Dealing with grief. The Suicide Club.

Alexandra Wyman is a pediatric occupational therapist working with children up to 18. In 2020 her husband passed away by suicide leaving her with a one-year old son. Her book The Suicide Club is about this experience and she wrote it to try to help guide others and in a way normalise the experience of the aftermath and loss of a loved one close to you.

The book is something she wishes had been around when he passed. She had lots of beautiful gifts but nothing really helped her through the business, the drama and trauma that can happen with other peoples grieving styles. Dealing with other peoples grief is a challenge because they often think by grieving so dramatically that somehow it’s helping you. But it’s really not – a trouble shared can be a trouble doubled sometimes.

People want to be helpful especially after a loss but people’s help is not always helpful. Often people will project their own ideas of grief or how to handle something onto others. It creates a sense of security and safety - if I grieve this way why isn’t everyone grieving in this way? There was a lot Alexandra learned about herself and how she liked to grieve and her grieving process did come under a lot of scrutiny initially so she had to navigate that as well. She feels that however you feel you need to grieve is absolutely OK and for someone else to have an opinion or to project that onto you is their stuff. Own what’s yours and try to set up boundaries around that.

Grief is individual but people like to moralise, contextualize and judge that you are not being sad enough, happy enough or down enough. People moralise about grief more than almost anything else and at times Alexandra was considered too cold, too businesslike and not grieving enough. People thought she was working through her process to quickly, that she should slow down because they thought she was trying to erase her husband. She realised she was a private griever. She would hold it together through the day for her son and then find time to let it all go in the evening. She also found that whilst she used to be a very big ‘huggy’ person after her husband died she didn’t want people to touch her. People wanted to hug her so that she could comfort them. They need to feel comfort from the person in the direct line of the loss. They feel comforted and can then continue moving forward.

Grief is a big emotion. It’s challenging and there is no right or wrong way to grieve. There is also no right or wrong way to deal with different types of grief. There can be a sudden loss or longer-term illness, the death of a child or suicide. Suicide has a lot more wrapped around it. No matter how prepared you are for someone to die there is always an element of shock even if you have been grieving for a while. When it comes specifically to suicide, there are so often things that we want to say to people and don't. With any type of loss part of the shock is that you don't get to say what you wanted to say to that person or you don't get to hear what you wanted to hear from that person.

Suicide is more complicated because there are also so many questions. How did we get here? Often there is an idea or a misconception that there are signs or that it’s planned. Alexandra has been participating in a local suicide support group and has come across two people where their loved ones did plan it but the most do not. When that happens it’s like ‘did I miss the signs’ or ‘what did I do’? We start to take responsibility as if the choice was not theirs and that I as the wife contributed to it. There is a higher level of responsibility that we put onto it and a lot of judgment and blame from society so it just compounds the ability to even grieve because you’re having to work through all of these items or parts of it that you can’t even unravel.

Alexandra feels that she needed the book to find out how to deal with other people’s grief. Her situation was complicated because there was some legal action against her and a possible case regarding the custody of her son. There was a lot of additional trauma that happened. Her husband didn't have a will and she didn’t know about anything that related to his job. It wasn't that they didn't communicate, it was just that they weren’t prepared. She needed to know that it was OK to set boundaries, to realise that she didn’t cause the situation or have to take the responsibility for someone else’s choice.

Suicide is a type of death that is no different to any other. Individuals who die in this way are in pain. Its not tangible but they are in pain and their pain is not any less because they decided to end their life to lose the pain. They didn't share the pain because they were protecting you from it in a way. It's a brave step to take. People say its cowardice but people close to it say it really isn’t at all. Its not bravery its just a solution or a removal of the pain.

Although Alexandra doesn’t agree with her husband’s decision she can understand how he got to it. That was a big shift for her and she was then able to start her healing by looking inwards, working through her own limiting beliefs and increasing her own toolbox. What messages had she taken on in regards to how she viewed suicide, her marriage, healing and personal growth? She had to work through those herself to get more clarity and healing.

Time is a component in healing but Alexandra also used a number of different resources. She tapped into everything she could and realised she needed different tools on different days. She encourages people to work through emotions because bypassing them just prolongs the grief. You have to sink into negative emotions and feel through all of them. Part of the grieving process is asking is it too early to move forward? We don't talk about death because we’re not comfortable with it. Alexandra feels that we should get things ready when we’re feeling happy and not wait for death to get things together. Think about your spirituality because this impacts the grieving process and it can change. Alexandra had a basis for what she believed but realised she needed to do a bit more soul searching to figure out where she really stood with this.

People can get stuck on the idea that life is linear – we like to say what life looks like to be successful but the reality is that life doesn't look like that. It’s unpredictable.  We don't know when things will things happen so we need to live our best life now and not put it off. If work or a relationship isn’t working for you or you aren’t happy, find something that does make you happy. We all deserve to have that level of happiness and joy.

Alexandra would encourage surviving friends and relatives to find something in their life that they can live for. This could be a person or a thing but whatever it is they have to work through their grief process for them. For Alexandra it was her son. She thought that he didn't deserve what had happened and that their lives did not have to be dictated by it. There will be days when you don't want to do anything and it hits you really hard and that when you need something to hang on to. The other thing is just to keep going. Sometimes it will feel that you have taken five steps back after you two hard won steps forward so you have to ride the waves and know you can get through.

 Find out more about Alexandra at forwardtojoy.com or visit The Suicide Club: What to Do When Someone You Love Chooses Death,

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