Bereavement due to suicide
People's perceptions of why the suicide took place
After a suicide friends and relatives want to know why it occurred. They try to make sense of what happened. Many people told us that they thought their family member had ended their life because they had been feeling unhappy or depressed. Bereaved relatives suggested many reasons that might have contributed to such feelings, including bullying at school, loss of a job, stress at work, a move to a new town and lack of support, unhappy or violent relationships, financial difficulties, negative reactions to family events, and chronic illness.
Jane thinks that her son Tom had been bullied at school and was a bit of a depressive.
Jane thinks that her son Tom had been bullied at school and was a bit of a depressive.
Right, it was nearly 23 years ago so some of it fades. He was at school at the time and we knew he was a bit of a depressive. He’d chosen to paint his bedroom purple which people said was worrying, but that was his choice and there were tiny signs that we found out afterwards but not, anyway it was a time of upheaval for us because my husband had been made redundant and our son Tom was in his A’ level year so there were you know stresses, and then we were out on a Saturday night in London and he was at boarding, part time boarding, nearby and we got back and there was a phone call to phone the school. And my husband did it straight away, and I just heard him say, “Suicide.” And that was it.
I suppose I haven’t revisited it because it didn’t seem important, it… it seemed important dealing with the stuff around me and I did try and understand; Tom was bullied at school, one master gave him a hard time, so that, you asked earlier about anger, that would’ve been relevant. I mean I remember saying to somebody that if I met the chap, he was only a small chap and I said I hope I don’t meet him ‘cos I’d kill him.
Mm.
But you know I think it was only a contributory factor it wasn’t a cause, it was just you know another brick in the wall, which is back to the, …what’s that group I mentioned earlier? It was their theme song that we played.
Oh yes.
That we played at the end of the funeral.
Why was that…
…the funeral, the brick in the wall.
Was that a song that he liked?
Mm.
In particular?
Mm. So but it, it was relevant, I mean there were a lot of things that were difficult at the time, he wasn’t a high flyer at school so doing A’ levels was some stress I suppose, and then father redundant and we were thinking that we might go abroad at the time to live so there were a lot of; and unfortunately he used to come back from school, he only boarded sometimes, at 9 o’clock when always the news was on, and the news it was when the Biafran famine was on, it was just awful night after night, I’m sure that must’ve, with hindsight had an effect on him.
Mike thinks his father was unhappy at the time of his suicide: He had had an unhappy second marriage and had been made redundant at work.
Mike thinks his father was unhappy at the time of his suicide: He had had an unhappy second marriage and had been made redundant at work.
In the house that day was my sister, and my brother-in-law, and well we, we’d known that my father was unhappy, to say the least, he’d, he’d made a second marriage, my mother had died about three years previously, and he was very devoted to my mother and he made a second marriage, which unfortunately was a disaster. He said himself he’d, he’d, he’d married in haste and was now repenting in leisure and it was a big mistake, he was very unhappy in his marriage. And then the, the next big thing was he was made redundant at work, and he’d worked very hard, he’d, he’d started off right at the bottom in this firm, metal refining firm, in Wolverhampton and had worked his way up to being the Managing Director on the firm. And the firm got taken over and the next thing we know he was being made redundant, and within what, three days of that happening he’d taken his life [sighs]. So we knew he was very unhappy with his circumstances, with the second wife where, you know, the marriage had been a disaster really and then this issue of losing his job, I think that was the, the final thing really, you know?
Mmm.
And it was a great surprise because he was a very strong person, a very tough capable man who’d had a lot of blows and difficulties in his life, and I think this was the thing that we found so hard to understand, I mean I know now that depression and mental distress can hit literally anyone and all it takes is enough pressure and enough problems and in it the toughest of people will break.
Jacqui's husband worried about everything; he had been diagnosed with depression and anxiety. Jenny says he was a perfectionist and may not have been able to face the idea he might not get 100% better.
Jacqui's husband worried about everything; he had been diagnosed with depression and anxiety. Jenny says he was a perfectionist and may not have been able to face the idea he might not get 100% better.
Well he had previously attempted suicide twice before in nineteen ninety-four…
Mmm.
