Centre for Rural Social Research

What about us?: the legacy of suicide

Mary Fraser

La Trobe University, Bendigo

This article was first published in Rural Society 4(3/4) December 1994. Rural Society is published by the Centre for Rural Social Research, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, Australia.

This article is © copyright, the author and the Centre for Rural Social Research. This text may be downloaded for personal use, or stored electronically, as long as no charge is made for access. The text may not be altered in any way and all hard copy or electronic versions MUST carry this header.

'It was Tom's choice, I accept that but what about us, his family and me and his little girl?'

Wife of a young man who committed suicide

Recent ABS figures reveal that during 1992, 2294 Australians took their own lives (Let's Live 1(3) 1992). These figures make suicide a very significant health issue and a human tragedy of immense proportions. There has been much research into this phenomenon, educational and intervention programs have been developed and a National Strategy for the Prevention of Suicide is being established, but to date there has been little in the way of systematic investigation of the impact of suicide on family members. This paper is a contribution to this area. it will briefly summarise a recent study of families coping with the aftermath of suicide.

The problem

The problem addressed by this study was a sociological one: to identify the social experiences of families who have lost a member to suicide and to generate theory about those experiences.

The study

The research was located in a rural town in Victoria. It is not a 'rural' study as such, but a study in a rural setting. A fictitious name 'Hillview' is used in order to protect the anonymity of the respondents in the research and the residents of the town and surrounding districts. The study itself was of the experiences of four families who were recovering at the time from the suicidal death of a family member in the previous two years. I was interested in discovering the issues they had to face in coming to terms with the aftermath of such an event.

The approach I have used in this exploratory study is an ethnographic-inductive one. This method is a way of portraying and analysing a social system, from the point of view of those involved. It also allowed me to attempt to understand the experiences of people in this situation and the meaning that these experiences have for those concerned. The method used for collecting data was the focus group because it allowed respondents to tell their story in a supportive environment. It also allowed for interaction between those involved. The data was analysed using a thematic grounded theory approach.

Survivors

There is sometimes confusion about the meaning of the term 'survivor' in the context of suicide. For the purpose of this study, the phrase 'survivors of suicide' means those who remain, as in the obituary expression 'is survived by' (Calhoun & Allen, 1991:95). It does not mean those who have survived as unsuccessful suicide attempt, though people in this situation are also sometimes called survivors of suicide.

Legacy of Suicide

The lives of people in a post-suicide situation are complex, marked by a range of emotions, responses and individual capabilities. Their social lives, their interactions with others are affected by these personal characteristics and by the general impact suicide had on the community in which they live. In conducting the interviews for this research, certain themes have emerged, and are clustered under the heading of the 'Legacy of Suicide'.

For many people in a post-suicide situation there is a sudden and, for the most part, unexpected shattering of their lives. In addition to the grief and loss associated with the death of a close relative there is an extra burden for the family members of a suicide victim. Part of that burden is the altered social world in which they suddenly find themselves. Their private sorrow has a public aspect and their grief and adjustment to it must be lived out within a social context which has little in the way or supporting structures of understanding of their plight. They must struggle as best they can with their own internal resources, resources which have been severely attenuated by this tragic event. When there is a suicidal death in a family the members of that family are at risk of becoming heirs to this painful Legacy of Suicide. The elements of this legacy are complicated and affect people differently.

Legacy of suicide - main features

Support (especially initially)
Lack of support
Normlessness
Suicide - a very different grief
Irrevocability of the impact of suicide
Management of child survivors
Stigma

This research has uncovered the following aspects of this inheritance. First it was found that all those survivors interviewed experienced support, especially in the initial stages of a bereavement. This came mostly from family and a few close friends. There was also lack of support especially as survivors moved back into the broader social world. There were even mixed responses from professional support agencies such as funeral directors and health and welfare services. People were expected to 'be over it' and resume their day-to-day duties and responsibilities.

Most people experienced feelings of normlessness as they began to address the tasks of becoming involved in various aspects of their lives again. This lack of accepted norms for survivors of suicide left many of these interviewed very uncertain as to how they should act in relation to others, adding to the enormous burden of loss and grief which they were already carrying.

Many people in this situation also felt that there is a difference in the grief experienced from other bereavements and that this form of death had an impact like no other. There was also evidence in all the interviews that suicide had had an irrevocable impact on the lives of those involved in the interviews, in varying ways. Many people felt life would never be the same again. This was felt to a greater or lesser degree by various individuals or families and was manifested through interactions with others.

