This article contains explicit and disturbing accounts. Reader discretion is advised. If you or someone you know is struggling and needs help, contact the PRS CrisisLink suicide prevention hotline by calling 703-527-4077 or texting “CONNECT” to 85511.
I feel my heart thrashing in my chest. I’ve interviewed plenty of people for my podcast, and yet I’m nervous. Pamela is a friend, but this topic is different. What if I unwittingly say something insensitive? I reassure her that we can stop at any time and edit out any parts that make her uncomfortable. I put on my headphones and click the video button on my screen. As the ring-chime begins, I take a deep breath and begin.
On Dec. 25, 1980, Pamela’s father took his own life. Pamela was 13. Her mother found him Christmas morning.
“I heard my mom screaming,” she remembers. “I ran into the room and she was just lying over his body.” The rest of the day was a blur, as were the weeks and months that followed.
I ask Pamela if she’d been angry at her dad. “I had a lot of guilt. I don’t think I was angry about it as much as I felt guilty,” she says.
They had gone shopping on Christmas Eve. “He’d been so busy, he hadn’t really had time to do any shopping,” she recalls. “I remember he was incredibly subdued, and I thought, Well, Dad’s just tired. I said something a selfish 13-year-old would say: ‘Gosh, Daddy, Mom has so many presents for you under the tree and you barely have anything for her. We need to get more things for Mommy to put under the tree, because, you know, it’s just not even.’ And he just looked really sad. He’s like, ‘Okay. Well, help me.’ So I picked out a nightgown for her.”
Pamela continues, her memories shifting to self-blame. “The last thing he said to me was, ‘Make sure you come and wake me up on time so we can go see what Santa brought.’ And I overslept.”
I feel her anguish as she says those words. Even tougher is what comes next.
“The first week afterward I looked head to toe, all throughout the house for a letter, just thinking he must have left [one],” says the Arlington resident, now in her 50s and married, with a daughter in college. “I would take every book off the bookcase and put it back. And then the next day I would do the whole thing again—open drawers, look under anything to see if I could find a note. But he never left one.”
Pamela’s desperate search for a reason is not uncommon. Many who lose loved ones to suicide find themselves struggling for answers they never find.
“Suicide can shatter the things you take for granted about yourself, your relationships and your world,” grief counselor Jack Jordan observes in a May 2019 article in Harvard Women’s Health Watch. A clinical psychologist based in Rhode Island, Jordan is also co-author of the book After Suicide Loss: Coping with Your Grief.
Many loss survivors feel compelled to do a kind of chronological “autopsy,” Jordan explains, to try and make sense of what happened. They look for clues or triggering events that might explain the “why.” They imagine being able to turn back the clock.
Shortly after my interview with Pamela, I get an email from a man who listened to the podcast: I’m 35, married, have two kids, and my father recently took his own life. No note, no explanation. I finally heard a story that I felt like I could compare myself to… It’s been 2 years. Thank you for putting this out for others to hear. It helped me.
I forward the man’s email to Pamela, remembering her saying she didn’t think she’d offered enough helpful advice on weathering the despair. It’s not the “how” that helps, I had reassured her; it’s the sharing of stories that let us know we are not alone.
It was for that reason that I shared my own story with her.
Growing up, I was a lonely kid. The only friend I had was the son of one of my parents’ friends—a gentle boy with dirty-blond hair and soft, sea-blue eyes. My one happiness was going over to his house. His face would light up when he saw me. After a quick hello to his parents, we would race up to his room, a magical place filled with colorful toys and board games. I remember spilling whole containers of Legos on his worn-out carpet and sitting cross-legged for hours, creating our own villages of blocky houses and trees.
Each time my mother called up the stairs to say it was time to go, my heart sank. My friend made me feel alive. I never wanted to leave.
A few years later, we moved away. I saw him a couple of times after that, but as our parents’ friendship faded, so did our visits.
My family’s move was followed by another, and then another. I was always the new kid in school. As I walked down the halls filled with students who had grown up together, I felt unseen.
My home life was sadder. My parents fought all the time. There were moments when I looked at the pills in their medicine cabinet and thought maybe it would be easier not to be alive.
One day after school, instead of walking home, I walked into the middle school counselor’s office. I didn’t know what I would say but I knew I needed someone to see me. At first I just sat there, nervously bouncing my leg, not knowing how to explain the dread I felt. He was a patient, soft-spoken man with a salt-and-pepper beard, wearing worn corduroy pants. He asked simple questions and waited for me to tell him small bits about my life. I didn’t reveal all of my thoughts, but apparently I said enough that he called my mother after I left.
