Volunteers needed for parent survivors of suicide study
Despite the burden of suicide in the United States, very little is known
about the experience of losing a loved one to suicide.
The purpose of this study is to investigate what factors may contribute to
personal growth in the aftermath of this kind of loss.
Participants should be a parent who has lost a child of any age to suicide
within the last two years. The survey is available on-line and should take
less than 30 minutes to complete.
Principal investigator: Melinda Moore
The Catholic University of America
Participation is completely confidential.
If you are interested in participating, please visit:
Living with the Unimaginable: Surviving Murder-Suicide Loss
by Tawna Righter
The stories are plastered across the news: “Family Dies in Murder-Suicide” or they are simply mentioned in a few short sentences on Page 5 that another man has killed a woman and then himself. The scenarios differ slightly but the general outcome is the same: someone, usually a male, kills one or more persons and then himself. Families are horrifically devastated and communities are shocked and confused by the drastic actions taken by someone they knew to be a nice person. Unfortunately, it is a repeating scenario nearly everyday in America. 
Statistics collected from news clippings by the Community Awareness and Support Center, an organization founded specifically for murder-suicide survivors, show that 2008 experienced 533 murder-suicide events with the loss or wounding of more than 1,200 Americans. These tragedies leave countless numbers of survivors from the immediate families and friends, to work or classmates and first responders. I became one of these statistics in November of 1990 and then again in November 1998. Continue reading››
The Patient-Therapist Relationship in Suicide Loss
by Wayne Hankammer, MA, LPC
Loss is a large factor in suicide. Its impact on the suicidal person is well documented as well as the devastation of loss from the actual suicide. So, loss is a two-way street in suicidology. Suicide, felt as loss, ends life of one and changes forever the lives of others.
This is the story of my experience with death and how this reality changed my life. No stranger to death, I’ve seen it as a cop in accident scenes and elsewhere. While I was the commander for an Air Force Security Police unit one of our sergeants was murdered off-duty. I lost my father and dear friends, too. I also was a suicide hotline worker fielding one very lethal caller once. But nothing compares to the suicide death of a patient of mine who will be referred to here as “Dana.” At the time, I had been working as a therapist for about eight years professionally. The review of Dana’s suicide with staff was painful and necessary, but the impact to me was delayed. Continue reading››
“Grief: A Family Healing” Short Film
By Jeffrey Jay Orgill
In February 2009, after breaking up with my girlfriend and moving out of our home, my dad invited me to move in with him and I found myself living back in the house where I’d grown up. This was a bit troubling to me for many reasons– primarily the state of disrepair the house had fallen into and the story behind that. When I was asked to be on a “Men and Grief” panel at the American Association of Suicidology being held in San Francisco I decided to make a film on the subject which I would show at the conference.
My dad had suffered extreme grief from a family tragedy, my younger brother Brian’s suicide, and the house had become a stark reflection of his inner suffering. I’d made another short narrative film which focused on my mom’s experience soon after my brother’s death and now I was making a short documentary about my dad and youngest brother’s experience with grief. Continue reading››
When Tragedy Strikes: Suicide Postvention on a College Campus
By Sally Spencer-Thomas, Ph.D.
(Originally printed in the International Association for Suicide Prevention’s Postvention Taskforce Newsletter, September 2009, www.iasp.info).
In his rural high school, David had it all– valedictorian, president of his class, and a varsity starter for the basketball team. When a good friend and teammate of his took his life, David’s world assumptions were shattered, and he found himself spending much of his summer drinking with the other members of the team as they tried to cope with the loss. As college started in the fall, he moved to another state to attend a big urban college, and he left his friends behind. He struggled with his classes and felt very isolated and lonely despite being surrounded by lots of people. By mid-semester, he received a report card of failing grades and got a strong reprimand from his father who feared David would lose his scholarship. On the day before David was supposed to go home for the holidays, he hung himself in his dormitory bedroom. Continue reading››
Running with Spirit
By Sally Spencer-Thomas, Ph.D.
