Thankfully, the stigma associated with suicide has diminished considerably in recent decades. The hurt within families and friends has not, nor is it ever likely to.
At the time of writing, we have just come to the end of suicide awareness week which, for funeral celebrants like myself, focuses our minds on the work we do. It is almost inevitable that at some time, we will be asked to take a ceremony for someone who has died in this way and we know that it will be a difficult one. Emotions are likely to be highly charged for all, both celebrant and family.
Choice of language in any ceremony is important but even more so when suicide is involved; some of the more sensitive words and phrases have links with the way suicide was regarded in the past. It is not very many years since the removal of the almost farcical, criminal status of suicide. The key word to avoid is ‘commit’ which, unfortunately, is still linked in the minds of many, who have heard the phrase so many times in many different contexts.
The church has begun to catch up with the need for greater understanding too. Historically, the ‘crime’ was linked with blasphemy through the perverse logic that only God could choose when a person’s life should end. A person making that choice instead of God would be subverting Divine Will by exercising their own; clearly a serious transgression. In my mind, this is surely a logical error? An all-knowing and all-powerful God, controlling all our lives, would still be exercising Divine Will by causing that person to take their own life – maybe that’s why I’m not a theologian! Gone too, thankfully, combined with the notion of the Devil being at the root of all worldly evil, is the bizarre idea that suicide was the work of the Devil, claiming a soul for himself.
Along with the greater understanding that most of those in the church show towards families bereaved by suicide, I would hope that there are few vicars now who would refuse burial on consecrated ground, as was historically the practice. There are still graves from less than one hundred years ago, next to but outside churchyard walls. The ‘crime’ may not be recorded on the stone but the deceased would likely have been an unwed mother or her child, or a suicide; each of which must have been very hard for their families to bear.
Unfortunately, for those left behind, grief will be compounded with many other emotions. Guilt may be one of them. Almost inevitably, family or friends will be left feeling there was something they could have done, something they should have said, if only they had been there at a crucial moment. Perhaps worse, they may feel it was something, possibly unidentifiable, that they said or did. None of those things can never be known with any certainty, even if the deceased left an indication of their intentions.
Something poorly understood in the past was the nature of mental illness, especially depression. Even now, without personal experience, few of us are likely to have great understanding. We may still use strange references from past beliefs to describe depression and mental illness; ‘our demons’, ‘the black dog’, or the more figurative ‘dark cloud hanging over us’. Whilst we may no longer give credence to such imagined causes, in times gone by they were accepted without question.
Perhaps the hardest suicides to cope with are those of young people. In our minds, it is against the natural order of things; someone choosing to end their life when their potential was for the many years ahead of them, years in which the issues that made them end their lives may have been resolved.
We can only ever speculate as to the reasons. Whilst we know that youth can be a difficult time; adolescence has never been regarded as a mental illness, nor should it be. Nevertheless, it is a period often characterised by irrational emotions and decisions. Its duration is uncertain; for some it ends in late teens, for others it may last well into the following decade.
Many of us can remember things that in retrospect seem so trivial, yet in our teenage years they hung over us as with immense and crushing significance. At the time, we may have felt that they would have far reaching consequences and the power to affect the whole of our lives. Maybe they did.
When we look back on those failed relationships, exams, trials, auditions, we know that even when our lives had to take a different course, there were always alternatives and most of us have few regrets now – they may even have pushed us onto a much better path. None of us knew that then and none of us would have believed it if we had been told. That is always the ‘problem with youth.’
When the consequences are as final as suicide there are always going to be those questions that play through in our minds and may always live with us.
I don’t think I can offer any advice on suicide but I can provide a listening ear. I know what I do as a celebrant and I can share the little wisdom I have gained through experience. You are welcome to contact me, ask questions or even ask me to take a ceremony, I’m always willing to help where I can.
Article by Mark Taylor