I arrived home later to a bouquet of red roses in my room. My mom and I didn’t talk about it until that night. I was sitting on the edge of her bathtub, watching her going through her face-cleansing routine, when she asked me what was going on. I tried to explain my pain. She tried to understand. The conversation didn’t fix my family’s dysfunction, or my feelings of isolation at school, but it helped.
Eventually I made friends and saw a hopeful path forward. Like many people who go through periods of suicidal ideation, I managed to find my way out of that dark place. Life went on, as it does. I went to college. I fell in love, got married and had kids.
One day, many years later, my mother called to tell me my childhood friend had died by suicide. He was in his late 30s, single and had been struggling with mental illness. The news knocked me over.
What had happened to that kindhearted, happy boy? I couldn’t stop thinking about his last moments. My mind would stay in that room, lingering with him, wanting to reverse his feelings of hopelessness. I imagined his mother finding him and how that must have shattered her soul.
I wanted to call and tell her how much I had loved her son, but I didn’t. I couldn’t fathom her agony, much less what I would say.
Instead, I sat down and wrote him a letter, hoping that somehow my words would reach him: I’m so sorry for the pain you had to endure. I can’t imagine how bad things got that you felt like you needed to leave this world.
I recounted stories from our childhood and told him something I should have shared with him while he was alive—that his kindness and friendship had filled a lonely girl’s heart. And that he, in turn, was not alone.
Every 11 minutes, someone in the U.S. takes their own life, according to the American Association of Suicidology, a mental health advocacy and suicide prevention organization based in Washington, D.C. The nonprofit estimates the number of suicide loss survivors (people who know someone personally who died by suicide) at more than 5.4 million. In 2019, that was one in 60 Americans.
Then came the year 2020. Though it’s too early to quantify the pandemic’s impact on suicide rates, certain early indicators are troubling.
Prior to the arrival of Covid-19, U.S. deaths by suicide were already on the rise, increasing 35% between 1999 and 2018, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Now the coronavirus and its many stressors—financial hardship, job loss, illness, isolation and grief among them—threaten to make a growing problem worse.
In a June 2020 survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 10% of adult respondents reported that they had seriously considered suicide in the past 30 days, compared with 4% in a similar study in 2018.
“The added stress and trauma of the pandemic is leading to a stronger sense of helplessness and hopelessness for many of the most vulnerable community members,” stated a recent report issued by PRS CrisisLink, an Oakton, Virginia-based nonprofit that provides a crisis hotline, text line and other suicide prevention services for Northern Virginia residents.
Stress, social isolation and mood disorders (depression, especially) are risk factors for suicide. So is knowing someone who died by suicide—particularly a family member.
After her father’s death, Pamela feared her mother might also end her own life. “My mom would go off, whether to go grocery shopping or to the store, and I would run around the house looking for her,” Pamela says. “I just expected to find her sitting in the car with the garage door closed and the motor running.”
I was recently visiting with a friend on her front lawn when her neighbor walked up and joined our conversation.
After a few quick pleasantries, the neighbor confided that she was struggling to come to terms with a friend’s suicide. He and his wife had moved to a retirement community just a few months earlier.
“They thought it would be a good idea to be in a place where they could get more care in case something happened,” the neighbor said.
Soon after the move, the man found out he had cancer. He ended his life a short time later.
“I just heard a few hours ago,” the neighbor shared, still in shock over the news.
The neighbor and my friend, both of them cancer survivors, wondered aloud if the diagnosis had been a factor; if the isolation of quarantine, compounded by the move to a new home, had also contributed to his act.
On my drive home, I kept imagining the man enveloped in mental anguish, feeling he had only one option. My thoughts returned to the friend I lost.
Laura Mayer, program director for PRS CrisisLink’s call center, says it’s not uncommon for the living to try and imagine themselves in the position of the person who has died.
“We often try to put ourselves in that position to learn from it, control it and to seek understanding as to why that person did what they did,” she says. “The empathy we have for those in pain makes it more devastating. It’s an attempt to understand the ‘why,’ which is unique in suicide grief. ”
Some describe suicide as a selfish act. It isn’t.
