The Emery County Suicide Prevention Group, “Reach up” hosted their first Suicide Survivors Day.

The Emery County Suicide Prevention Group, “Reach up” hosted their first Suicide Survivors Day.
The event was held at the Emery County Sheriff’s Office training room. Everyone in our community has been touched by suicide in some way. Every suicide affects 100 people. It affects  family, friends and community members.
The group will begin meeting more frequently with meetings being on Tuesday evenings at 5:30 p.m. at the Castle Dale Senior Citizens Center. Reach up is working to dispel the stigma of mental illness and those who have had to cope with a death by suicide of a family member. There are those who have survived a suicide attempt and their acceptance by the community is vital. Also, those who are recovering addicts need the support of the community.
Former drug users should be allowed to take their place in the community and start a drug free life.
The group hopes to let everyone know it’s OK to talk about suicide and how you have coped with the loss of a loved one.
The Emery County suicide prevention group is registered with the National Foundation for Suicide Prevention. The foundation distributed a video associated with National Suicide Survivor’s Day.
The group viewed the video and then participants shared their own stories of suicide survival.
In the video the counselor said grief must be worked through. Healing is a process and a journey. Suicide crosses paths with all groups of people. One participant’s son had jumped from the Golden Gate bridge at the age of 16.
Everyone grieves differently, there is no right or wrong way. The cultural stigma with death by suicide is very difficult to dispel. Many of the survivors have never talked about it and didn’t think they were supposed to talk about it. It was hard for many of them to tell people their loved one had died by suicide.
An Asian family dealt with the loss of their brother. In the Asian culture suicide is considered taboo and dishonorable. Their Father, didn’t talk about their brother. They didn’t say anything about him for an entire month. “The stigma was the most frustrating, I had no one to talk about my brother with,” said another brother, “I still have a hard time talking about it.”
One Father lost his son to a gunshot. This son was in the military and the stigma there is you’re tough, you don’t ask for help. Suicide would mean you are weak. He said people avoided him, they were fearful, they didn’t know what to say. He said he handled his grief differently than his wife, she wrote in journals, he worked out, worked on the house and did physical activity. This Father was really angry. He was angry with people who still had kids, he wasn’t angry at the military. One day his son’s favorite song came on the radio and the father pulled off to the side of the road and just cried, then the anger went away. “I had to give up the anger if I was going to get better,” said the father.
Those left behind want to know why and to figure out why, the people who pass away by suicide leave a gaping hole where their life should be. People will wonder what led up to the death.
The mother of the 16 year old boy said her son had just received his black belt and had a girl friend. “Some people just cloak what’s going on inside,” she said.
Another lady found her son’s journal, she read it over and over. Pretty soon she decided in order for her to heal, she had to stop reading the journal and she shredded it.
There is a lot of shock left for those whose loved ones have died by suicide.
There are a lot of times other factors going on with the person who dies by suicide. One brother and sister told of their father who was an alcoholic, but never in a million years, did they expect he would end his life.
Another man told of his wife who was diagnosed with depression and she later ended her life. Ninety percent of those who take their own lives have mental illness involved in some way.
The son said, “Suicide is a disease, a mental disease.”
Most of the survivors choose to remember their loved ones as they were before the mental illness before the depression. Remembering happy times was one of the ways they coped.
One suicide survivor said she felt relief when her brother passed away; anger, and guilt and shame, but a sense of relief. She felt guilty about it, but she didn’t worry if he was passed out somewhere, she didn’t worry that he would hurt their mother. “I didn’t think I was supposed to talk about feeling relief,” said the woman.
All the survivors felt like if maybe they had done this or maybe they had done that, the person would still be alive. They all felt a sense of guilt that maybe they could have done more for that person.
Others tried blaming other people for the death of their loved one.
There are so many emotions that survivors go through. In the beginning just focus on the basics; breathe, eat, sleep, drink and just get by. There will be denial and disbelief.
