I've been asked this question more times than I can count. I cannot answer the “why” for each person who asks about their family member or friend because each person's “why” is different. I think the bigger question that needs to be asked is why someone would want to die so badly that they would take their own life?
I could tell you it's because of financial stress, loneliness, hopelessness, and the list goes on. More than likely, it's a conglomeration of things that have been building up as their resilience has eroded. It comes down to feeling utterly defeated and absolutely powerless to change your situation. And it takes more pain than I could ever put into words to become so numb to life that death feels like a relief.
My aunt taught me a critical life lesson: You always have a choice. I remind my clients of the same thing. No matter the situation, you have a choice. If someone is holding a gun to your head, you can fight, run, scream, cry, faint, pray, or even try to negotiate or talk them down, but you still have a choice. Cancer patients have a choice about whether to fight the disease and how to do so. Parents have a choice about how they speak to and treat their children. And your family member or friend had a choice to live (and keep taking the punches life was throwing) or to die and leave it all behind. While I am sure most would not agree with choosing the latter, it was their choice to make. And hear me clearly when I say, There is nothing you could have done that would have stopped it from happening.
Trust and believe this was not a decision they came to lightly. It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision made on impulse. They’d probably been fighting an internal battle longer than anyone may ever know, dying a little bit more emotionally with each day that passed with no light at the end of the tunnel.
I believe there is an assumption that suicide completers don't reach out for help, may not have known God, didn't pray or have faith, were too weak to handle life's stress, or maybe just lost their minds. Some people believe that suicide completers have succumbed to mental illness, are not thinking straight, and therefore are not really making a choice.
For the most part, none of that is true, and those are unfair assumptions. While some suicidal people have been diagnosed with a mental illness, many have learned to live with it, take their medication, and have been doing just fine. But shit happens. We all know that. And sometimes, more shit happens than one person can take, and it becomes too much. Despite everything they’ve tried to do to improve their situation, their problems aren't being solved; money is funny; there’s no companion to help carry the burden; and God is silent and unresponsive. And unlike you, they see no improvement in their situation and no way to change it, so they have chosen the only option they believe remains.
Try standing in their shoes for a moment. They may have been seeing a therapist, trying to work through everything that was bothering them, but being careful not to say they were considering suicide for fear of being committed. Let’s be real—talk therapy doesn’t solve practical problems like homelessness, unemployment, disconnected utilities, the inability to find a life partner, or the inability to feed your family. Being committed could cause them to lose the one paycheck they do have. They may have been praying fervently—day and night. They may have taken God at His word, “knocking, seeking, and asking,” as well as begging, pleading, and crying out to God—waiting for the door to open, but it never did. I once had a client who said, “I feel like not only did my earthly father abandon me, but now my Heavenly Father has too.” Can you imagine?
The people left behind are understandably left with confusion, guilt, and unanswered questions. You must remember that your perspective and theirs are probably quite different.
Unless they left a note explaining their “why,” you may never know for sure what they were thinking or feeling. And I know that’s hard to hear. The truth is: you can’t rationalize the irrational. Suicide seems irrational to anyone who has not experienced that depth of pain and despair.
What you can be sure of, though, is that their suicide was not about you. They loved you. They didn’t do this to hurt you. They wanted to live a happy, successful life, and if they’d seen any other way to make things better, they would not have chosen to die.