…and that was when he was first diagnosed with depression and anxiety, so really all that, all those years it’s been a case of, watching him, making sure he’s okay ‘cause he was always, always anxious, always anxious and he worried about everything, not like the state of the world or anything like that but he worried about the kids and if something, if, you know, is, if, that, whatever little crisis there was, oh I shouldn’t really say a little crisis ‘cause it was always a big crisis to him, you know, then it would just move, he would just move on to something else to worry about.
Marion's husband had not told her about his financial worries or history of mental health problems.
Marion's husband had not told her about his financial worries or history of mental health problems.
I found out afterwards in the, in the May afterwards when I was speaking to his elder brother that he had had mental health problems in the past. But we were married nearly 25 years and I knew nothing. I knew nothing. It was all very, very strange, totally unreal, totally unreal. And I also discovered that there were horrendous financial problems as well about which I knew nothing.
Do you think that had been worrying him?
Oh I think so, yes, I think so, but yeah that’s, that’s what happened.
Paula thinks her husband was depressed and that that he experienced paranoid delusions.
Paula thinks her husband was depressed and that that he experienced paranoid delusions.
Anyway I mean, what went on I don’t really know. I think I suspected he was depressed. I know I suspected he was depressed. Myself, do you know, during our various fights. But I think it came up probably fairly inevitably as a result of that kind of thing. I used to say, “Look you’ve got to get help for this. I’m sure you’re depressed. You’ve got to get help.” And this is about seven years ago. And I mean it’s seven years ago that we moved out of London.
But there was one thing you see, he suffered from what I believe to be paranoid delusions. He was locking up the window shutters in the middle of the day to stop people looking in the window. And we live in a very lonely, quiet street and nobody looks in the window. And if they do it’s a neighbour. But he, he had in his mind threatening kind of people looking in the window and he also had in his mind that if he went back to work in Europe again that the secret police would come from his country to take him back.
Had he ever sought any outside help from anybody, medical?
He wouldn’t take an aspirin if he had a headache.
So he’d never been for any sort of psychiatric help or counselling.
No.
With his GP?
No. Absolutely not. No, no, I mean I, he sprained an ankle once and went to a doctor for that when he was in Europe. And it also, it turned out. I mean I obviously I got back to my health visitors because I’d spoken to them that morning and they told me that he’d never actually registered [with a GP] although we’d been here by then four years. Yes because it was the beginning of 2005, four years.
Nobody would have known about him feeling depressed then if he hadn’t been to see anybody?
No.
Ted's father had had episodes of depression ever since he suffered post-traumatic stress from the war.
Ted's father had had episodes of depression ever since he suffered post-traumatic stress from the war.
It was 25th March 1964 that he died and I think in common with a lot of other people who’ve lost people through suicide it is engraved upon your memory. I remember that day, that was the day I remember from my childhood, everything changed on that day, we were just an ordinary family before, my mother my father and the two of us, we went on holiday every year, I struggled with the school work, and there was absolutely nothing abnormal about us, my father worked in a bank, he was a bank clerk. He drove me to school every morning, I was really unaware that he was suffering from very bad depression. There were a few clues in the time leading up to the time he took his life but I was just getting a bit lippy then, I was 12 years old and I really was thinking, “Well why did you do that.” And I remember him; he’d got upset because I beat him at cards. Well that’s the wrong way round really isn’t it, and I thought, “Well why are you getting upset,” but it was clearly a symptom of his depression.
And in fact my father’s depression as I later discovered, was post traumatic stress, from experiences that he had during the war. So anyway, I went to university, I dropped out, I took lots of drugs, and again you might say that I might not have done that, but on the other hand a lot of other people took drugs in the late 60’s early 70’s, so I might’ve done, I might not have done, if you see what I mean. You can’t, you know, say that event A has…. I certainly don’t regret any of it, anyway as regards the death I never talked to anybody about it that knew my father. But I did talk to other people, I talked to, I talked to friends, and I had this story and the story was one my mother told me when she got older, and she told me the story and again she said he’d had bad experiences during the war, he got depressed at Christmas 1963, when we were at our relatives, he got more and more depressed, it related to a breakdown he’d had after the war in 1946, it was 18 years without depression, then he got depressed, he was having nightmares, he was dreaming about sailors drowning because he was in the navy. He couldn’t go into work. Every time he went into work he came back shaking and in a terrible state. She was up all night talking to him. He was hallucinating. And all the time he was just taking me to school, and behaving quite normally.
