Why publicize suicide?

"Knowledge is power" engraved on a plaque in my office. If we don't know about it, we will never be able to do anything about it. It's as simple as that.

Think of families around the country after someone in their family committed suicide. Let's think of a day when it was all kept secret, as if there was something to be ashamed of. They could have had someone living a couple of streets away dealing with the same pain, the same questions and the same grief but would never know it, never find support and an understanding ear.

Back home in Massachusetts a friend and neighbor went up to wake up her 21 year old son so that he could go to work on the night shift. She found him hanging in his closet. Family and friends were stunned and searched for answers. She was later comforted by people seeking her out to tell them about their own children.

For us, it was the death of my husband's nephew, another Vietnam veteran. Andy (not his real name but the name I picked for him in my book) finally got his life together, found someone that loved him and proved his case to the VA receiving 100% disability for PTSD and physical wounds. Shrapnel was still in his body. Back then an MRI could kill him but some doctor scheduled him for one anyway. It was canceled in time when someone was watching over him and stopped it. This made his PTSD worse but it was not the last straw. He sent for his records to fill in some forgotten memories of Vietnam. He was told by the DOD that his unit never existed. Imagine that? He was receiving full disability and carrying pieces of combat in his body, but was told it all came from an illusion. Hearing the men he served with, men he watched die, were being denied "existence" from the DOD was the last straw. He reached his old drug dealer, purchased enough heroin to kill ten men, checked himself into a motel room, locked the door and ended his pain.

I wanted to tell his story fully in my book, For the Love of Jack-His War/My Battle, but the woman he had lived with told me she would sue me for telling his story. She was a psychologist. She couldn't deal with the fact the person she loved killed himself and she couldn't stop him. Since I knew what that felt like, I caved in and changed his name. The truth was that I was dealing with my own guilt. I was never able to get him to listen so that I could help him heal. After all, he thought I was too young to say anything important to him. My husband and "Andy" were 8 years older than I was, so it was easy to dismiss whatever I had to say. "Andy" said that there was no way I could understand what he did because I wasn't there. It didn't matter to him that I had been helping other veterans since 1982 and there wasn't many stories I hadn't heard by then.

We all feel some kind of shame when someone we cared about lost the will to live and feel helpless as we look for reasons. Reasons for why they did it and what we could have done or said that was not done or said. That kind of pain will eat away at us until we understand that we are not the only people in their lives, not in control of their lives but we did the best we could with what we knew and above all, we loved them.

Our job is to try to help them and get them the help we cannot give. Be there for them and know that this day we did the best we could. It is also our job to get past whatever guilt we carry and understand there is nothing to be ashamed of. To be there for others going thru the same kind of pain and support one another. With this, one day, there will come a time when no one will feel so hopeless and helpless they decide it is better to not face one more second on this earth than it is to live and heal whatever pain they have inside of them.

Update: Syracuse University student death ruled a suicide
by Nancy Cole/The Post-Standard
Friday May 08, 2009, 6:28 PM
Syracuse, NY- A Syracuse University senior jumped to his death Friday from an SU-owned parking garage near the Veterans Administration Medical Center complex.

Syracuse police ruled John C. Morse's death a suicide, said Sgt. Tom Connellan, of the Syracuse police.


"A lot of times when you're looking at kids and you're saying, 'Who's at risk? Who's in trouble?' (Morse) didn't have any of those signs," said Jeffrey Rubin, one of Morse's professors in SU's School of Information Studies, the iSchool. "Maybe we'll never know what was bothering him or what caused it, but he was a really good kid. He really was."

Morse jumped about 5 a.m. from the garage at 150 Stadium Place, Connellan said.
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