A very informative research article concludes with this phrase: "Support groups help survivors advance with their healing after a suicide loss" (See link). However, what is described as "healing" sounds more like a simple easing or relief from the emotion maelstrom that follows a suicide. The suicide postvention literature plays just as fast and loose with terminology as the suicide prevention side. Healing has a very specific meaning and connotes an outcome that may not be achieved after experiencing a severe traumatic loss such as a suicide. Healing implies restoration of wholeness even when used figuratively. In general, studies of suicide loss survivors report that most recover and arrive at a "new normal." However, like all trauma victims they are changed in many ways by their experience. They may come to function better but they are different from who they were and have recovered rather than healed. Some qualities come back; others emerge. The bilateral amputation that is a suicide does not heal over like the cut finger. Misconceptions in the professional literature tend to find their way into lay commentaries. Those struggling with an emotionally devastating suicide loss may take "healing" at face value and pursue it instead of simply coming to terms with their loss and working towards who they now can optimally be not chasing who they were. That said, has anyone operationally defined healing from a suicide?
http://bfo-kingston.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Surviving-After-Suicide-Loss-The-Healing-Potential-of-Suicide-Support-Groups.pdf
Hi Tony,
I came across a CRPS pain doctor-cum-patient who contemplated suicide by having perhaps the same "kit" that you have. I tried talking things out to him about the "healing" aspect, it helps perhaps because he is not alone, there are many out there acquiring the same incurable ailment and still alive and well.
By the same "healing" abound the bereavement literature seems to prompt to an already contemplated or consummated suicide. But this doctor is still alive but at a crossroad of whether to complete his suicide mission or "heal" himself till the end.
It is indeed improper to use the word "healing" for suicide survivors loss. "Normalize" is more pertinent revealing that the condition has return to normal though dissimilar without the loved ones.
To those returning from the "death passage" and return, truly the experience changes but their life would never be the same.
Therefore the word "healing from suicide" is yet to be operationally defined definitively considering the ambiguity it sheds.
One thing I know is - healing before a suicide attempt is more of an accurate picture of a positive approach to one's life before it is lost forever.
Normalization only comes after the suicide has been completed and the loss felt by the loved ones and not by those who chose to lose them.
Regards - Mariam
Hi Tony,
I came across a CRPS pain doctor-cum-patient who contemplated suicide by having perhaps the same "kit" that you have. I tried talking things out to him about the "healing" aspect, it helps perhaps because he is not alone, there are many out there acquiring the same incurable ailment and still alive and well.
By the same "healing" abound the bereavement literature seems to prompt to an already contemplated or consummated suicide. But this doctor is still alive but at a crossroad of whether to complete his suicide mission or "heal" himself till the end.
It is indeed improper to use the word "healing" for suicide survivors loss. "Normalize" is more pertinent revealing that the condition has return to normal though dissimilar without the loved ones.
To those returning from the "death passage" and return, truly the experience changes but their life would never be the same.
Therefore the word "healing from suicide" is yet to be operationally defined definitively considering the ambiguity it sheds.
One thing I know is - healing before a suicide attempt is more of an accurate picture of a positive approach to one's life before it is lost forever.
Normalization only comes after the suicide has been completed and the loss felt by the loved ones and not by those who chose to lose them.
Regards - Mariam
Healing is an ambiguous term in that it actually means something different to every person despite the scientific literature that attempts to define it. Suicide itself is clearly a difficult even to come back from experiencing.... but so are Rapes, Death of a child, watching one's comrade be blown up in a war zone etc.... There are all trauma's that effect different individuals in varying ways. The new research on resilience emphasizes that those who experience trauma who have previously been fairly resilient respond differently than those who have not had or developed that characteristic.... I am not sure that suicide stands alone in the study of how one heals.... There are trauma's of all different kinds and the way individuals respond also lies across a continuum of their coping skills.
"Healing" with regards to having been "mentally wounded" is a metaphor that maps a physiological process (i.e., the body's repair of tissue damage) to behavior over time, with the complication that most people don't think in terms of behavior but rather think in terms of a self construct/concept/object/image/etc. That is, people will sometimes say things like "I am bad" or "I am good" or "I am an introvert" or "I am broken" or "I am healing" as if there were this "I thing" that exists and has properties. But self-stories are just constructs with varying degrees of utility; people are not actually things. After a "trauma" (another physical wound metaphor) or loss, the frequency of various behavior will change, which may mean a disruption to behavior that would otherwise be effectively organized around what and who the bereaved person cares about (i.e., their values). For example, following a loss someone might say something like "I don't think I can ever love again." If they have a desire to love again and observe over time that more and more of their behavior are coming to be organized around that value but satisfaction with the pursuit has yet to be achieved, the person may use a metaphor to describe this situation like "I am still healing." Such a metaphor may be useful to some people but not to others and in some circumstances but not others. As a metaphor, "healing" isn't a technical term, and its use can't be criticized on technical grounds.
Tony,
I concur with your thoughts. Sounds like an excellent qualitative study that needs to be done among those who left in the wake of suicide - the survivors.
Julie.
"Healing" or finding the "new normal" leaves out a view of the dificulty we have with attachment to Impermanent things. Being alive we come to define our living to having things being a certain way. When those things are taken, especially taken in taboo ways i.e. murder, rape, suicide, there becomes a sense of greed and wanting things to go back to they were. There starts a sense of revenge, perhaps existential temper tantrums’ that also need resolution or more accurately satisfied.
What will help to answer these questions will be those who have experienced suicide thought as well as those who have attemped suicide and resolved this particular aspect of thier lives.
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