Some people told us that their relative who had died due to suicide had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which used to be called “manic depression”.
Jenny's husband was diagnosed with bipolar disorder just before he died.
Jenny's husband was diagnosed with bipolar disorder just before he died.
And, and, I think that’s what most people understand about, you know, they see the sort of Steven Fry documentary, that kind of thing And you think about people that maybe take a lot of drugs or re-mortgage their house or whatever it is, you know. So it’s a sort of stereotypical view of it and it’s also the extreme end of it. But this particular expert explained to us that the latest thinking is that there’s a whole, a whole sort of spectrum of, a bipolar spectrum, and you can either be, you are either unipolar depressed, what they call unipolar depressed, which is what most people understand, the kind of futility, not wanting to get up in the morning, feeling like life’s just not worth it. And that’s one end of the scale and the other end is the manic depression. But you can be anywhere between the two. This is, this is the latest thinking. And they said, you know, they thought that David was somewhere on this scale.
So there was, you know, they, they, you know, he was even addressing that concern. You know, we, we can get there with you. But I think David had got to the point where he had, maybe he had lost hope or he just got so exhausted, he got so exhausted by that point that he just thought, “No.” And maybe that combined with the sort of lack of sleep and so on, maybe that was why.
Felicity describes what happened when her daughter, Alice, first became ill with bipolar disorder.
Felicity describes what happened when her daughter, Alice, first became ill with bipolar disorder.
Felicity and Alex talked to Alice about her bipolar disorder. Alice found it hard to accept that she would have to live with it.
Felicity and Alex talked to Alice about her bipolar disorder. Alice found it hard to accept that she would have to live with it.
Explains why her daughter Rose became suicidal. Rose was first diagnosed with depression and later with bipolar disorder. Rose lost all hope that she would get better
Explains why her daughter Rose became suicidal. Rose was first diagnosed with depression and later with bipolar disorder. Rose lost all hope that she would get better
Yes. So we’re talking about Rose and who died November, 2005. I think probably that the depression that she suffered from had started a long time before. But it wasn’t, I didn’t recognise the depression she’d had on and off for about ten years was the reason for her suicide. She had anorexia badly at fourteen. And she had a complicated teenage life, having affairs with older men. So there was a great imbalance in her character.
Hmm.
But it went with a tremendous verve and huge charisma and just … she had more friends than anyone I’ve ever known and five, six hundred people came to her funeral which at twenty eight is quite something. So it was very complicated to know why it was that this huge imbalance was going on, that in the end led to this absolute despair.
She went to New Zealand in 2000, 1 or 2 and came back in 2003. And in the meantime she’d had a serious accident. Someone, a woman knocked her off her bicycle and she landed on her head. And had … and sustained I think quite bad neck injuries and head injuries. And from that moment on felt that she, she couldn’t work. She thought she’d got ME. I think she actually had a serious injury.
Hmhm.
And things really went down hill from then.
But suicide was not something I’d even considered with her. I now think it was the result of the antidepressants, the mixture. And I have found out since it is quite a possible thing that people do … it’s quite a …a quick reaction to taking antidepressants is suicide in some people. It can just flick your chemical soup the other way.
I came back and by this time she was seeing a psychiatrist in London but in a very ad hoc basis. And this was at … a psychiatrist who had she seen her earlier I think might have made a real difference. But she worked for a charitable organisation. And it was too late. She immediately recognised Rose’s condition as being bipolar. But it was too late, because Rose had lost all hope by then.
Stephen's wife had been diagnosed with depression. He thought she probably had bipolar disorder.
Stephen's wife had been diagnosed with depression. He thought she probably had bipolar disorder.
Stuart said that his ex-partner, Anne, had had symptoms such as headaches and blurred vision. At first she was diagnosed with depression and then with generalised anxiety disorder. The doctors could find no underlying physical cause for her symptoms and eventually diagnosed chronic somatisation (a long-term condition in which a person has physical symptoms that involve more than one part of the body, but no physical cause can be found). The realisation that ‘chronic’ meant ‘long term’ really worried her, since she could see no end to her problems.
When Anne was told she had chronic somatisation she realised that she might not get relief from her symptoms. This might have made her decide to end her life.
When Anne was told she had chronic somatisation she realised that she might not get relief from her symptoms. This might have made her decide to end her life.