Flipping through a box of photos, I come across a picture of me from a few years ago. I am in Little Rock, Arkansas, and I am ready to run. My face is somber and determined, and my racing singlet is covered with pictures– Carson on the back, Sushi on the front. Running has always been my form of therapy, but training for the Little Rock Marathon, was different. This is my story of love, loss, and how running saved me.
On September 16th, my third son Jackson is born, bringing with him joy to the world and 50 pounds of midsection for me. Within two weeks I am back to exercise: first walking then jogging then running. As pounds melt off, I set my sights on my next running goal.
When my two closest running friends, Leslie and Anna, moved away from Denver in the preceding year, we decided we would try as often as family and finances allowed to get together somewhere in the world to run a reunion marathon. In the beginning of October, we decide the Little Rock Marathon would be our first. Arkansas’ Governor Huckabee lost 110 pounds training for this marathon. In our little on-line running support group we joke: will we beat the Governor? Continue reading››
In Her Wake: A Child Psychiatrist Explores the Mystery of Her Mother’s Suicide Book Excerpt
By Nancy Rappaport, MD
“It is family lore that I am the last person my mother saw before she killed herself. She drove to my father’s house pleading to see the children, but I was the only child at home. My father demanded that she leave. Bee, our housekeeper, hustled me out the door and down the driveway toward my mother who waited desolate on the street. She bent down and caressed my hair – I remember – as she whispered instructions to Bee to watch over us, especially me. And then she left….I am often asked if I remember my mother. I appreciate that the question is a way to express the hope that my loss has been tempered, at least, by a photograph, a necklace, or her words – anything I might call on to evoke her presence. But I have few mementos and even fewer memories. My mother is defined by her absence…. Continue reading››
Hands Across the Ocean
By Karyl Chastain Beal
The Internet has removed fences and geographic borders, changing the face of grief support groups. Even the ocean is no longer a barrier to connecting with people … just like us.
When I attended face-to-face support group meetings shortly after my daughter Arlyn took her life, the other people there were people that I could easily have bumped into while shopping at Wal-mart, going to a medical appointment, or attending church. We read the same newspaper, our children attended the same schools, and we generally spoke with the same southern accent. They were people I related to because we shared the same community environment.
Now, however, people who join the Parents of Suicides (POS) & Friends and Families of Suicides (FFOS) Internet Community for grief support will find a totally different group of folks to connect with. Some of them may live in the same state, or a state far away, but it’s just as likely that the people they connect with will live in France, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, China, or Ireland. They may speak with a Russian or German accent, a Scottish accent, a Portuguese accent, or an English or Australian accent. Continue reading››
The Aftermath…When a Loved One Dies by Suicide
By Iris Bolton, MA
‘These days are the Winter of the soul…
But Spring comes…
And brings new Life and Beauty…
Because of the growth of the roots in the dark”
The mystery of life and death is beyond understanding. Who could even imagine the sudden death of a child, a sibling, a parent, grandparent, spouse, or friend. And suicide? That event is reported on television and in the newspapers, but it doesn’t happen in your own family, or to people you know…but it does! It happened to me and my husband and our family. On February 19, l977, our world collapsed and changed forever. Our twenty-year-old son, Mitch, ended his life with a gun. The impact on our other three sons and our extended family and friends will never be fully known. Continue reading››
Surviving Suicide– A Survivor’s Perspective of the Journey
By John Peters, M. Suicidology
We lost our son, Dale, 18 years ago and these are some random thoughts on the journey that followed. At the time, I was a school teacher and my wife, Jean, was a social worker. Our two daughters, Wendy and Heidi, were married with children and held down professional jobs.
I would stress that we all dealt with Dale’s death at the age of 26 in our own different ways. I certainly would not have welcomed counselling but my wife did. About two years later, Wendy suggested that we should attend a conference for survivors organised by Alice Middleton on behalf of the embryonic U.K charity, Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide. I declined to go– it was not my scene. Jean and Heidi met a counsellor at this meeting and after a lot of preparation set up a support group in our local area. Continue reading››