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Recently, my family experienced a couple of heartbreaking losses; my mother passed last month, succumbing to a bacterial infection and organ failure. More tragically, two days prior, my niece committed suicide – she hung herself from a back-porch rafter. While my mother’s death was painful emotionally, it was not unexpected: she was 70, had had several heart procedures, suffered from diabetes and a myriad of other health ailments. My niece’s death, however, was a complete, gut-wrenching, shock. She was eighteen, beautiful, lively, and though she may have had issues, suicide did not seem to be a concern.
When something like this happens the first reaction, after the initial numbness of disbelief wears off, is to question why. We begin to search for an explanation, for cause; something must have led to this action because it’s not normal behavior. In my niece’s case, there were actually many things that may have influenced her actions that day. She had recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder; the condition itself creates mood swings that can lead to severe depression and suicidal tendencies. She had just begun a new regimen of drugs to treat this condition, she had been on the new drugs for maybe three weeks, not really enough time to know their effectiveness.
In addition to these mental conditions, my niece was also experiencing some extreme emotional situations. Just two hours prior to taking her life, my niece had been at the hospital visiting her grandmother. There, for the first time, she saw her grandmother with a feeding tube, intubated, and unable to communicate. This sight might have been too traumatic for my niece. My mother had essentially raised my niece her first 16 years and was still an integral part of her everyday life. Maybe the realization that her grandmother, her most loving support figure, the women that had always been in her life, was going to die was more than Hollie could handle. Maybe she couldn’t imagine life without her grandmother.
Finally, or not, my niece had apparently had a fight with her boyfriend over the phone, and through text, within minutes of her suicide. Could her emotional turmoil have been affected by this communication? In hindsight, and upon reflection, it’s plain to see many factors may have influenced my niece taking her life that day. In fact, given what I’ve laid out here you might exclaim “My God, poor girl! She must have been so confused.” And you would be right. It’s hard to know what ultimately influenced my niece’s actions that day – it could have been one of these, or all of them, or something else entirely, but it’s easy to see cause. This cause may have been chemical or environmental or physical, or a combination, but there certainly were several possible influencing forces. It’s hard to imagine suicide as a free will behavior. Laid out here one can see how Hollie’s behavior that day was a reactive response to the events unfolding and the biological conditions they created.
The other side of this kind of horrible tragedy is the questioning those close to my niece do of themselves. Each asks themselves if they had missed something, “Was there something I could have done?” A few days after my niece’s death my sister began lamenting some of her own actions. The previous night she had been angry with Hollie for staying out too late. She also wondered if she should have taken Hollie to see her grandmother in the hospital. She bewailed not having gotten home five minutes sooner. But none of these was an action that could have played out any differently. My sister had every right to be angry with Hollie for staying out late; she was worried and concerned for her safety. It never occurred to my sister not to take Hollie to the hospital; of course, she would want to see her grandmother; it was part of their schedule and not to have done so would have been out of the ordinary. Timing, of course, is not something we can ever control. Lingering five minutes at your mother’s bedside, stopping for gas, taking a longer route home are all reactions in and of the moment.
In both cases, my niece taking her life and my sister’s actions the day of and days before were all determined by cellular responses to the stimuli they were perceiving. It may provide little comfort, but we can understand the factors and influences that led to Hollie’s suicide. She was troubled, both mentally and emotionally. It’s clear to see and accept my niece’s actions were not free-will decisions. Rather, they were the biological responses to chemical imbalances and perceived environmental stresses.
As for my sister’s behavior in those couple of days, she was simply reacting to the moment. Being angry at Hollie for being late is an emotional response to her being worried. Going to see her mother was a routine activity. Lingering at the hospital was a reactive behavior to not wanting to leave her mother. All are behaviors environmentally influenced and cause emotional responses.
At times like these, we look for answers to questions we should ask and reflect on regarding the behaviors of others and our own: “Why would she do this?” “What could I have done?” While it may not reduce the pain, understanding the cellular activity and influence on human behavior can help us to cope with the tragedy of a loved one’s suicide. When we can accept the cause of behaviors of others and our own, we can begin to release the blame we hold for others and ourselves. It is then that we can begin to heal.
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Photo credit: Getty Images
