Lehigh County team trying to prevent more suicides
Dave was my husband’s college friend and he instantly became my friend, too. When I was with him, he made me feel that I was the most interesting person in the room; he listened with his soul. His handsome face is preserved in our wedding album.
Years after our marriage, we flew to Dallas for Dave’s wedding. Children came next, ours followed by his, and then the hectic years of child rearing and career building. There were annual Christmas cards, a few telephone calls, the occasional visit.
In November 1999, Dave’s brother called to tell us that Dave was dead. This death hit hard — it still does. Dave was only 42 years old, father to two young children, a daughter and son.
It wasn’t only his age that was shocking, it was the manner of death: He died by suicide.
Suicide researchers once believed death from a suicide affected six people, the average number of immediate family members in the 1970s when this statistic was first captured. But according to Julie Cerel at the University of Kentucky, a single suicide death can affect as many as 135 people. This includes friends, classmates, co-workers, neighbors, pastors, doctors, professional caregivers — in short, anyone who knew the deceased. That number suggests far more people may need grief support after suicide than previously thought.
Dave’s magnetic persona undoubtedly touched many lives — including mine. When he died, I was in the hospice field, working with patients and families who were coming to terms with impending and often predictable deaths from heart diseases, cancers, dementias and the like.
Dave’s death haunted me. I read books about suicide loss and attended professional development courses to understand risk factors and prevention strategies. I provided grief counseling to those in suicide’s wake, a witness as survivors wrestled with conflicting thoughts, the woulda-coulda-shoulda scenarios and what-if questions. I listened as they revisited final encounters with loved ones in excruciating detail, mining for clues, and then recounting the trauma of stumbling upon a death scene that could not be unseen.
After a suicide, family members are more likely to become another statistic, as the stigma, shame and trauma puts them at a much higher risk — about four times more likely to die by suicide.
Last fall, I contacted Lehigh County’s Suicide Prevention Coalition to become part of its LOSS Team. The acronym stands for Local Outreach to Suicide Survivors, a concept created by Baton Rouge psychologist and suicide researcher Frank Campbell to interrupt the multigenerational impact suicide often has on survivors.
Lehigh County’s LOSS Team was activated in March. If the coroner rules a death as a suicide, trained volunteers meet with the newly bereaved, and at least one of these volunteers is a fellow loss survivor. Having a suicide loss survivor in the immediate aftermath of a suicide can instill hope as well as a shared understanding, and provide immediate access to grief resources to reduce the potential for additional loss.
According to Campbell’s research, it takes on average 4.5 years for suicide survivors to reach out for help. In the interim, many suffer in silence and develop unhealthy coping skills, which is why timely access to grief support is so critical.
When I think about my friend, I remind myself that most people who attempt or die by suicide don’t really want to die; they want their pain to end. Recently while surfing the internet, I came across Dave’s name embedded in an obituary that originated from Texas. That’s how I learned Dave’s younger brother lost his 23-year-old son last year. Instead of flowers, the family requested donations to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Although I’ve lost touch with the family, my heart is crushed that history has been repeated. That’s why the work of our county’s LOSS Team is so essential in preventing additional heartache, by breaking the generational impact of suicide and helping these survivors receive timely support to begin healing from this profound loss.