Looking back is there anything you think could’ve prevented her death?
No, I don’t know really. It’s difficult to pinpoint any single thing, I think, when she saw the diagnosis of what she had and it said chronic it was somatisation, I think when she saw that it said chronic I think that was a sort of, and chronic meaning long term I think that was really, quite a big deciding factor for her.
Mmm.
But I think it’s, I think maybe, I don’t know I wasn’t there obviously when she was given that diagnosis, I think maybe sometimes the, medical profession when they give these diagnoses they’re trying to, do it to sort of help, either the treatment, or to demonstrate that they have some understanding of it, and I think it may be important for them sometimes to say, “No we don’t actually know everything about this.”
Mmm.
Or, “What this diagnosis means is x, y and z.”
So they actually gave her the diagnosis of chronic somatisation?
Yeah somatisation.
Mmm.
But then we looked it up on the web together, and we saw that it meant chronic and I think that was the thing that really worried her was the long term effects of it and I think she just wanted to see a way out of it and I think that was the thing the fact that she saw that there wouldn’t be any, that she perceived that there’d never be any rest or a relief from it.
People suggested many other reasons why a member of the family had decided to take their own life. Some people said that relatives diagnosed with schizophrenia, or another mental health problem, had been discharged from hospital without adequate follow up care. Others said that illegal drugs might have made mental health problems worse or might have even caused the death.
Explains why she thinks two of her sons committed suicide. Stephen had paranoid schizophrenia. Both boys took drugs such as cannabis and both had become paranoid.
Explains why she thinks two of her sons committed suicide. Stephen had paranoid schizophrenia. Both boys took drugs such as cannabis and both had become paranoid.
Right, twelve years ago I lost my first son aged 23, he committed suicide and then last April I lost another son aged 35, who did exactly the same, and committed suicide. It’s very very hard. I felt a lot of anger and sadness. I was more angry with my second son for doing what he did as he’d always promised that he would never do this to us. But I also understand that it was harder for him, trying to cope without his brother, and I think as time goes on I’m beginning to understand more why Stephen had to do what he did. He suffered with a mental illness for ten years, paranoid schizophrenia.
Was this the first one?
The second.
The second one, right.
He found that very hard, he would always say that he talked to his brother, he talked to his grandparents, and towards the end before he died, he felt that he was losing his brother’s voice, and I think this was always a danger we were told by the hospital, that if that happened then Stephen could become suicidal, but we didn’t find this out until after Stephen had died.
By losing his voice, he used to hear his voice?
Barry used to talk to Stephen, which gave him quite a lot of comfort, and also my parents which were Stephen’s grandparents, but Stephen also spoke to what he called a demon, which would tell him to do really bad things. And Stephen said that he was being punished and the demon was taking away Barry’s voice. It was getting fainter and fainter and he could no longer hear him, so Stephen deteriorated even more, which I believe actually led to Stephen’s suicide. I know that he never came to terms with Barry’s death; he blamed him self, as they had actually made a pact to die together, and obviously Stephen didn’t go through with that, why, we don’t know. And I think Stephen carried an awful lot of guilt after Barry died.
Why did, why did Barry decide to die?
Barry had a lot of problems, they both got into drugs quite badly in their teenage years, which I think didn’t help their problems, because Cannabis does cause paranoia and both my sons suffered with paranoia, although Barry was never diagnosed as being with schizophrenia.
Helen's daughter Charlotte often felt depressed. She took cannabis and heroin and died of a heroin overdose.
Helen's daughter Charlotte often felt depressed. She took cannabis and heroin and died of a heroin overdose.
And Charlotte only really had to smoke a very small amount of cannabis and it made her very ill, but she, she then was, at the end of that year, was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, for about six weeks and they wanted her to stay longer but she left, of her own will, and then she started a degree course in October, but she didn’t make it to Christmas because she started hearing voices and was really not very well. And I said to her at the time, “Leave, Charlotte”, because I thought, I still thought at that time that she couldn’t cope with it because after what had happened to her she needed a bit of a rest, but she was still using drugs, so then she came to live with me, and she, we, she was under a psychiatrist, and she went to, and I don’t know who she was now, but I think she was a nurse, a psychiatric nurse, and we used to go together, and we used to have to sort of fill in forms and. And do diagrams about how she felt about herself and how I viewed her, and how she viewed me. And she went there for quite a long time, and then they, they decided it would be good for her to go to psychotherapy. And she went for a very long time to psychotherapy. And she told me for one year in that time she didn’t use drugs at all, but she didn’t feel any better, she felt just as bad. She, she, she never stopped having depressions.
