IS SUICIDE PREVENTABLE

Is suicide preventable? You recall my earlier mention of suicide as a preventable cause of death. Right after Andrew died, John and I started going to the local suicide survivor meetings. One thing that had a strong impact on me was the two widows who were at our first meeting.

Our leader had lost her husband ten years ago to death by hanging. She had come home to find him hanging in the doorway of their home.

 She said she had been unaware that anything was wrong. She said that she always knew her husband was a little quirky but had no idea that he was suicidal.

The other widow who had lost her husband two weeks before we met said that she had been caring for him as he suffered from bipolar disease. She said she did everything to make sure he was getting the treatment and medications as prescribed. Her husband called her at work to tell her he had stabbed himself. He was still alive when she got home to him. She had called 911 and got to her house as they were taking him away by ambulance.

She followed him to the hospital and was with him as he went into surgery. She begged him to be strong. He did not survive the surgery.

In listening to these two survivors talk about their different experiences of the time before their husbands’ suicide, it struck me that despite the ultra-interventionist vs. the unaware approach to their spouses’ illnesses the outcome was the same. For me this begs the question, “Just how preventable is suicide?”. 10/17/14