to truly believe everyone would be better off with out them so they are doing everyone a favor). It breeds secrecy and shame for everyone involved. It hurts those who have suicidal thoughts and actions. It hurts those who are loss survivors and don’t believe their loved ones were selfish, weak, etc. It hurts those who hold the anger because, justified or not, anger is a hard emotion to carry longterm in any situation.
I didn’t choose to be suicidal any more than someone chose to have cancer. In fact, my attempt came after more than a year of intensive treatment and therapy, which I know is the case for many others as well. By no means am I saying therapy and medications don’t work (I am still in therapy), just that often by the time someone gets to treatment or therapy, they have been suffering for a very long time. Perhaps if there was more common knowledge about and less stigma of mental illness and suicide, like there is about breast self examinations, the dangers of smoking, and the benefits of wearing seatbelts, people would be able to get help sooner and suicide would become a rare or nonexistent occurrence.
I have compassion for what suicidal people feel. I know pain and loss very well. I know depression, hell I take happy pills. And I have had a few days where I have felt true despair. All I could do was hold onto the boat and hope it didn’t capsize in the storm. I’m sure that’s brutal when it’s a regular occurrence.
But mental illness is not cancer. The mind plays a central role in this “disease”. And it is a DIS-EASE. But, you helped get yourself here, maybe all by yourself. Your mind drove you here. But, we are the captains of our own ship, no one else can be. There is no one to save us but us. If we are good pilots we keep ourselves far away from the mountains. And that is one of our mind’s central jobs, to correct our course and our thinking. I don’t let myself anywhere near the edge. And correcting my thinking has been essential.
I am not the first person searching for an end to pain or the search for meaning. I get out of myself and read. I read the works of the searchers.
Thinking your family is better off without you is defective thinking of the highest order.
If you are waiting for the world to get healthy in order for you to – that is defective thinking and will lead you to the bottom of the sea.
Holding contrary thoughts is necessary for right thinking. Life is hard, unpredictable and cruel. Life is also easier for humans than it’s ever been. Those two things exist together. Being grateful makes holding these things together possible.
However, you’re right I don’t have compassion for the act or attempted act of killing yourself. You can never be trusted again in my world view. People who try to kill themselves are perpetrators of chaos in their families. People call you “selfish” because your threats of self-harm are exhausting. I mean here you are criticizing me for a lack of compassion. Where is yours for your survivors? Right, you don’t really let yourself feel that. Cause then you wouldn’t even consider it, right?
I am not here to be a troll. I have a dog in this fight. I am just here to say that the impact of suicide on families does not go away. And it doesn’t matter why. I am not going to dress it up nicely to protect your feelings.
When you commit suicide you transfer (dump) your pain onto your families, and that may be the opposite of what you intend but that is your defective thinking talking. You have put yourself at the edge. Suicide is a choice. The illness is a part of you, it is not some disease separate from you. Don’t expect your family to ever really make peace with your permanent decision.
Tom,
It’s clear that you come at this from a place of pain, and I appreciate your efforts to engage and show compassion for people who experience suicidal thoughts. But it’s hard for me to read what you wrote. You’re so close to understanding the plight of many suicidal people, but then you blame them for what they are experiencing.
You state, “…that is your defective thinking talking. You have put yourself at the edge. Suicide is a choice.” Yes, absolutely, people who are suicidal have have faulty thinking. Their mind is lying to them, typically because of mental illness, stress, trauma, or something else that happened to them – not something that they chose. The forces of suicide are not their fault. Their faulty thinking is not their fault. They didn’t put themselves at the edge. Please understand, nobody would choose to suffer so badly.
As for the agency a person has when making the “choice” to die by suicide, please see David Foster Wallace’s excellent description of suicidal forces for a better understanding of this “choice.”
It is possible to have compassion for both the suicidal person (including those who die by suicide) and for family members hurt by the person’s suicidal actions. Both the suicidal person and the person’s loved ones are victims of the forces of suicide.
I agree with you that changing our thoughts – or recognizing that they are not true if we can’t change them – is valuable. It’s a central component of cognitive behavior therapy. But for many people, it’s also easier said than done. To tell a suicidal person simply to change their thoughts and pull themselves back from the edge is akin to telling someone with schizophrenia to just stop hearing voices, or someone with OCD to just stop experiencing obsessions and compulsions. If only it were so easy!
I write more about these ideas in my post “Is It Selfish to Die in a Tornado?” I hope you will read it – and with an open mind, too.
Thank you for sharing here. It gives people an opportunity to see a viewpoint that many have, and it gives me the opportunity to offer an alternative view.
Tom, I am very upset by your comment. People do not choose to have mental illness. There are genetic and environmental components to mental illness that a person does not choose. There are scans showing how trauma and mental illness literally change the brain, just like cancer changes the body. This is all well documented and I would strongly encourage you to research the causes of mental illness. Although thoughts and beliefs can contribute to mental illness, mental illnesses are not just thought disorders.
As for threats of self-harm being exhausting, I am sorry it is so difficult for you. I don’t mean that sarcastically because I have dealt with friends who had suicidal thoughts and actions and it is a difficult thing to deal with. I only hope you can consider how it is so much more exhausting to constantly have those thoughts and urges. For each time I have told someone about a thought or action, there are a hundred times I didn’t. (Also, calling someone selfish or exhausting for having/expressing thoughts of self harm is exactly why some people think their families would be better off without them.)