Amanda thought sexual abuse might have been a factor in her son’s death.
Two and a half months before he died, Amanda discovered that her son had been sexually abused. She thought this might have contributed to his death.
Two and a half months before he died, Amanda discovered that her son had been sexually abused. She thought this might have contributed to his death.
Ann said that she thought her friend felt that she was becoming a burden due to her chronic fatigue syndrome and found it hard to deal with that.
One woman we talked to said that her father had decided to die by suicide at the age of 78 because he had incurable stomach cancer. For at least 20 years he had told his children that did not want a “lingering death”. His wife had died and he was very lonely. Another woman told us about how her family helped her father to end his own life in Switzerland. He had mainly lost his motor neurone function and wanted assisted suicide.
She accepted her father's decision to take his own life. He had incurable stomach cancer and did not want to return to hospital.
She accepted her father's decision to take his own life. He had incurable stomach cancer and did not want to return to hospital.
My father decided to commit suicide when he was 78 years old. I think there’s quite a history to that decision though and the fact is that he was a very larger than life man, he was a very vibrant, active man, for all those years, he’d had a wonderful life as far as he was concerned, and as far as we were concerned. He’d done a lot of travelling, he was full of life and laughter and had given us a very secure and wonderful family life really, we always felt that there was happiness in the home. However when he was 18 and he was learning to fly, he joined the air force at that stage, he had a terrible accident, and he had to spend a year and a half in hospital when he was 18, and I think that gives us some of the background as to why, when he was 78 and was diagnosed with stomach cancer for the second time he decided that he didn’t want a lingering death, he’d already spent several years of his life being an invalid, and depending on other people, so that at 78 when he couldn’t foresee living much longer, he decided that he’d terminate his life.
At that stage, I mean also in his particular circumstances at the time, he’d been married to my mother for 50 years, and she had died in 1999 which was 2 years before he committed suicide and I think that was a factor. He’d obviously become deeply lonely.
Well he was in a lot of pain, and really he’d, he’d just had an aversion to hospitals having spent two years when he was younger in hospital, he didn’t ever want to spend time in hospital again I don’t think. So he made the decision to take his own life. I think the difficulty with that was that he chose quite a violent way to commit suicide, so therefore the friends didn’t understand why he’d chosen to go over a cliff, however we as his children, three of us, had almost been prepared by him, because he said if he ever had a terminal illness he would not want his death to be lingering or have extended pain in any way. He’d always said he’d go quickly and always said it would be over this particular cliff so it sounds strange but, but we weren’t as shocked by the way he chose to die, and also on the previous evening he’d actually phoned us all up, and more or less told us that he had decided not to go on with his life. I think one of the things why we all accepted it so easily was that you know we felt that he’d had such a full life.
For more information on assisted dying see Dignity in Dying’s website.
Lynne thought that perhaps her mother’s mental health problems became much worse when her doctor rapidly reduced the medicines she was having. Her mother had recently moved house and was seeing a new GP, which made the situation more difficult.
Lynne tried to make sense of what had happened. She wondered if her mother's psychotropic medicines had been withdrawn too quickly.
Lynne tried to make sense of what had happened. She wondered if her mother's psychotropic medicines had been withdrawn too quickly.
No, obviously you kind of try and make sense of what happened and I think that’s one of the hardest things for, for families of people who have committed suicide is trying to make sense of the whole process and just what went wrong and what could’ve been done, but I, I have my own, I suppose the way I’ve made sense of that is that this was quite a long time ago, and Mum was on quite heavy medication at that time and for some reason just before Mum and Dad moved they started cutting down her medication and cutting it down quite quickly. And I think that was probably at a time where people didn’t know so much about withdrawing people from psychotropic medication. And I just wonder whether some of the things, because she started talking for the first time that she was hearing voices and people, somebody was telling her to kill herself and things, and that had just never ever been part of her problems ever before, and that at that period of time was she was just behaving very very differently, and I suppose the way I’ve kind of tried to make sense of that in my own mind is that maybe that was associated with the cut in her medication. But also during that time because they’d moved, probably about 20 miles away, she was almost between GP’s, so she’d left her GP who was a very traditional family GP and he’d known my mother’s parents and he’d known my mother and he’d, you know was at the hospital when I was born so he knew us as a family, so I think she’d gone from a, a fairly supportive environment that, that all of her treatment was really handled by the GP, there wasn’t an extended team, to living in a new town, where she had lost that contact.
