Losing a Parent to Suicide

Using Lived Experiences to Inform Bereavement Counseling

Marty Loy, Amy Boelk

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135071530
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy Counselling
• Index: Psychology

The suicide of a parent has life-long consequences; few more traumatic scenarios exist, and counselors often struggle for ways to help clients deal with its effects. Few understand the pain and life-altering effects of these tragedies better than children who have experienced the suicide of a parent. Despite this, there are few texts that incorporate and evaluate the first-person accounts of grief following a suicide while advancing a method for helping. Losing a Parent to Suicide analyzes stories of parent suicides and explores the grief and coping processes that follow, discovering the strategies, methods and modes of therapy that have empowered grieving individuals and helped them rebuild their lives.

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Introduction

Suicide impacts thousands of parents every year; secondarily affected are between 10,000 and 20,000 bereaved children and thousands of children exposed to a parent’s suicide attempt (Pfeffer, Karus, Siegel, & Jiang, 2000). For every person who dies by suicide, there are at least six people significantly touched by that death (Pompili, M., Innamorati, M., Raja, M., Falcone, I., Ducci, G., Angeletti, G., Lester, D., Girardi, P., Tatarelli, R., De Pisa, E. 2008). Among adults ages 25–44, the group most likely to have children at home, suicide is the fourth leading cause of death (Heron, 2012).

Children bereaved by the suicide of a parent are known to be particularly vulnerable, and according to Webb (1991) such children are left “profoundly and traumatically” bereft. In fact, one in five children bereaved by suicide will have emotional and behavioral difficulties at a level to justify referral to a specialist (Mitchell, A. M., Wesner, S., Brownson, L., Dysart-Gale, D. D., Garand, L., & Havill, A. 2006). Even so, the impact of parental suicide on children has been given little attention by the mental health field; though there are many studies related to suicide, few address the impact of parental suicide on surviving children (Cain, 2002). It is certain that the suicide of a parent has lifelong consequences, yet little is known about the long-term impacts of early responses, and no studies exist that allow adults to describe their experience with childhood parental suicide.

Overview of This Book

The information, insights, and stories shared in this book will help counselors better understand the experience of children who have had a parent die of suicide, allowing them to more effectively assist in the recovery process. In this first chapter we provide background on the underlying study used to inform the book, introduce the survivors whose stories will unfold, and through a brief review of the child and adolescent bereavement literature, place the book in context among other books written about suicide and its effects on survivors. Chapters 2 through 5 reveal the challenges, supports, coping mechanisms, and growth perceived by the survivors of parental suicide interviewed for our study. Within each chapter you will find a brief discussion of relevant literature, an elucidation of themes generated through our analysis of interview transcripts, and quotes from survivors in support of each theme. Implications for professionals are discussed in Chapter 6, giving credence to the experiences of survivors as valuable to our understanding of “best practices.” Between chapters are interspersed the stories of 16 of the 22 parental suicide survivors that we interviewed. Each survivor reflects on his or her own particular experience and shares the story behind his or her grief.

This book confirms and strengthens much of what is already expressed in the literature. We identify unique challenges faced by children after losing a parent to suicide and describe support efforts that were helpful and not helpful. We highlight individual coping strategies and convey how survivors grew as a result of their trauma. While these topics have been discussed in other sources, this work gives voice to survivor perspectives, as they reflect on their lives immediately following the suicide and in subsequent years. Few have written of people’s experiences beyond the suicide (Maple, 2005), or have captured the survivor’s perspective. This is especially true in the case of child survivors, in which research is needed to reveal their particular experiences and identify longer-term needs and concerns (Cerel, Jordan, & Duberstein, 2008).

We also present new insights about suicide bereavement in children and teens. One participant used the term “do nothing support” to describe the importance of “just being with someone.” The importance of journaling and other forms of writing also emerged. We gained a better understanding of the roles of mental illness and family functioning in cases of parental suicide and the associated implications for recovery. We gained insight into the experience of a child having to participate in the notification of other family members of the death, and of the challenge of healing alongside a “checked out mom.” We were surprised by participants’ reflections on the insensitivities of law enforcement, clergy, and teachers and how such interactions left lasting impressions. These and other important aspects of parental suicide are revealed as you read on and bear witness to the experiences of a courageous group of people.

Suicide of a Parent in Childhood: The Study

The study informing this book examined factors that helped and hindered recovery following the suicide of a parent during childhood. We asked 22 adult participants to tell us about their experiences as children following the suicide of their parent, and to describe how the experience shaped them. We aimed to discover what was helpful and what was not, learn participants’ impressions of various interventions, gain insights to build on existing knowledge, and use information gained to inform professional practice.

