A close co-worker of my husband's killed himself, right after he talked to him.

[Coventina]

He's pretty shaken up by this, as would I.

He said it was pretty obvious that he was struggling in some kind of way. Just seemed really detached and uncaring.

My husband said his last conversation with him he tried to reach out and be encouraging, but didn't really get a response.

Now that he knows what he did right after the conversation, he's second-guessing himself.

I can completely understand what he's going through, because I would be doing the same thing.
(And went through a similar experience in the summer with a co-worker of mine, if anyone remembers that).

I'm not sure what to tell him, except to keep repeating that it isn't his fault, and that he tried.

[Torchlight]

1. In the past two years, five acquaintances of mine have killed themselves.

Until then, I think I knew only one other person (in my world) that did that.
Then 2022 came around, and two coworkers, one extended family, and one close family member, and a chum from my schooldays did it.

I never saw any indication of trouble or concerns they may have been going through. The most recent was a wise-acre I've known since hs (back in the eighties) who said his goodbye on Facebook. I thought he was just being his sarcastic self and *almost* wrote a meant-to-be-funny sarcastic reponse. Glad I didn't.

The despair/depression/hopelessness as the cause of suicide is something I hope to avoid. I can barely recognize it in others on a normal day, but there are many who are great at hiding stuff until they make The Decision.

[Wingus Dingus]

2. That's very sad--if it makes your husband feel better, I'll wager that person

was probably was wrapped up in his own mind and feelings, wrestling with internal demons and intrusive thoughts, and not paying much attention to anything a coworker would say.

[yellowdogintexas]

9. Once a person reaches that point, he/she is not thinking clearly and just want to

get away from the problem. Anxiety, depression, feeling worthless, or boxed in are all contributing factors.
It has been said that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

[Wingus Dingus]

14. This is my understanding of it, too--that once your

brain cells and neurons have unfortunately decided for you that this is the "solution", that becomes a difficult thought process to penetrate, a difficult circuit to interrupt--even with professional help. It's so hard to fight your OWN brain--other people probably can't do it for you either.

[Attilatheblond]

20. Or had already made the decision to end his own life

Sometimes there is no helping. Serious depression is a very complex monster. Some people suicide after taking anti-depressants, as the meds can give some the energy to do what they were too beaten down to do. It's weird, but it happens.

Sometimes, people might call just to hear your voice one last time, and they might never give you a clue as to that choice they have already made.

Guilt is likely for survivors, but most are not responsible in any way for the decision someone else made about ending their own pain.

[Donkees]

3. The last voice the man chose to hear was your husband's

He will always be remembered by someone who cared.

[chowder66]

4. I'm sorry that you and your husband have had to go through this.

And I'm sorry the person couldn't find another way to ease their sorrows.

[haele]

5. It's not his fault.

His co-worker had gone past the cry for help stage and had already made the decision.
What the co-worker was probably doing was to ensure that someone knew the reason he couldn't go on.
There's a lot of stressors people have that only time or "just a moment of" can fix. And in some cases, it's just too much time with not enough result, and it's constant with no end in sight.

As I get older, things aren't getting easier - they're getting more complicated; harder in fact, and I have less time to deal with issues as they come up. And my body is starting to break. There's constraints on the ability for other people to help, because they all have issues of their own - and too many times, they're depending on me to fix their issues.
Sometimes, it just doesn't seem worth it. And that's where the decision gets made, during one of those lows, where no matter what anyone says, there's not anyone that can take the burdens up, nor is there any resources readily available or time to get help. No Superman or Wonder Woman, or Wealthy Uncle with money, servants, and networks to wave a magic wand and make half your problems go away. (No, this isn't a cry for help, this is just how the lows feel, and yeah, I've lost two friends and four co-workers over my life to suicide).

It's not his fault. There's nothing a regular person could do once that decision is made, especially over the phone. The co-worker needed to want to make that one last "maybe" decision. And he didn't.
And I'm sorry for the burden that co-worker inadvertently put on your husband.

Haele

[Joinfortmill]

6. The person had made their decision.

There wasn't anything he could have done. Maybe a professional or a minister could ease his pain. I prayed for all involved. So sad.

[yellowdogintexas]

7. My dad did the same thing. Had breakfast with my mom, called my sister & talked with

his granddaughter, walked into the bedroom and shot himself. My mom was on the phone with our other sister, right on the other side of the wall.

Tell your husband he can find support with a Survivors of Suicide group. Most Mental Health Associations can help him find one nearby; the one my mom and I attended was led by a licensed counselor. This is such a different type of loss because we have to deal with the death itself and the circumstances.

Please give him my condolences

[Coventina]

13. Thank you!

[wnylib]

24. One thing that I learned from a counselor

after the suicide of someone close to me is that it is common for people in their lives to feel responsible and guilty for not preventing it. It is a normal reaction to feelings of grief and helplessness.