The issue of children and suicide was a concern for some of these involved as there were few guidelines for dealing with the aftermath of suicide and children, not just at the time of death but as children moved from one stage to another.

Finally there was evidence to suggest that stigma played a part in the social life of survivors, sometimes overt, sometimes subtle and sometimes self imposed.

Discussion

While this study confirms some elements of previous research (Reynolds & Cimbolic 1988-89; Goldney et al, 1989; Range & Calhoun, 1990) it also strongly suggests other possibilities regarding the social experiences of people in a post-suicide situation. A theoretical framework has been developed in order to explain the Legacy of Suicide.

It will be argued that suicide survivors suffer stigmatisation, and this stigma is a result of the suicide taboo. From the current study it would seem that the taboo remains strong in contemporary society and individuals internalise the attitudes, values and morals which constitute this taboo. I will also argue that the normlessness, or anomie, as Durkheim expressed it, experienced by family members is in fact a societal norm for dealing with survivors and could be seen as society's response to the breaking of the taboo. Normlessness is a punishment by default, by omission rather than by commission. In this way the ethos of the individual and the individual's right to make choices is maintained.

Suicide and taboo

This proscribed nature of suicide has been part of Western cultures for centuries. For instance in 17th century England a stake was pounded through the heart of a suicide and the burial took place at a crossroads. If the death took place in a house then the body could not be removed via a doorway as this would defile that doorway and it could not be used by the living. Later, victims could not be buried in consecrated ground but had to be buried in unholy ground outside the walls of the cemetery. Because of the view that suicide was sinful those who committed suicide and those who survived them carried the condemnation and censure of the communities in which they lived (Farberow, 1989:280).

While in contemporary society the bizarre rituals and observances of other areas are no longer practised and there is no doubt that attitudes towards suicide victims and their families have softened, there is still reason to believe that suicide still carries with it a strong taboo which stigmatises those who survive this particular form of death.

Stigma

Stigma has been the subject of a number of previous studies, and has been indicated in the experiences of the people who took part in the current research. Dunn & Morrish-Vidners (1987-88) and Solomon (1992) also found evidence of stigmatisation amongst these close to a suicide victim. This study supports these previous findings, however the issue of stigma is not clear and few people actually said that they felt stigmatised.

Others just did not mention the death to people who did not know of it whereas they stated that they would have talked about death by accident or sudden illness. There was a sense, in the focus groups, that for those involved the taboo nature of suicide was well internalised. People did not have to be told or have overt sanctions applied because of the previously existing stigmatising nature of the suicidal act. Even in those instances where people said they had not experienced stigmatisation they were aware of negative reactions when they brought the subject up with others.

The study suggests that there is a strong stigma associated with suicide. This comes both from society and within individual members. As Charmax (1980:234) points out, 'the way people respond to an act such as suicide is based on collective values which in turn rest upon the social structure'. Therefore what people think about suicide is related to much broader social values and meanings. The comments that people made about suicide did not come from the suicidal act, which in itself is without value, but from the value that society attributes such actions. One man expressed a sense of stigma at his brother having 'failed', he had derived this attitude from his social world. He was expressing a collective value as in applied to his dead brother and he carried part of the shame attributed to this action. In a recent study Jacoby (1994:269-270) makes a similar point in relation to epilepsy and stigma: 'perceptions of epilepsy as stigmatising were clearly anchored in what they understood to be the commonly held view of epilepsy among the lay community and constituted a major source of anguish'.

Ethos of the individual

An issue which confuses that of stigma is the notion of the right of the individual to make certain choices about their own life. In contemporary society there remains strong evidence of the Protestant Ethic with its emphasis on individualism (Charmaz, 1980:254). In relation to suicide this ethic is very apparent, competing with older cultural forces in responding to this complex phenomenon. On one hand we have an act which can produce enormous opprobrium and on the other, to be seen to epitomise the rationale of the individual. This has created profound ambivalence from many people interviewed in the study. People appeared to be constantly struggling with this apparent contradiction.

Normlessness

A theme of this research which presented itself in various forms was of normlessness. The study by Dunn and Morrish-Vidners (1987-88) also commented on the lack of behavioural guidelines in their study. I propose that the ambivalence and ambiguity which surrounds suicide and leads to normlessness is a societal response to the breaking of the suicide taboo and in fact that very normlessness is a 'norm'. It is a way of punishing by default, by omission rather than commission. At the same time this normlessness keeps faith with the ethic of the individual. There are no overt sanctions applied, therefore the right of the individual to make certain choices appears to be preserved. At the same time this act must not be seen to receive approval.