We recruited participants using a convenience sample from a list of 92 adults who as children attended Camp HOPE, a camp for grieving children, or who asked to participate after learning of the study. In-depth interviews took place in person, utilizing a qualitative, semistructured interview process. This approach was chosen because it is more interactional and substantive when trying to understand the meaning of participants’ experiences (Warren, 2002).

Open-ended questions helped guide conversation and seek information and understanding with the intent of gaining a deep level of understanding from the participants’ perspectives (Johnson, 2002). In addition to asking participants to describe the circumstances surrounding their parent’s death, we asked the following questions: What support did you have immediately following the death? What support did you have throughout your childhood and teen years? What challenges did you face throughout your childhood and teen years because of your parent’s suicide? What have you done to cope with the suicide and its related challenges? How are you doing now? In what ways, if any, did your parent’s death have a positive influence on your life? Probing questions were used gently as follow-ups to generate more detail and description when answers were brief.

Many safeguards were put into place. Pseudonyms were used to protect participant identities and data was stored securely. It was also important to keep in mind that children with a family history of suicide are two and a half times more likely to take their own lives (American Association of Suicidology, 2005). Interviewers were trained using the QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) method of recognizing suicidal dispositions, assessing the immediacy of the threat, and knowing how to report it. In addition, participants were provided with contact information for local support services available to them.

While we were naturally concerned about the psychological strain involved with recounting a traumatic life experience, existing literature suggests that the retelling of traumatic events can be helpful in understanding, gaining control of, and making meaning of those events (Neimeyer & Sands, 2011). We found this to be true during our investigation. When asked later about the effect of our study on their healing, participants were clear that it was both difficult and healing at the same time. Amber, for example, commented that the interview was “cathartic and allowed me to better understand my own journey.”

The 40 hours of audiotaped interviews were transcribed word-for-word into nearly 600 pages for analysis. Obtaining a verbatim record of each interview is considered an ideal method to ensure that subsequent analyses are valid and meaningful (Johnson, 2002). We first used the transcriptions to construct autobiographical stories by rewriting each interview in a first-person story format. The participants then edited their stories for accuracy. Care was taken to preserve the voice of each participant, remove redundancies, improve readability, and logically organize each story chronologically or by theme. Several participants used the term “committed suicide” when telling their stories. This term can be viewed as insensitive, and because of its stigma and connotation of fault it is rarely used by professionals. However, in order to retain the participant voice, we kept the term within the story when it was used by the participant.

We further used the transcribed interviews for analysis of common themes across participant experiences. Transcripts were reviewed line by line, and code names, or labels, were given to chunks of data. We then organized this coded data into higher-order themes representing participants’ experiences. Several techniques were used to enhance analytic rigor and trustworthiness of our findings, including (1) peer debriefing, a co-coding process involving ongoing comparative analysis and discussion of intersubjective agreement among the primary researchers at each step of the analysis; (2) auditing that involved careful documentation of the process followed in the development of codes, memos, and analytic decisions; (3) member checking whereby participants reviewed and validated the analysis; and (4) searching for disconfirming evidence, which involved combing the data to disconfirm various assertions made as a result of the analysis (Creswell, 1998; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Padgett, 1998).

The Participants

As you read further, you will meet 22 courageous people and hear about their journeys. Several talk about what was gained and how they grew as a result of their experiences. You will be impressed with their resilience, strength, and insight. You will be inspired by what they have overcome, what they aspire to, and who they have become. As our way of introducing them to you, we now share their brief profiles.

	Participant 1 is Amber, who was 22 years old at the time of the interview. Amber’s mother died by suicide when she was 16, and she discovered the body. Amber is an aspiring poet.
	Participant 2 is Fred, age 28. His father died by suicide when he was 16 years old. Fred served in the Iraq war. He has six siblings.
	Participant 3 is Dirk, age 27. Dirk’s father died when he was 16 years old, and he witnessed the suicide. As a child, Dirk had trouble with his temper. A parent himself, Dirk comes across as a hard worker, family man, and nice guy.
	Participant 4 is Brooke, age 28. Brooke’s father died of suicide when she was 12. Brooke’s grief was complicated because her father sexually abused her. She served time in prison as a result of her involvement in a homicide. Brooke feels good about telling her story “so that others can learn from my mistakes.”
	Participant 5 is Lisa, age 30. Her mother died when Lisa was 9, and her father died when she was 15, both by suicide. Attending Camp HOPE was a life-changing experience for her. She noted that “Everyone was so focused on what they were going through that they kind of forgot about us … two little kids who just lost a mother.” Lisa is now a caring mother for her own three children.
	Participant 6 is Shane, age 18. His father died of suicide when he was 12. At one point he was expelled from school. He made a promise to himsel...