Knowing that it is a normal reaction to the helplessness and loss that people feel when grieving, and that other people go through it, too, helped me to cope.

So, if there is a support group near you for people who have lost someone to suicide, I recommend that your husband try the group. If there isn't a support group, then individual counseling can help, but be sure that he chooses someone who is familiar with grief counseling.

[MLAA]

23. Sending you hugs.

[yardwork]

26. I'm so sorry that happened to you.

[Skittles]

40. my dad called me (out of state) to wish me a happy birthday

(birthday was three days away)

shot himself two hours later, died six days later

[RWB3]

8. Suicide is devastating for those left behind

I lost my younger brother, 58, two years ago and a first cousin, born the same year, this past spring, both to suicide. I miss my brother everyday and I think I always will.

RIP Pennel and David

[yardwork]

27. I'm so sorry for your losses.

[Skittles]

41. very sorry, RWB3

I know the pain all too well....it always bothers me thinking how overwhelmed they had to feel.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

43. Welcome to DU, RWB3. . . . .nt

[twodogsbarking]

10. Help him safeguard his own health, physical and mental. Even seeing a doctor could help.

A strange time that is hard to deal with. Best to you both.

[NNadir]

11. I had a housemate commit suicide.

It was a long time ago. He was a schizophrenic apparently, but asymptomatic when I met him. (He told us he had been hospitalized for mental disease when we were considering him as a housemate.) When asymptomatic, he was the nicest guy in the world, talented, funny, bright, a first rate guy, gentle and kind.

My other housemate and I couldn't really handle it when he lost it, having hallucinations, etc. We asked his family to take him back, and they did, albeit reluctantly.

He killed himself about two months later.

I felt horrible, but I got over it.

You know, one things that one could have done something differently, better, whatever, but one really can't. Some problems are bigger than anything a friendship can handle.

We hurt ourselves if we think we have power that we don't have.

Condolences.

[H2O Man]

12. There was nothing

that your husband could do, though it is normal for him to re-play this in his mind, over and over. I've been there myself, including in working at the mental health clinic, and from in my personal life.In the most recent case, a former co-worker who I loved took her own life a year ago in May. There are late nights when I still think there might have been something I could have done. But there wasn't.

[yardwork]

28. I'm very sorry that happened to you.

[H2O Man]

36. Thank you.

[TygrBright]

15. When someone is determined to end the pain...

...there is almost nothing you can do to stop that.

What your husband experienced is really difficult - maybe more than he even realizes. It would not be a bad option to get some help from a professional therapist who has relevant experience.

empathetically,
Bright

[nolabear]

16. In my years as a therapist I knew of many suicides.

I never had one, though I did have deaths and imprisonments and tragic outcomes. I grieved with my colleagues, who naturally asked the same questions. The only answer is that there isn’t one. We all loved “they saved me” stories, but they speak as much to the ability to be “saved” as anything. There is so much more in the world than we can ever know—things that happened yesterday, years ago, in the minutes after we talk with someone. Guilt can be part of grieving but what it says to you is never complete. It takes a rather frightening kind of humility to admit you have no power sometimes. I’m so sorry for your husband and everyone dealing with this awful loss.

[fierywoman]

17. Have your husband call the suicide prevention line ...

... they also help bystanders who tried to help the person (who committed suicide) ... I called them after a dear cousin revealed to me that he had attempted suicide (and then reached for help and survived.) Previous to the attempt we had spoken at length about his depression and I told him to reach out to me ... but he didn't, obviously. I felt terribly guilty. The suicide prevention people got me past my guilt .. tell your husband to talk to them, please.

[area51]

18. I'm so sorry.

[Warpy]

19. By that time, it didn't matter if your husband encouraged him to open up

or if he raked him over the coals, the detachment meant the guy had decided what to do and likely little would have stopped him, only a psychiatrist specializing in suicidal depression would have had a chance. Your husband might even have been the one person he cared enough about to see one last time before he went.

People commit suicide to stop the pain, which could be chemical, social, or physical. Your husband didn't cause the guy's pain.

Suicide is hardest on people left behind, all of whom have those "what if" thoughts.

(A coworker at my last job committed suicide. None of us were surprised, we'd all suspected there was a substance abuse issue. There was, s/he was caught with dirty urine and instead of going to rehab like a sensible person, s/he went home and checked out)

[ShazzieB]

21. "Suicide is hardest on people left behind..."

This is so true. The bitter irony is that people who decide to commit suicide are often firmly convinced that their loved ones will be better off without them and that they actually are doing everyone else a favor. Of course, those left behind don't see it that way when they are left with a load of guilt that they have to process while grieving their loss, but that is how the mind works when it's in the throes of deep despair.

