Support Groups Play an Important Role in Suicide Prevention

One of the confusing terms in the suicide prevention world is “suicide survivor.” To someone who is unfamiliar with it, the assumption is that it refers to a person who survived a suicide attempt. In fact what it means is that the person survived the suicide of a loved one. This is no small feat, in part because suicide survivors are at higher risk of suicide themselves, but also because the stigma of losing a loved one to suicide is so great.

“I used to drive down the street thinking I had a sign on my car that said MY SON KILLED HIMSELF,” says Iris Bolton, who co-authored with her father a book about her 20-year-old son’s suicide, My Son…My Son: A Guide to Healing Again After Death, Loss and Suicide. “Another car would pass me,” Bolton says, “and I would think, ‘Now they know.’”[1]

Many husbands and wives whose spouses kill themselves feel a similar loss of identity. They are no longer themselves but the widow or widower of a person who took his or her life. If they have lost children, they are no longer parents. Whenever they are out in public, they feel as if everyone is watching them, casting furtive glances and making whispered comments.

Hundreds of agencies across the country, nonprofit and for-profit, operate support groups for people who have lost a loved one, including special groups for people who have lost a loved one to suicide. People often show up the first night and are astonished to find 20 or more other individuals who are mourning someone’s suicide. To that point, each person may have felt isolated and alone in their grief.

There is another kind of suicide survivor: someone who attempts suicide and lives. In the parlance of the profession, they are referred to as “suicide attempt survivors.” Support groups for them are rarer, in part because leading this kind of group is daunting. Not only is everyone in it high-risk, but many suicidal people have emotional needs that can be overwhelming for a facilitator. This doesn’t mean that group members are weak, though.

“People assume that if you’ve struggled with suicide, you’re fragile,” said the program director of a statewide crisis and peer support group in Colorado. “But if you’ve struggled with this and you’re still here, then you must be really strong.”[2]

Typically, members of suicide-attempter support groups focus on their thoughts about suicide rather than on suicide itself. They talk about the dark moments in their lives that led them to attempt, coping strategies that have worked for them, and resources that they are familiar with—both good resources, such as a helpful service or therapist, and bad ones, like time spent in a psych ward. Individuals share things with the group that they don’t feel able to talk about with other people in their lives, and in the process often begin to feel more empowered and less stigmatized.

“I once read that we all have a prosecutor in our head who points out the things we’ve done wrong,” said one suicide attempt survivor, “but we don’t all have a strong defense attorney. Mine had gone missing entirely. I’d wake up at 3 a.m. and lie there thinking of all the ways I was defective … That’s what depression does—it lies.”[3]

The writer William Styron, in Darkness Invisible: A Memoir of Madness, decried the word depression as being insufficient in conveying the depths of someone’s torment. A better description, he said, is “the veritable howling tempest in the brain.”[4]

Styron had the presence of mind to check himself into a hospital when he was entertaining thoughts of suicide, and survived to write about his suffering. Many others, however, are reluctant to seek help. Instead, they hide their thoughts, ashamed to have them and unwilling to let others know, especially loved ones who, they believe, won’t be able to deal with them effectively, and will sit in judgment besides.

That’s why support groups are important. They can help people cope with a significant loss and also, in the case of suicide, let people know that they’re not alone.

If you or someone you love is contemplating suicide, seek help immediately. For help 24/7 dial 988 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, or reach out to the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. To find a therapist near you, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.