Last Week, Becky wrote about “Dying with Dignity” in which she discussed suicide in the media. The story that I’ve read about most recently was the 29-year old, Brittany Maynard, who is terminally ill, and has decided to end her life on November 1st. It was all over my social media feed and was even discussed last week with my friend Megan, who is also a survivor of suicide. As a survivor, it is difficult not to be impacted by suicide in the media.
Megan brought up to me her frustration about how the media gets to pick and choose these stories as either heroic (like Brittany), or insanely negative, such as the story of the man who set fire to the Chicago Airports air traffic control room (and then attempted to take his own life). With these two stories so recent in the news, it’s hard not to feel upset with our situation since we both lost someone to suicide and the most recent story is so negative. I know a physical illness is much different than a mental illness, but Megan and I both have an idea that our father’s death were planned (not sure how far out they were planned), and how are we to say that what our Dad’s felt wasn’t an insanely horrible physical pain that they couldn’t see a way out of?
It brings up the feeling with survivors like myself, that you get embarrassed to discuss the suicide, not knowing how people will view it. Will they view my Dad as a loving caring father and friend, as the media portrayed Robin Williams? Or will they act disgusted and ask rude questions as in the airport story? One of the questions that bugs me the most is “Did you see any signs?” Did my Dad really feel like Brittany Maynard, in which his depression was so severe and life threatening that he had to end it himself; that there was no way medically possible that he could live without the pain he was hiding to the rest of the world?
Another feeling for me that these topics stir up is the idea and understanding that we shouldn’t judge our loved ones, or let their life be remembered by the way they died. I know Megan and I want our Dad’s to be remembered by their outgoing personality and their love for their family, and NOT by the way they died. I am in a place with my grief that I can look back at my Dad’s life in a positive light, however, with all of these stories surrounding us in the media, it hurts to hear the comments people make and not take them personally.