Mm.
And was under a new GP who was part of quite a large practice, and so I think the time at which her medication was being cut she was also in transition because they’d moved house, between health care teams as well, although during that time she was still being seen by her psychiatrist and she did have an appointment to go up to see the psychiatrist a few days before she killed herself so she had been for that appointment. And the way my father recounted that was that she did tell the psychiatrist that she was feeling suicidal, but I’m not sure whether he just didn’t believe her or, or what, but he actually, she had her appointment with the psychiatrist on the Friday, and she killed herself on the Sunday. So….
Some of the people we talked to believed that their relative had not intended to take their life.
Brenda's son was very depressed at times and said he felt suicidal. She was told he had bipolar disorder. He took an overdose but Brenda believes he just wanted “respite”.
Brenda's son was very depressed at times and said he felt suicidal. She was told he had bipolar disorder. He took an overdose but Brenda believes he just wanted “respite”.
He then got a job in an old people’s home and he was there for two years, caring for old people, looking after them, doing all the things one has to do. But unfortunately there was an awful lot of death, obviously because they were elderly, and so one day he’d come home and the next day he’d go back and somebody had passed away. And I didn’t feel this was right for my son. He became very, very depressive, very, very low, really, really down. We took him to the doctor and they prescribed some medication and he immediately went on that. He then hit rock bottom and then ended up in hospital. He was in hospital for six months. On hindsight I wish he had never have gone now because I feel that it wasn’t the right place for him but at the time, not being medical, I just thought this would be the best thing for him to do. Both my husband and I supported him, we visited him, but it used to break my heart every time I used to leave the hospital and come away leaving him behind and thinking ‘it’s almost like a punishment there, he’s just having medication and lying in a bed’.
He came home, leveled out again, went back to work, and then it happened again, very, very dark despair. At this time he was very suicidal and he used to say, “I can’t go on like this any more mum, I just can’t live each day like this”. And I used to say, “Why? What do you mean?” And he said, “I feel very suicidal”. And I used to ask him, “How? Why? What were you going to do? How, which way, what were your thoughts? What, you know, how were you going to do it?” I just had no idea. And he said, “I just want to just take a lot of tablets and go to sleep”.
Yes. And the day you came home when he told you he’d taken the overdose, what kind of state was he in having taken all of those tablets?
Very, very calm. He walked down the stairs and he sat on a chair. He sat just here in the kitchen, and he said, “Mum, sorry Mum I’ve taken an overdose”. And I suppose immediately I thought it was, probably, I don’t know, a couple of dozen tablets or just a handful of tablets. I had no idea of doing anything like that myself. I remember running upstairs and just looking at the bathroom floor and just seeing the whole of the bathroom strewn with tablet packets and wondering for a split second where on earth have they all come from. But I realised they were drugs that had been left in the drawer of myself and my husband’s which had been there. We had no worry at all at any time that this was going to, that he would do that because he used to say, “Although I have thoughts, although this is what I might do Mum I’d never do it, I’m too frightened.”
And he was a boy that, he wasn’t streetwise, he wasn’t tough, he would, I still don’t know. I think he just wanted a respite that day. I truly believe that it was a respite rather than anything because I don’t think he knew, because we were so close, the devastation that he’d leave behind for myself and my husband, he was a boy that would never really, when he was levelled out, would ever hurt us. Yes we would have bad days as I’ve said, but he wouldn’t remember them and wouldn’t remember that’s what he’d done or what he’d said. So I truly believe that he had no idea that he was going to die really.
