Chapter Two: Resisting False Guilt

One woman, a twenty-something registered nurse who works in a hospital’s psychiatric emergency department, lost her mother to suicide. Trauma’s lingering effects were evident. She felt immobilized by the death, yet experienced panic and fear that something terrible could happen again. And she felt tremendous guilt as a daughter and nurse, like she was responsible for her mother’s death. She said, “Shame. Guilt. Stupidity. Regret. Humiliation. Confused. Scared. That’s all I feel anymore. I feel like I can’t even miss my mom the way I want to because I’m so consumed with the thoughts and feelings of that day.”

Another suicide survivor responded to the daughter:

“Of course you would have done anything possible to stop her if you had known . . . but you didn’t know. There was no way you could know.

It is so hard to deal with the guilt that we feel but as a person looking at your situation from the outside, I can honestly tell you that you should not feel guilty or responsible in any way. It is very obvious from your writing that you loved your mom very much. Please know this had nothing to do with you.”⁽²⁾

You may be tormented by guilt; feeling like you should have prevented the suicide somehow. This is very common, especially for parents and caregivers. Many of us hide our guilt feelings from others, because we have so much turmoil and despair over it. When I talk with suicide survivors and ask what they want other survivors to know, over and over they say, “You need to know that this is not your fault.” You did not do this to your loved one.

We may never know what contributed to the suicide. Depression is a primary factor in about two-thirds of cases, and there are often other biological, psychological, sociological, or economic forces at work. But ultimately our loved one arrived at a point where it seemed like the only “solution” was to end their life, and we were not able to prevent it. We grieve that and lament the act. But don’t carry the burden of responsibility. That responsibility is not ours to bear.

My mother grappled with the false guilt of my father’s suicide for a long time after his death. She has a caregiving personality that internalizes responsibility for other people’s well-being, so it was particularly hard for her to let go of that sense of guilt. At times, she would direct her pain and grief elsewhere—sometimes she placed blame on the doctors and medical system for not doing more to prevent my father’s death. But ultimately she came to some sort of uneasy peace. She had done all she could, and she could not carry that burden of false guilt forever.

Many of us don’t know what to say or do after a death by suicide. Good-intentioned people naturally want to help make things better. But they often go too quickly to words that can feel trite. Those of us who lose a loved one to suicide don’t need pat answers or quick fixes. We need space to struggle, to grieve and mourn, to express our pain, to lament.

(2) Stella 44, comment on “Intro Post” by wanderlust413, Nov. 7, 2017, http://forum.allianceofhope.org/threads/intro-post.34283.