In recent years suicide, the taking of one’s own life, has been seen in many ways. Traditionally it evoked horror. People who suicided were seen to have rejected the gift of life, our most precious gift. Charitable people could ascribe their actions only to mental illness. In traditional societies people who took their own lives were sometimes subjected to trial and found guilty. Often, they could be buried only outside the communal graveyard without any religious ceremony.
Although these customs were cruel, they flowed from the high value that people put on life and its sacredness. They regarded murder and suicide as abhorrent on religious as well as on human grounds. By separating themselves from life people also separated themselves from human society and from God who is Lord of life and death.
The horror at suicide and the conviction that it was unnatural also made It difficult for family members of people who had taken their life to speak about it and for other people to raise the subject with them. Suicide carried a stigma that adhered to the lives of everybody connected with it. Neither neighbours nor even friends and family members could find words to raise the subject, and as a result kept away from relatives of the person who suicided. This meant that relatives themselves were unable to talk about their own feelings. These often formed a confused but powerful mixture that could include grief, anger and shame. Such strong emotions did not disappear with time but festered in silence, and in many cases led to another suicide in the family. The silence that prevented a person from speaking about their desperation could easily lead to mental illness and even to further suicide.
The context in which suicide is seen has now changed greatly. Abortion and assisted dying have led may people to see life as a choice that they can accept or reject. For them suicide may no longer have the stigma it once had. But for many relatives and friends of people who have taken their lives the stigma and the silence associated with it are still strong and prevent them from living full lives. They still need encouragement to speak about the loss that another person’s suicide has brought to them and to deal with the feelings they may have suppressed.
There are programs, such as Jesuit Social Services’ Support after Suicide, that provide safe and supported environment for people to share their feelings about the death of family members and friends. But others still suffer and wither in silence.