What Was She Thinking? | Beyond the Surface: Understanding Suicide

My daughter’s second attempt at suicide was on January 3, 2022. The hospital’s emergency room was overflowing with people sick with Covid, and I’m so grateful a ventilator was even available. It gave us another 11 months with her, as she succeeded in her final attempt in December of that year. When she arrived at the ER, she was put in a medically-induced coma for about a day because she was having seizures from the high dose of over-the-counter medication she had consumed. When the doctors were bringing her back into consciousness, she kept trying to speak through her tears that were rolling down into her ears. The moment the tube was removed from her throat, she whispered, “I’m so sorry, Mom.” We cried and talked about what happened, and she said she didn’t remember driving to or walking into the grocery store, purchasing the pills, or even driving to the place where she parked and swallowed the first bottle. In fact, even months later when we discussed the incident, she still never had any recollection of it.

I’m sharing all of this because I believe it’s important for people to understand that when a person is suicidal, they can be in an altered state of mind and not in control of their thoughts or actions. In many cases, it’s too late to reach out for help. Essentially, their brain is experiencing the equivalent of a heart attack. It’s failing. The person isn’t being selfish. They’re not doing it for attention. They are dying.

On any of my social media posts about my daughter, there’s usually at least one person who comments “suicide is selfish.” And while I understand that might be some people’s knee-jerk reaction, in my experience as a suicide loss survivor, it couldn’t be farther from the truth. Cashleigh and I never raised our voices at each other. We disagreed plenty of times, as mothers and daughters do, but she never hurt my feelings. And her siblings would say the same thing, as well as her friends, co-workers, and acquaintances. She was the type of person to put others before herself. I never saw her be selfish. Even as a child, she never had to have her own way. So I know if Cashleigh was in complete control of her thoughts and actions, she would have had the capacity to think about how her death would devastate us, and she wouldn’t have followed through with her attempts.

I realize all situations are different, but if you talk to as many people as I have about their experience with suicide, you’ll learn this too. If you’ve lost a loved one to suicide and are struggling to understand why they ended their life, I hope you take into consideration that like Cashleigh, it’s highly likely they were not cognizant of what they were doing. They weren’t making a conscious choice or decision. They didn’t do it to hurt you. There is a thing called the suicidal trance. There has been extensive research done on this topic involving suicide survivors, and the science points to the fact that suicide is not a rational act.

I know my daughter loved us, and I also know she felt how very much we loved her. She did not choose to leave us, devastated by her absence. When a person suffers from untreated anxiety, depression, etc., it can open a sort of portal to intrusive thoughts. I know this is what happened to my sunshine.

I hope if you’ve lost a loved one to suicide, you can take a step back from your grief and allow yourself to consider the possibility that your person didn’t “do” this to you. Think about who your loved one was, how they lived their life, and ask yourself if they would’ve intentionally hurt you. Losing someone to suicide is hard enough without the added anger towards someone who is no longer with us.

Mental health is health and it needs to be given the same respect as cancer, diabetes, or broken bones. I lost two grandparents to lung cancer. Both smoked at least a pack of cigarettes a day – well after cigarettes were known to cause cancer. But after their passing, no one uttered the word “selfish” when speaking about them. So, like cancer, if we’re going to erase the stigma associated with mental health, then we need to stop victim-blaming those who need help.