In this second of a two-part series on suicide, we will move from a discussion on the suicidal individual and ways to seek help for them to those who have survived the suicide of a loved one. Dr. Amy Canuso, a Psychiatrist at St. Anthony Regional Hospital, says she cannot stress to those individuals enough, this is not their fault.
Suicide, she says, is often like someone drowning and you throw them a rope…but they don’t take it. Because they don’t take a hold of that lifeline and access a mechanism of survival, it is not your fault. You did not make that choice. And as is the case in many circumstances, if you didn’t even know a person was drowning, you never had the opportunity to throw that rope. Understanding this is extremely difficult for anyone, but especially for children.