As for criticizing you for lack of compassion, I never intended to criticize you or anyone else. I simply stated that that anger and lack of compassion is hurtful to many. I intended that as a fact, not a judgment.
As for your comment that I don’t have compassion for the people close to me that would be affected by my suicide or that were affected by my attempt, you are could not be more wrong. Not wanting to hurt others was what stopped me from trying to kill myself for 8 years. There were multiple times I sat there with the means to do it and didn’t do it only because of my family. When I finally did try to kill myself, I was in a completely depersonalized state, meaning it was like watching myself in a movie or a dream. The last cognizant choice I actually made was to NOT hurt myself. Even in that state, the note I wrote and the messages I sent show that I just kept apologizing (although I do remember truly believing in that moment that people would get over my death easily). As soon as I saw my mom in the ER, in the midst of the chaos that was happening, I started profusely repeating “I’m sorry.” In the immediate days after my attempt, the guilt was overwhelming to the point that staff in the psych ward wanted to medicate me because I could not stop crying and shaking. I know many people that have thought about, wanted to, or tried to kill themselves and I can’t say that a single one of them did not care about how their loved ones would feel.
Ideas like suicidal people don’t feel/allow themselves to feel compassion for their loved ones are exactly why I think there needs to be more talk and destigmatization of mental illness and suicide. If calling people things like selfish, weak, and stupid prevented suicide, suicide wouldn’t be one of the leading causes of death. The fact is those names don’t prevent mental illness and suicide anymore than they prevent cancer and heart disease. Understanding the underlying causes and the preventative measures is just as important with mental illness and suicide as it is with cancer and heart disease.
Well as I sit here eating crow I will apologize for much of what I have said and the tone in which I said it. I have always blamed my father for not controlling his behavior. The metaphor of George Bailey finally made me realize I could forgive my father. My father was a good guy who made a tragic mistake under extreme stress. We all have a breaking point. Some people’s threshold is much lower and that makes for an unhappy and exhausting life. Did I get that about right?
But, here’s the deal. My father was terrified of failure. He was an honors grad from Harvard, he hadn’t failed at anything. He had no practice at failing. And he worked himself into a frenzy because of that fear and checked out. He convinced himself that to fail would reach in and destroy his soul and he would crumble. Isn’t that the danger of shame.
And that is what I mean when I say we all choose mental illness. My father’s fear drove him to a fatal place. We have a society based on it. Most people seem miserable. Me too, for a long time. It’s been mostly functional except for the wreck I made of my marriages, because I was afraid of abandonment. I feel like I made my marriages commit suicide, so I am on this spectrum too. I am my father’s son.
But I am almost 60 and I can tell you that it gets better. Much better if you realize this is not just your problem. In fact, it’s not a problem at all. We’re just focusing on the wrong thing. Modern life is shallow and confusing. We will never find meaning in it, in and of itself. The human experience is deep and inherently meaningful. It is expressed in great art, in great love, in nature. But if we live in fear, we miss it. Many people just go through the motions of their own lives, waiting for something good to happen. It’s fear talking. Think about why we love small children and animals. They live in the true moment without fear. We have to learn to live like children again.
Yeah right you say, that is stoner mumbo jumbo. (Probably). Nope, these are the lessons of the spiritual leaders throughout history, expressed in different ways. Check out Bo Lozoff, he is one of my favorites from our era.
So how do you get there. Here’s what I’ve figured out based on some things I learned from Bo. I had to develop a daily practice and practice it. And it does get easier. I had to patient and diligent. It’s taken years. But even as the world burns around us, I feel more comfortable in my own skin then I have in my life. My fear is really losing hold. I can let anger go quickly now and change my mind in a positive direction on a dime. I never could have done that without practice. Again my apologies for venting my anger on you.
So I encourage you to stick around, start practicing, keep working it and relax, it’s not all on you. This is a collective crisis too.
Therapy is good but it’s not enough. It’s missing some of the pieces. Western medicine is not enough either. We not be able to keep the world from burning but we don’t have to live in the flames ourselves. What is my suffering trying to teach me?
My 15c. I wish you all well.
PS: Here’s my practice:
Regular exercise (weightlifting) no excuses
Eat well
Keep a regular schedule
Spiritual Practice (Mine is made up )
Meditate and stretch at the same time
Deep Tissue Massages to release physical tension
Read the masters
Love on my kitties
Connect with my mom, brothers and nephews
Take necessary risks (Like going out sometimes, even if I don’t want to)
Sing and Dance, even if I’m terrible. (Actually my singing is pretty good. Dancing not so much)
Kris, you may be interested in seeing what Dr Gabor Mate offers on addictions – I think that suicide is one of them. I am 64 – I was able to drop the cigarettes, but not the wine – have been a daily drinker since I was 20. My youngest son ended his being on earth 3 years ago. The story is elsewhere on this post. I am just coping. I drank my way through Xmas and New Years. He died on January 2 – we think – we were away and the coroner doesn’t figure it out when it is not a crime. I agree that meetings open to anyone should be set up for those suffering – for before or after – in the same group. Just to listen only at first. Too many that need help.
http://www.drgabormate.com