The survivors of suicide bear the cost of the violation of the taboo by existing in an environment where there are few rules governing their behaviour or the behaviours of others around them.

People in this study very often faced their feelings of guilt in a normative void. There was little response to this situation other than denial. One of the respondents experienced this denial of her feelings when she was expected to be 'over' her husband's death. After the initial support mentioned earlier she was supposed to have put the suicide behind her. Responses like this were not seen as a form of punishment, but were experienced in terms of rejection:

it hurts and you feel like you're a failure and you also think, well it's very depressing for you and you think what's the use. You know, this is how I'm gonna be (Sue)

The normlessness observed in this study reflects the findings of Dunn and Morrish-Vidners (1987- 88:200):

lacking social acceptance, the suicidal act does not lead to a predictable or patterned social response, since behaviour linked to disapproved acts does not give rise to fixed norms. As a result, people do not know how they are supposed to act towards those grieving a suicide

Normlessness and children

An area of concern in the normlessness of suicide relates to child survivors. Many of those interviewed felt a lack of guidelines when it came to dealing with the children who remained. This added considerably to the burden already being carried by families. It could also be interpreted as a social sanction applied to survivors. Suicide has been always been part of Australian society yet there is little to support families dealing with this traumatic experience. People were unsure about a range of issues from how much to tell a child, to not condemning the parent who had committed suicide while also expressing disapproval of the act.

The lack of direction or choice of directions is an additional hardship for families albeit one imposed by default. There was very little help available to the respondents of this study by way of support or education for the surviving parent. Help was sought by some of those interviewed and some found it, but in an ad hoc manner. There was very little help available in a structured or systematic form. One mother sought help at a community health agency but she felt brushed off and her needs repudiated.

According to Charmaz (1980:274), the traumatic experience of suicide on children can cause serious life long damage unless there is a quality and quantity of support available. Children do not have the same psychological capacity to cope with feelings generated by suicide as adults. According to Klagsburn: 'children of suicides have a higher than average rate of suicide, not because the tendency towards suicide is biologically inherited, but because they grow up with a heritage of guilt, anger and a sense of worthlessness' (Central Victorian Community Health Service, 1993).

Parents surviving suicide because of the difficulties they are encountering themselves often look for support in helping their children. The fact that little exists for them means they have to struggle alone and with limited resources.

Conclusion

Family members surviving a suicide inherit a legacy which has significant implications for their social interactions with others. The suicide taboo leads to stigma which is sometimes self imposed and sometimes applied by others. Conflicting with this taboo is the ethos of the individual which allows that people have the right to make certain choices about their lives, even the right to choose death. This apparently insoluble problem is resolved by normlessness, where people are left in a position whereby there is little in the way of social norms governing the behaviour of self or others. This 'norm of normlessness' allows a type of punishment by default while still keeping intact the ideology of individualism. This whole drama is one which is played out against a backdrop of the role of death in a modern industrial society, can often leave survivors in an existential wasteland.

References

Calhoun, L. & B. Allen (1991) Social reactions to the survivors of suicide in the family: a review of literature Omega 23 (2)

Central Victoria Community Health Services (1993) Grief after suicide Maryborough: Central Victoria Community Health Services

Charmaz, K. (1980) The social reality of death Readings, Mass.: Addison-Wesley

Dunn, R. & D. Morrish-Vidners (1987-88) The psychological and social experience of suicide survivors Omega 18 (3)

Farberow, N. (1989) Attitudes towards suicide. In R. Diekstra et al (eds) Suicide and its prevention: The role of attitude and imitation Leiden: Brill

Goldney, R. W. Spence & P. Moffitt (1989) The aftermath of suicide. In R. Diekstra et al (eds) Suicide and its prevention: The role of attitude and imitation Leiden: Brill

Jacoby, A. (1994) 'Felt versus enacted stigma' - a concept revisited. Evidence from a study of people with epilepsy in remission Social Science and Medicine 38(2)

Let's Live 1(3) 1992

Range, L. & L. Calhoun (1990) Responses following suicide and other types of death: the perspective of the bereaved Omega 21(4)

Reynolds, F. & P. Cimbolic (1988-89) Attitude towards suicide survivors as a function of survivors' relationship to the victim Omega 19(2)

Solomon, M. (1982-83) The bereaved and the stigma of suicide Omega 13(4)

Wagner, K. & L. Calhoun (1991-92) Perceptions of social support by suicide survivors and their social networks Omega 24(1)

^ Top | < Back