The word “suicide” has a huge stigma attached and people are reluctant to tell others that the thought has crossed their mind. However, it’s not uncommon for newly bereaved people to think about suicide in the first months. Let me be clear: this isn’t the kind of specific “red flag” suicide planning where a person is arranging where, when, and how. If you find yourself stuck in that dark place, get help immediately. What I’m speaking of is the reality that there’s a profound despair that can accompany grief. You might feel that your life is pointless without your husband, that the sorrow is too painful and you want it to stop, or that you might like to join your partner in moving along to a better place, rather than being left alone. I want to reassure you that these vague thoughts about ending your life do pass with time; they’re the expression of finding yourself exhausted and overwhelmed in misery. Just keep moving forward the best you can and, in increments, your spirits will begin to lift.
I thought about suicide in the first months after Nick’s death (1989), a sudden death, and also after Alan’s death (2019), a death following long illness. I had kids to raise the first time and still I entertained in the back of my mind the relief of being gone. Of course, I never would have left my daughters alone. If you visualize a “joy scale” numbering 1 to 10, with 1 being despair and 10 being joy, I felt, after both spousal deaths, that for the first year my days could be summarized as being in the 1 to 3 range, not higher. In the beginning I felt that the scale didn’t go low enough, that there needed to be negative numbers! I would have small blips of 4 or 5 but not often. Now, with Alan being gone nearly two years, I do have times when I might have partial days with a rating of 6 or even 7. This is a real improvement. Grieving takes a very long time for many people and, although positive progress is measurable from month to month, hills and valleys are what the graph would look like. The overall trend, though, is toward survival and healing. Sometimes, I now feel brief periods of happiness and lightness and these seem almost magical! I’ve found that my mood is more upbeat earlier in the day and then sinks in the evening, so I try to be prepared for that. Negative thoughts tend to come uninvited to my mind later in the day., as fatigue brings vulnerability. These negative and self-critical thoughts can be about unrelated past sorrows or traumas or poor choices or regrettable behaviour. Your soul is simply exhausted and low on the strength needed to view these past experiences in a kinder and more positive light. Other bereaved people have spoken to me about their own suicidal thoughts in the first months and I wanted to write about it, so that you’d know you’re not alone or abnormal if those thoughts pass through your mind.
What can you do on the bleakest days? These are the kind of days where your list of positive things to try doesn’t begin to help: whether it’s exercise, focus on work projects, writing in a journal, calling a family member or friend. There’s no rescue rope nearly long enough to haul you out of the dark hole you’re in. You can feel truly hopeless. I still have those days or partial days but not as often and the hole isn’t as dark or as deep. Here’s what I do, after much experience with these bleak days. I just let the dark mood happen, tell myself it’s going to be “that kind of day,” and let all those emotions wash over me. I don’t fight it. I try to get a few things done so the day won’t feel so much like a total disaster. I cancel socializing if possible, having nothing good to say that day. Really, though, I just plod along that way for a day or two and, incredibly, my spirits lift a little on their own! Nothing triggers this shift; it just happens. The human soul is remarkably resilient and it wants to heal. Once I figured this out, I wasn’t so afraid of the dark days any more.
That’s my profound advice for the worst days; hang in there and wait!
Twice A Widow 