Consider that the definition of selfishness is “seeking or concentrating on one’s own advantage, pleasure or well-being without regard for others.” Suicide doesn’t result in pleasure, advantage or well-being. People who end their lives often feel like they are a burden to their loved ones. They may be experiencing such deep emotional pain that they see a departure as the only choice.
Colleen Creighton, an Arlington resident and CEO of the American Association of Suicidology (AAS), offers this analogy: “When someone is going through this, they feel like they are trapped in a burning building and there is no way out. Do they jump out the window, or do they stay and be burned alive?” The response is almost a reflex.
Four decades after her father’s death, Pamela says she has come to terms with the fact that he left without a last word.
“I know why he didn’t leave a note,” she says. “Because he was so far gone that he was just on this one track, you know? In some ways that’s a consolation for me, to realize that, OK, he didn’t have time to sit down and pen a last letter because he was just so tunnel-visioned that he couldn’t. He just had this one task at hand. That’s the way I kind of think about it now.”
In retrospect, she believes her father struggled with depression.
“He did the best he could,” she says, “I just don’t think he got the help he needed. It was unfortunate that he was in that kind of macho environment where you can’t share your feelings and you can’t reach out for help. But I think the culture has changed. I’ve even had the daughter of one of his colleagues reach out to me and say, ‘Because of what your father went through, because of his death, my father was able to get the help he needed.’ So I do think my dad left a legacy in that regard.”
Some 47,500 Americans ended their lives in 2019, according to AAS. Half of those deaths involved firearms. While the factors leading to suicide are usually multiple and complex, the final act is often impulsive. Access to lethal means is a significant risk factor.
There are too many stories of families upended by loss, yet there are far more stories of hope and recovery. For every suicide attempt that proves lethal, there are 25 attempts that do not.
Nine out of 10 people who survive a suicide attempt will not go on to die by their own hands, Creighton says.
“Sometimes a family member intervenes, or they get the help they need, or a burden they’ve been feeling is somehow lifted,” she says. “For many, a big piece of it is realizing they are not alone. That’s why we encourage people to talk about it. They realize others are suffering just as they are, and there is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to be stigmatized.”
Mayer, at PRS CrisisLink, offers a similar observation. “Suicide is not inevitable,” she says. “Many people who have thoughts of suicide find ways to cope. We can all play a part in making life more livable.”
There is something to be said for breaking the silence, for bringing these stories to light, even if broaching the subject feels scary and uncomfortable.
Toward the end of our interview, I ask Pamela whether her family ever went to therapy after her father’s death. “Honestly, I wish we had gotten some help as a family,” she says, “and individually. But it just never happened.”
It’s something she now regrets. “I’m sure I should [seek help],” she continues. “I’ve compartmentalized things so much that I’m…afraid…to open up that box. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping things tidy. But I’ve also suffered a lot by not dealing with it.”
In the meantime, she has found a way forward. In 2011, after many years in the corporate world, Pamela became a personal trainer, devoting herself to helping others with their physical health, which, she points out, contributes to better mental health. In 2014, she raised money for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention by participating in its annual Walk for Suicide around the Tidal Basin and National Mall. The memory of her dad is ever-present.
“I would have loved for [my daughter] to know him,” she says. “I think he’d be proud of his family…the way we’ve persevered.”
Rebecca Morrison is a freelance writer and artist based in Arlington. Listen to her podcast, The Second Half, on iTunes.
Where to Find Help
PRS CrisisLink
Regional Hot Line: 703-527-4077
Regional Text Line: Text “CONNECT” to 85511
American Association of Suicidology
National Suicide Prevention Call and Chat Lines
800-273-TALK (800-273-8255)
Arlington Behavioral Healthcare Services
703-228-5160 (emergency line)
703-228-1560 (nonemergency line)
Suicide Prevention Resource Center
Suicide Warning Signs
If you recognize someone exhibiting these warning signs, it’s OK to ask about them directly and encourage the person to seek help.
• Threatening to hurt or kill himself or herself, or talking of wanting to do so
• Seeking access to firearms, pills or other means
• Talking or writing about death, dying or suicide
• Increased substance use (alcohol or drugs)
• Expression that there is no reason for living; no sense of purpose in life
• Anxiety, agitation, sleeplessness or sleeping all of the time
• Feeling trapped—like there’s no way out
• Hopelessness
• Withdrawal from friends, family and society
• Rage, uncontrolled anger or a fixation on revenge
• Reckless or risky behavior without consideration of consequences
• Dramatic mood changes
• Giving away prized possessions or seeking long-term care for pets