Robina was suffering “horrific domestic violence”. Jasvinder is convinced that her sister did not mean to kill herself. She believes that Robina’s actions were a cry for help
Robina was suffering “horrific domestic violence”. Jasvinder is convinced that her sister did not mean to kill herself. She believes that Robina’s actions were a cry for help
Robina in her love marriage, she still was in this position of having to consider the families honour, izzat, we call it, and that really meant her decision making was impacted by this concept and one of the things she used to tell me was that she was suffering horrific domestic violence in her relationship. She was suffering physically and certainly emotionally, mentally. I had witnessed bruises and I remember saying to her at the time, “Leave him.” And she used to say to me, “It’s easy for you to say that, because you don’t have to think about Mum, Dad, the community and what people think.” And I used to say, “But he’s hurting you, I’ll take you in, leave him.” But she couldn’t and she really was making the point that in my position of being disowned by my family, I didn’t have the authority to give her that advice. So I always asked her to go back to Mum, tell Mum, to tell Dad about the situation. Which she did and my Mother’s response was always, as it was with my other sisters; I’d witnessed this as a child, to go back, to make the marriage work for the sake of honour, for the sake of the family’s honour.
So I, I don’t believe that she intended to kill herself, I don’t believe that. You know, I’m not an expert in suicide, and maybe some people make that decision and plan it or don’t, but I don’t believe she did, I believe there was so many attempts, direct attempts in terms of crying out for help, I still believe that, and at the point where there could’ve been the intervention, she wasn’t saved and okay, it maybe my role to help her, and I did, but I never had any power because of my position of being disowned, and they did, they being the family and the community. And ultimately it would’ve, it was them she would’ve listened to, and clearly there’s evidence it wasn’t me.
Kate is sure that her daughters did not mean to kill themselves. Too much alcohol and other factors led to the tragic events.
Kate is sure that her daughters did not mean to kill themselves. Too much alcohol and other factors led to the tragic events.
Izzy was very, very drunk. She didn’t know what she was doing. It was a spur of the moment thing. She left no note. She probably just wanted to go to sleep or she was trying. I don’t … we never know, we never know. But I knew that she didn’t want to do it. Anna did leave a note. She left a 28 page note. And it was the break-up of her relationship with her boyfriend and the death of Izzy. But what finally, finally as she said was the last straw was somebody stole her computer from her flat, that was on Christmas day. And she had all her pictures and all her work and everything and she said somebody broke … not broke in but had keys and went into her flat and took her computer. And she said it was all my lifetime, all my everything was on that computer.
Some people remained perplexed and had no idea why the suicide had taken place. Michael does not know why his friend killed himself. He was not aware that he was unhappy. Linda had no idea that her daughter was feeling unhappy or depressed when she took her life. Bob says his son concealed his worries: perhaps the attitude that “men don’t cry” was the reason.
Bob had no idea that his son, Darren, was depressed. Bob thinks that Darren may have found it hard to express his emotions because of the British attitude that “men don’t cry”.
Bob had no idea that his son, Darren, was depressed. Bob thinks that Darren may have found it hard to express his emotions because of the British attitude that “men don’t cry”.
Our son Darren, he was 19, died on 31st August 1998. He died by suicide whilst on holiday in France. We didn’t know he was depressed, he’d been a full time student at college doing A’ levels, he, he started that in 1997, and by the time 1998 came he’d had finished with all of them. Because of one thing or another and he’d been; but he got himself a full time job and some time he came home, he used to come home feeling a bit, look a bit down and I spoke to him, but we just took it as the normal teenage; going from education into you know full time employment. But he had a good job, he was at minor supervisory level for a local building supply firm, and well I gave him every chance to talk, but he didn’t seem to want to. In August he’d arranged several things to do, he’d done a bungee jump in 1997 and he, he enjoyed it so much he wanted his mates at work to do it as well, and they, he had set it all up for the whole group of them to go and he’d paid for them and he was going, pay for it. And it was going be the Saturday he came back from holiday so he had plans, and he went away, and then it was the August bank holiday Monday, I was, I was at work in the evening and my wife Lynda got the call and that it one of his friends he was with, he’d died by suicide, and Lynda had to phone me up at work. Got home as best I could and, and that’s when our journey started.
One of the reasons we think might be behind Darren [and what happened] is the “Men don’t cry” attitude, and men, men don’t show emotions. He probably held it in, all his emotions in too much, he didn’t let it out. And all I would say is, men do cry, and men are allowed to cry, and we have emotions, we should show ‘em and I’ve cried, I’ve cried on TV as well, national TV I did some interviews with various programmes and yeah, men do cry.
Last reviewed July 2017.
Last updated October 2012.
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