Mary's Shortcut: About Suicide Bereavement

In 1995, my seventeen-year-old daughter Mary died by suicide. She was a high school senior who seemingly had everything to live for, but one September day she overdosed on her anti-depressant medication and could not be revived. 

In her suicide note, Mary wrote, “I have the sinking feeling I’m going to be punished. I guess no one gets a shortcut through life.” Still, she took that shortcut and forever altered the life of everyone who knew her.

This blog is my attempt to converse about suicide from a mother’s perspective. What I intend is to quote from contemporary writings about suicide and then dialogue with those writings. I invite you to add to the conversation, and together we might come to greater understanding and peace about the suicide deaths of those we love.  

Here’s an example of what I mean. In their book, Grief After Suicide, John Jordan and John McIntosh state that “suicide survivors” were once considered to be those people directly related to the deceased person or someone who was a close friend. However, Jordan and McIntosh state,  “A suicide survivor is someone who experiences a high level of self-perceived psychological, physical, and / or social distress for a considerable length of time after exposure to the suicide of another person” (p.7).  

I can only add that, even after seventeen years, many  people are still deeply affected by the suicide of my daughter Mary. It isn’t just her family and close friends who can be called survivors.