I appreciate that this can be a quite emotive issue, so please understand that this post is purely in the interests of discussion and makes no judgment in respect of any single incident.
There are many reasons that someone might choose to take their own life and these are often so complex that no-one except the person involved or maybe a very close relative or partner might fully understand them. Some choose to use death as a way out; a method to escape pain or illness. Some take the decision whilst in the depths of mental or psychological illness. Some appear to use their death as a statement or a method of punishment for those left behind – it is these that I have the most trouble understanding.
The way out:
Two recent incidents that are particularly memorable for me have fallen into this category.
One involved a middle-aged man who had a string of medical issues linked to more than a decade of substance abuse. He had lost his friends and family and had been convicted of a long string of offences from drugs possession to robbery. He had lost his driving license and had his car seized in the three months preceding his death. Life was no longer the most attractive option for him and he chose to end things in a quiet piece of woodland. He was, despite all his issues, completely sane and capable of making rational decisions. For this reason I consider his actions to have some degree of both desperation and bravery. I do not think I could ever go through with this sort of act as the result of a conscious decision. Perhaps gutsy is a better word than brave, but nevertheless he went through with it, leaving the information that was needed where he knew it would be found. This information was discovered by a friend and passed to the Police who dealt with the unpleasant task of finding and recovering his body.
The other was what can loosely be described as an assisted death. A family member remained in the house with an elderly man who had clearly stated their intention to escape from their immensely painful and bedridden existence. The following morning Police were called and the death reported. Although not present during the acts that extinguished their life the family member knew what was going on behind the closed door. Obviously there was some degree of investigation but this was quickly completed with a suicide verdict from the coroner. This, again, was a brave act bought on by desperation and the consent of immediate family had already been obtained. As a result death provided a degree of relief and closure.
Mental Health:
Some form of mental health disorder or psychological illness factor in the majority of suicides that I have dealt with over the years. It is a sad reality that some with severe depression, or an illness that significantly distorts their perception of reality, decide that they cannot continue with their lives. They are so completely consumed by their illness that options for help and masked from their view, leaving no other way out than death. This is a sad state of affairs and one that has the potential to destroy a family who often feel they have failed in their duty to protect a loved one. I have made my thoughts on the failings of the Mental Health Services clear previously on this blog. Many more should be in receipt of help than actually receive it and this results in far more reaching the point of self-destruction than perhaps need to.
The only way to fix this situation is a radical reform of the Mental Health provisions available to Police and other agencies. Spending eight hours in a Police cell under Section 136 is not appropriate for someone with this kind of disorder. Unfortunately, admission at the local assessment suites is usually out of the question too as they normally don’t have the staff or the willingness to accept a patient. Direct referrals from a GP also fail with infuriating regularity (unless they are one of those illusive section 12 GP’s and you can get the other approved personnel to turn up to complete the Section procedure – this scenario is rarer than the stuff that falls from the back-end of a rocking horse by the way) leaving Police as the catch-all easy option once again.
A Selfish Final Gesture:
This kind of act is one of the most distressing for those surrounding the instigator, but is thankfully a rare beast. I have personally attended incidents where people have created a scene designed to be as disturbing as possible in the full knowledge that their family members, and in some cases their children, will be the ones to discover it. I have been called to people who have handed themselves immediately inside the front door of their house or stripped naked and taken an overdose in the living room while the kids were at school. These people had no discernible reason to do what they did, in the way that they did it, other than to cause the maximum amount of pain and suffering to those closest to them. Those who deserved nothing of the suffering inflicted upon them.
It is these incidents that cause me the difficulty to Police and others who have to attempt to comfort family members in the immediate aftermath of the discovery. It is these incidents that provide the greatest chance of knock on effects to the lives of children and families close to the deceased. I know of one young man who has taken his own life some 10 years after discovering the body of his mother in such circumstances. He never recovered and never stopped blaming himself for what she had done. The involvement of Social Services and, later on, the Mental Health teams did nothing to prevent the final outcome. His fate was effectively sealed when he opened the front door of his home a decade previously.
A Plea:
Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done to prevent the actions of the brave or desperate. In some circumstances their choice is understandable and even commendable on some level. The Mental Health system will need significant reform before the holes are sufficiently plugged to prevent their patients taking matters into their own hands. This scenario is not getting any closer to being a reality in light of recent reforms…
My wish is that those considering the third option – making a dramatic statement that they will never have to take responsibility for – think about the implications of their actions on those that they leave behind. There is, in most cases, a less destructive alternative. In every case though, there is something that can be done – if death really is the only avenue – to reduce the impact on everyone else involved.
In addition to this I would also like to mention those that threaten suicide or indicate an attempt when there has been nothing of the sort. Their actions, motivated in many cases by a need for attention, only serve to dilute the clarity surrounding the actions of those that genuinely need help. Very few genuine attempts are preceded by texts to friends or photographs of a noose on Facebook.
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Finally, events such as those in Hampshire this week are thankfully rare, and on an entirely different level to what I have discussed here. A person should never be allowed to fall to such a depth as that which allows them to take the lives of their children – something has surely gone spectacularly wrong in the run up to this tragic crime. My thoughts are with those that have been effected by this incident and I hope that, in time, the issues are identified and addressed so that others will not have to go through this desperately sad ordeal.
