Last words, lots of questions

Article by: ELLEN CREAGER , Detroit Free Press
Updated: September 13, 2012 - 12:38 PM

Suicide notes leave as many questions as answers for survivors. It is a question more families have to face.

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A pencil drawing of Hal Margolis who committed suicide ten years ago and an envelope that contains a letter for his daughter Rebecca DeRaud is shown.

Photo: Regina H. Boone, MCT

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Kathy Baringer of Dearborn Heights, Mich., lost her 22- year-old son, Joshua, five years ago when he died by hanging himself in his apartment.

He left no note. She says he only left one last brief text message to a girlfriend, "Have a good life."

When her other son, ex-husband and Joshua's girlfriend arrived to discover him dead, they searched the apartment high and low for a note, any note, to explain why he'd taken his life.

"It is all a part of the blame, the terror," says Baringer, 53, who still weeps thinking of the worst day of her life. "They were looking for a note because they thought for sure there would be a note. . I think it is a part of wanting answers."

But there was nothing. He was gone.

Studied by everyone from the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky to modern psychologists, the suicide note remains an enigma. Why do some people leave them, and others don't? Is it better for families to have a note or not? And what is their significance?

It is a question more families have to face.

Hip-hop producer Chris Lighty shot himself in New York a few weeks ago. He left no note. Eleven days before that, Hollywood director Tony Scott jumped off a California bridge. He left a note -- but no explanation.

While much press is focused on the tragic drama of people who die, America's estimated 5.4 million family members left behind after suicide endure a painful, lonely search for clues. Because the majority of suicides are men, most of the survivors left to pick up the pieces are women. Only 34 percent of people who die by suicide leave a note, suicide tracking data show.

"They may bring comfort to a family that can hold onto them, but the notes don't have what people think is in there -- a clear explanation as to the why," says Jean Larch, who runs a suicide survivors group in Chesterfield Township, Pa. "Their content mostly is about they don't fit in, they have a lot of pain and they are seeking peace. They are mechanical when they are writing the note. They are not in their right mind."

Rebecca DeRaud did not know that her father, Hal Margolis, was contemplating suicide. She knew he'd lost his job. That he seemed a bit anxious and depressed, "but he always said, everything is great, everything is good," she says.

He left three suicide notes upstairs. None of them answered the question of why.

"His note was very apologetic, saying, 'I hope you can forgive me for this one selfish act I've done.' He really was a selfless person. It was four pages long. The theme of it was, 'I'm so sorry, but in the big picture, I'm a scarred individual and you are better off without me.'"

Now DeRaud, 41, a social worker at Angela Hospice in Livonia, Mich., counsels families who have experienced suicide loss. "You have to incorporate this huge tragedy into your identity," she says, knowing firsthand how hard that is.

Because Kathy Baringer's son left no suicide note, the distraught family struggled to re-create Joshua's last days, searching for clues. They remembered his rising pain and anger, arguments about his use of marijuana, a rift with his girlfriend -- but no answer to why he'd hung himself.

After Joshua's suicide, Baringer walked through her days in a fog. She told her husband she would understand if he left her (he didn't.) Finally coaxed into counseling by her family, she was ashamed when the therapist gave her a hug.

"It was really difficult to accept the hug," she says, "because didn't she know I couldn't save my son?"

But it was a turning point. Gradually, Baringer, who is a social worker, came up from the bottom of grief.

"My journey over the past 5 years has been one I would not wish on another," she says. "I have lost my son and struggle with the fact that I will live the rest of my life without him."

Contrary to what might seem logical, suicide notes can cause more pain than they help, bereavement counselors say. They can cause rifts, blame and confusion. And counselors say men and women react to them similarly.

DeRaud recently was counseling the mother of a man who had taken his own life. There was a note, "but the man's wife didn't want his mother to see the note, so she never did see it," DeRaud says. "It has impaired (the mother's) grief process because she has always wondered what was in it."

By confirming that a person intended suicide, a note can crush the family's hope that perhaps the death was unintentional.

Mostly, notes reveal the distorted logic of a person who thinks suicide is a reasonable act to end suffering.

"They assume people will grieve and be sad, but that people will be better off in the end," says Sheri Katz, a social worker at Angela Hospice, who does suicide-loss counseling.

Would a suicide note made sense of Joshua Baringer's death? His mother doesn't know.

"Later, we found out he'd been thinking about suicide for a long time," she says. " Even though it was impulsive that night, or even if we had stopped him that night, unless he got help, that doesn't mean he wouldn't have tried it another time. "

The reach of suicide

An estimated 5.4 million people have had a loved one commit suicide in the past 25 years.

33.9 percent leave suicide notes, national data show.

72 percent do not disclose an intention to commit suicide.

Men are four times as likely to commit suicide as women, although women make more attempts.

Source: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Michigan Department of Community Health, American Association of Suicidology and the CDC

Suicide hotline

Among the warning signs of suicide are: talking about suicide, expressions of hopelessness, personality changes, depression or giving away possessions. If you or a loved one is thinking of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention hot line: 800-273-8255. It will connect you with a counselor at a crisis center in your area 24 hours a day.

Evaluating notes

Suicide notes have a value beyond the family as a research tool. Since 1949, when psychologist Edwin Shneidman discovered hundreds of suicide notes in the coroner's office of the VA hospital in Los Angeles and studied their significance, researchers have learned both a lot and a little:

Common themes are hopelessness and statements of love.

One study found that women left more notes than men; another found the opposite.

Notes that contain "self-blame" language are more distressing to survivors, a 1987 study found.

One concluded that a note is a last effort to reach out, "even in the face of death."

Survivor support

Find a complete list of survivors' counseling and groups in your area at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention website, www.afsp.org, under "surviving suicide loss."

Book: "Dying to be Free: A Healing Guide for Families After a Suicide" by Jean Larch and Beverly Cobain (Hazelden, $12.95).

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