Someone close to me almost lost her husband to suicide. Fortunately, he had chosen a method that takes a while to work and she found him in time, but it was a harrowing experience for her. After being hospitalized and medicated, he began to recover from his depression, but it took many more years and a boatload of therapy for her and their marriage to fully recover.

He had never said one word about what he was contemplating, so the suicide attempt came as a complete shock to everyone who knew him. In hindsight there were red flags, but nobody recognized them as such until after the fact. Some people are frighteningly good at keeping their feelings hidden until it's too late. Fortunately, it was only almost too late in this case, and there was ultimately a happy ending. Many, many people are not nearly so lucky.

[moonscape]

45. Your second sentence is

almost exactly what my father said in his goodbye note. He thought he was going mad and didn’t want to be a burden, expressing this was best for everyone.

He was a brilliant renaissance man, loaded with humor, and a leader in the community. The shock was universal, inside and outside the family. My uncle said “2+2 no longer = 4”. It took a long time, looking for scraps of clues, to try and put some random puzzle pieces together to explain the imexplicable.

There is nothing anyone could have done. My grief, for which I needed some therapy (2 sessions of EMDR accomplished it), was all about not being able to stop thinking about the pain he was in to end his life. Fortunately, our relationship was full and deep with nothing left unsaid, nor a question I wish I had asked, at the time of his death. My grief was all anticipatory: time and conversations we wouldn’t have, new people in my life who couldn’t know him, etc. So I was more blessed than many who experience this type of loss.

[Maraya1969]

22. Suicide is a symptom of an extreme mental illness. So he died from mental illness. His thoughts

were very distorted. His perceptions were also very distorted.

[JanMichael]

25. That is not always the case.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4222167/

Not even close.

[TexasBushwhacker]

33. Choosing to end your life because you have a disease

Be attribute that's painful and/or disabling can be looked upon as "reasonable", but killing yourself because of unrelenting depression could be attributed to "mental illness".

I've struggled with depression my entire adult life. When I've felt suicidal, the thing that keeps me from it is I know my brother would have to identify my body. I just can't do that to him.

[crimycarny]

34. Thank you for sharing

It was on DU that I found out about Stanford's SAINT study, using a special targeted type of TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) that resulted in an 80% remission in MDD. And the results were after 3-5 days of treatment, not 6 weeks like conventional TMS. I wish I'd known this before my son took his life.

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/10/depression-treatment.html

There was a recent follow-up by Stanford on the "why" of TMS. What does TMS do that can dissipate depression (obviously not in all patients, but a significant amount). TMS basically reverses the flow of neural activity in those who are depressed. Depressed brains--looking at MRIs--have a flow of information in key parts of the brain that are going in the opposite direction of those who aren't depressed. This, to me, is just additional evidence that depression is often due to an organic issue in the brain.

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2023/05/depression-reverse-brain-signals.html

The FDA has approved Stanford's unique TMS approach, hopefully it will become more widely available. They are conducting clinical trials for bi-polar and OCD as well.

[Maraya1969]

47. Thank you for brining that up. I have had ECT and it worked wonders. I say it was like

it rebooted my brain. But now because I have some sort of branch thing in my heart I have to get cleared by a cardiologist and that is a pain in the ass. I am not that depressed . I think I am going through a lot of grief but I am always looking for something to make me feel better. I think it is the addict in me.

There are Youtube videos called "tapping" which is similar to EMD. I think they are helpful

[Maraya1969]

46. I can understand when a person has a terrible illness and does not want to suffer

Most of the suicides I have heard of have some component of very distorted thinking. Like this man in my neighborhood killed himself and his whole family. He wrote something about him about to be fired so they asked his employer and they said that hi boss said they had no desire to fire this man.

So I contend this man died from some mental illness that made him think almost psychotically about what was happening around him.

[JanMichael]

49. Only replying to the absolute statement

"Suicide is a symptom of an extreme mental illness"

Sure some or maybe more than half are but not all are and that is a fact.

[Wingus Dingus]

50. I agree--I think for children and teens especially, it's sometimes an impulsive act, coming from a

place of sudden deep embarrassment, shame, or rejection. They don't have the perspective that adults develop, that everything is temporary, including bad situations and bad feelings/pain.

[femmedem]

29. Decades ago, I spoke to my fiance over the phone a few hours before he killed himself.

The most helpful thing someone said to me was, "You did the best you could with the knowledge you had at the time."
I hung onto that like a lifeline.

[crimycarny]

30. I lost my son to suicide 1/2022

I lost my son to suicide in January of 2022. He was 25. He lived at home and we talked every.single.day. My other son lived at home as well and was extremely close to his older brother. We had no idea--NO idea--that he was struggling.

