Enigma of suicide

On June 29, 1991, my husband, Dr. Morton David Simon, died by suicide. He was 39 years old and I was 33. The effect his self-destruction had on me and our children, then 9 and 11 years old, was inexorable trauma that follows me to this day.

Dr. Linda Agustin Siminek’s op-ed compelled me to publicly speak about it for the first time.

To me, the phrase “committed suicide” implies that it is a purposeful, rational decision — the primary purpose of which is to end your life. By that theory, the man who murdered my husband was also the man my family thought we knew and loved.

Did he leave us with the pain that was no longer his? The guilt of feeling responsible for his murder? The unending questioning of why?

The curse of suicide. Chasing the why, asking what we should have, could have done to prevent his untimely death? These are questions that have no answers because the mind afflicted by undiagnosed mental illness was seen by him as shameful and weak.

It’s the unbearable stigma attached to needing to ask for help and being vulnerable. The unending stigma of battling mental illness due to society’s irrational belief that being sick with mental illness is unlike any other physical illness.

We usually do not tell a person suffering cancer to do something about their disease by snapping out of it.

Together, we can end the enigma of suicide head-on. By talking about it. By doing so, we save lives. In the process, we become stronger than the death itself.

Arlene Simon Backman, Hollywood Send your 150-word letter to letters@SunSentinel.com. By mail: 333 SW 12th Ave., Deerfield Beach, FL 33442. Please include your name, addresss and phone number. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and become property of the South Florida Sun Sentinel.