There are three dates on the calendar that Ana, Miriam and Mònica will never be able to forget. The days when her brother, her sister, and her father, respectively, died by suicide. “I had the feeling that my life was over and that I would never be happy again,” says Mònica, whose father, Francesc, died in September 2020 at the age of 64. For her part, Ana wondered when she would smile again the way she did in the photos, after mourning the death of her brother Dani, only 42 years old. And Miriam built a shell, which she believed to be indestructible, to continue with a “normal life” and overcome the suicide of her sister Anna as soon as possible (44).
Despite everything, in the midst of the dark abyss of loss, where pain and sadness seem endless, there are safe spaces to “speak freely” without fear of being “judged”: mutual support groups. In a society that often silences and stigmatizes the grief associated with this tragedy, these groups become havens for understanding, empathy, and accompaniment. Taking the step is not always easy, but for the three protagonists it ended up being their “salvation”, after losing their loved ones throughout 2020.
According to the provisional results of the National Statistics Institute (INE) for 2022, a total of 4,097 people have died by suicide, an increase of 94 deaths —and 94 families destroyed— more than the previous year (4,003). Far from decreasing, suicides have not stopped growing since 2018. Suicide continues to be the main cause of unnatural death in Spain and, between the ages of 15 and 29, suicide is the main cause of death.
“I cried everything that I had not cried before and I spoke everything that I had kept quiet about,” says Miriam, 41, when she attended her first individual interview with the Catalan organization Després del Suïcidi – Associació de Survivientes (DSAS). A pioneering association that provides support and accompaniment to family members who have lost a loved one to suicide, the so-called survivors, because losing someone like this means surviving unanswered questions, guilt, stigma and social judgement.
Mònica still remembers the day she came to the association hand in hand with her sister and her mother. “We were awful. We needed to find a way, something to hold on to.” And they found it. “People want to help, but no one knows what to tell you. This was the first site where I found people who understood what she was talking about, ”she details.
This tragedy filled the lives of Ana, Miriam and Mònica with pain and loneliness, but it also left space for their lives to intersect and weave an unbreakable web between them. The person responsible for intertwining these paths was Anna Lara, coordinator of her group at DSAS and also a suicide survivor. The association has five support groups, four are monthly and one biweekly, which are organized based on the date of loss and personal situations.
“They were a very simple group because there was a lot of chemistry between them and they helped each other,” says Anna Lara about these women, who left the group meetings a little over a year ago. “In the end, I was a mere spectator,” she acknowledges, laughing, while the rest deny it and praise her role.
What they can now speak with a certain naturalness before could not even be mentioned. “Only 40 years ago, people who had died by suicide couldn’t even be buried,” explains Anna Lara. That silence still persists today and the first sessions are a sea of ??tears where the survivors finally find that safe space where they can “free themselves”. “Coming here helped me to be able to speak and say that my brother has committed suicide, and that nothing was wrong. I was afraid of feeling judged and I kept quiet, but inside I couldn’t take it anymore”, admits Ana.
Through the support of people who have faced similar situations, these women learned to embrace the idea that they are not responsible for the death of their loved one. They learned to forgive themselves and stop carrying a weight that never belonged to them.
The grief caused by the death of a loved one by suicide is a devastating and traumatic experience that often leaves behind a host of incomprehensible emotions. “The environment must be able to validate their emotions, whatever they may be, and accompany these people in their pain. Sometimes, with the mere presence, a hug or a gesture”, details the coordinator of the group.
Anna Lara assures that attending a group has been shown to work, although it is not always the path for everyone. In addition to going to the association, the three protagonists tried to go to psychological therapy, but only one of them could afford it.
“They told me at the health center that they would put me on the waiting list and they would contact me, but they never did,” says Miriam, who has three daughters and found it impossible to pay for a psychologist. Ana, on the other hand, was attended by a specialist by the public, but she told her that she had no training in grief due to suicide and she gave her the contact of the DSAS. For her part, Mònica was able to afford to pay for a psychologist, although she had a hard time connecting with anyone. “It is very sad that, if you are not lucky enough to be able to pay for it, you put up with it, and that the weight has to fall on the associations.”
Three years after the loss of their loved ones, they recognize that they are no longer the same. The loss by suicide has also taught them to better manage anxiety and be able to live with it. But it has also helped them to be more self-satisfied and to be more aware of themselves. And, above all, they have managed to remember their relatives for how they lived and not for how they died. “I like to talk about him and that he is present in the conversations,” Ana confesses about her older brother.
And although, in one way or another, they will always be present, Mònica’s physical absence weighs heavily on her every time she receives good news and she cannot call him and tell him. “I had a hard time understanding this and dealing with the pain of remembering that she is no more.” And she adds: “I’ve learned to manage it so that it doesn’t hurt me the way it did before, but I’ll never get over it.”