It's actually quite common that those struggling with suicidal ideations are very adept at hiding their feelings (google "smiling depression" ) And even in cases where there are signs and those surrounding the person struggling understand they are in trouble, there is often nothing those who try to help can do (I know parents who literally slept in front of their child's bedroom door to keep watch, yet their child still managed to end their life).

Suicide is NOT always preventable. Just like cancer is not always preventable, other human diseases are not always preventable. The brain is an organ just like any other organ of the body and it can become diseased in a way that no matter how much someone is loved, how much others try to convince someone they are worthy, loved, needed--etc--their brains often can't hear it.

Regardless of knowing all of the above, I still blame myself every second of every day. I still struggle with "what if's", "if only".

I suggest your husband check out the online forum "Alliance of Hope" (https://forum.allianceofhope.org/forums/-/list) which is a forum for those who lost someone to suicide. There are all sorts of threads including specific threads for those who lost children, spouses, siblings, and friends.

Last thing. 32 days after my son died by suicide my daughter's college teammate took her life. About 5 months later a very good friend of my son lost her father to suicide. 3 suicides in close acquaintance in less than one year. It's an epidemic.

[Wingus Dingus]

38. I'm very sorry, what a devastating experience. Thanks for trying to help other

people.

[crimycarny]

31. Darren Criss (Glee) writes heartfelt tribute to his brother, Charles, who died by suicide

I found this tribute from Darren Criss about his brother, Charles, very moving and helping in understanding suicide is extremely complex.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-10570515/Darren-Criss-brother-Charles-Criss-dies-suicide-age-36.html

[Catherine Vincent]

32. Very sad

[Chicagogrl1]

35. I feel for your husband as I have been there

My sons friend walked into the path of a train. I knew he had problems since grade school. Made him a lunch for all of 7th grade. Tried to talk w/ the Principal & got the brush off. I replay everything & wish i would have been more forceful. Was told by a Counselor that when someone decides to commit suicide, it is to end their psyche ache. It is all powerful & they just want the pain to end. I am sorry that we have gone through this. I think of this young man every day & say a prayer for him.

[drmeow]

37. I worked on a suicide prevention hotline

including training new volunteers. Without training there is no way your husband could have known what to do. Even with training, we still lost many.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

42. A thousand things bring a person to the point, and one call does not trigger it

A friend of mine suicided a number of years ago, and even now, I think about him many weeks at least once. My last interaction was more distant in time from the event, but even so, I do wonder about what might have been done, even though I had no idea anything dramatic was impending.

Your husband did not know and thus could not provide any specific triggers. Further, your husband obviously cares, so he didn't show an explicit lack of care. Nor should he be concerned that he didn't detect the impending event. Nobody can, just from a conversation.

So, let him feel his shock/loss, but make sure he is intellectually convinced of his innocence and then he can work it into finding a calm stable reconciliation with his emotions, with his upset and fears of involvement. The main thing is that when a pang of concern or loss is felt, acknowledge it and sigh and let it go. Suppressing doesn't work; letting go does.

For a person to suicide, they have been thinking about it for a long time. There are large forces involved that make any single conversation almost to have no effect. The common causes of suicide --- medical problems, debt, addiction, lack of emotional control, remorse -- none of those are caused by, or eliminated by, an ordinary conversation.

Your husband did not trigger it and could not have detected it and could not have prevented it. It is still a shock and loss for him, and he should expect to find himself ruminating about it from time to time over the years. That is natural. But there are many things in life that just happen around us without our involvement and this is one of them.

The timing was simply incidental, not consequential.

[AllaN01Bear]

44. you might want to check out some items in the support forum.

[shrike3]

48. There's a fellow on video jogging across the Golden Gate Bridge.

He stops to take a call, talking and laughing. After the call ends, he sets the phone down and goes over the edge.

You just don't know.

[IbogaProject]

51. Ugh, so sorry

I went through that once, I was the last person this friend of my best friend who then killed himself right after our call. He was sad it was the one year anniversary of our mutual friend's passing. I think he felt guilty but in his addiction he couldn't admit it. My friend was in recovery and this twerp turned him back onto the opiates, and my friend died a few months later. The two angry calls with his widow were tough, she turned her anger towards me. I did my best to try and get him to think of his kid and to things he'd like to do in the future. Before he killed him self, when there was already a crisis and the police wouldn't take his gun 'until he committed a crime', that was the first time I was told he was mixing laughing gas with the opiates he was abusing. I told her to give him Vitamin B12, as both opiates and Nitrous Oxide deplete that and it doesn't show until there is damage, but they waved it off "we get all our nutrients from food". He was taking drugs and needed to replace that, as it gets depleted. That was probably easier to get over then what he is dealing with, I was 3,000 miles away and not close but he didn't have many if any friends and was in contact. I did my best to get him to shift his perspective to others and the future, but I'm not trained in how to handle those situations so I don't know if there was any better direction I could've guided him.