“I felt it was like a bad nightmare, I felt so alone for the first six months,” said the husband.
One day there was a different feeling, the survivors are able to laugh again. Able to connect with others, this is a sign of healing.
One daughter whose mother had died said she went to dance class and was able to enjoy it again. “Even if it was only for an hour, I had a sense of hope,” she said.
The counselor said some people will get stuck in the healing process. They will sometimes resort to alcohol or drugs to help them cope with their loss.
In the family that didn’t talk about it, they didn’t allow themselves to grieve. One lady whose mother had died by suicide 44 years earlier was still angry. She visited her mom’s grave and finally let go of her anger and forgave her mother.
Depression can come and settle on top of grief. When someone close to you dies, you can sometimes develop suicidal thoughts yourself. If this happens, get some help and admit you need help.
For the mother of the 16 year old, she began healing by hosting meetings and helping other mothers who had lost children.
Some survivors seek religion and some purpose and meaning for life. One day a dragonfly landed on her shoulder while she was gardening. The dragonfly is a symbol of healing for Native Americans. She realized her son David is waiting for her in the next life. She has started taking piano lessons because her son loved to play the piano. She is remembering the good and happy times.
The brother and sister who lost their father, their mother would always bring their father’s hat with her to special events like their graduations and weddings, that was a symbol of their father and they knew he was with them; not physically but in spirit. “I was only with my father for 12 short years, but he taught me a lot in a short amount of time,” said the sister.
“Enjoy the good moments and take it one day at a time,” said the survivors.
The husband whose wife passed away is now remarried and has a new baby at the age of 53. “I feel blessed my life is going well. I miss my wife every day.”
The more you go through it, the more you can get through it. Think about the happy times. This video was dedicated to people around the world who have been touched by suicide.
One of the participants at the meeting said he is no stranger to loss of life by suicide. He lost a niece in 2003, two friends in 2014, and two brothers in 2015 and a suicide attempt by his wife in 2014.
“The funerals are rough of someone who dies by suicide. People don’t know what to say.  Like the video said, you feel a lot of anger. I was mad at my niece, she was 19 years old and beautiful girl. You blame yourself, you have a lot of guilt. What could you have done to help or change what happened. One of my friends called and I let it go to voice mail, I called her back and asked if she was OK, and she said yes, but the next day she was gone. With my brothers there were no notes, nothing. I tried to call but there was no answer. I don’t understand why it happened. I don’t talk about it. This is the first time I’ve talked about it.
Healing from grief for me is a long ways away. I’ve talked to people who say, you never get over it. I’ve had to go on anti-depressants. I am glad for the people putting this group together. It is needed in our community. I hope we all can get some good out of it. It’s a hard thing to deal with,” said the participant.
The next participant to share her story, said she was given percocet to deal with depression. She soon became hooked on them, “Those pills took 10 years of my life. I tried to get clean. I knew I couldn’t live like this. Then I went to something worse, meth. I lost everything, I pushed everyone away. I didn’t think I deserved to live. I would look in the mirror and say, you’re ugly, you should kill yourself. I laid out my kids pictures they had drawn me and looked at them. I knew I wouldn’t see them again. I tried suicide with meth and whiskey. I woke up in the ICU and was mad to be alive. The feelings were more intense. I felt alone. I needed to get help. I needed to get clean. I am not going to give up. I have been clean for eight months now. I am grateful now for the small moments, for walking the dog, for seeing the sunset, you need to believe in yourself. This is a process, I’ve made it to here. I have bad days, but I am going to fight like hell.  I want to be here to tuck in my kids at night, to see sunsets, to walk the dog. You need to know that people’s lives would not be better without you. My kids would have been left with pain and suicidal thoughts.
The group went outside where they released balloons in memory of someone who died from suicide.  Weekly meetings for the support group will begin Nov. 28 at 5:30 p.m. at the Castle Dale Senior Center.