Support group available
to help suicide survivors
By Emily Baldauf
Staff
Writer
Four years ago, Karmen Vandewalle’s husband
killed himself, leaving her alone with two young children and many painful
questions.
She initially tried to cope with feelings of guilt
and helplessness by going back to her Christian upbringing. Although
it was somewhat of a comfort, feelings of shame and sadness were still
part of her daily life.
It wasn’t until she saw a notice in a local
newspaper about a local support group that she began considering looking
for comfort in the arms of strangers.
The organization, Survivors of Suicide Support
Group, provides encouragement, coping skills, understanding and friendship
in a group setting. It enables survivors to go on living and eventually,
to reinvest in life.
The group meets from 7-8:30 p.m. on the third Monday
of every month in the west lounge of St. Elizabeth Hospital School of
Nursing.
"At that point, I had never really dealt with
everything," Vandewalle said. "It seemed like the next likely
place was to go to talk to others who had been through the same experience."
Although she had received some comfort from friends
and family, the group gave her a different kind of support. Other survivors
could empathize with Vandewalle in ways her friends and family could
not.
"Sometimes you have family and friends who
are not willing to talk because they want to ignore it and go on with
their life, or it brings them so much pain to talk about," she
said. "Although the people at the group don’t know your whole
story, they can still give you valuable insight to dealing with it."
Many suicide survivors say the mourning process
following a suicide is different from that following any other kind
of death. Suicides leave many survivors feeling as though they could
have stopped the death.
According to the American Association of Suicidology,
based in Washington, D.C., one person kills himself or herself every
17.2 minutes. More people die by their own hands than by another’s;
suicide is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States, and
homicide ranks 13th, according to the association.
Christopher Lukas and Henry M. Seiden, authors
of "Silent Grief: Living in the Wake of Suicide," estimate
that 60,000 people commit suicide annually. They theorize if each person
committing suicide had eight people close to them, then about 500,000
people become suicide survivors every year.
Vandewalle had many unanswered questions, but the
hardest one to live with was "why?" The people in the support
group gave her the courage to realize she was not to blame for her husband’s
death.
"The only person responsible for suicide is
the person that committed the suicide, and that is very hard for friends
and family to realize," Vandewalle said.
She has continued to attend the support meetings
on a regular basis for close to three years, and Vandewalle feels that
she can use her experience to help others.
"This is nothing I would have chosen, but
it was the hand I was dealt, and now I have to do something with it,"
Vandewalle said.
Cheryl Ubelhor, the executive director of the Lafayette
Crisis Center and group facilitator, said there is a specific topic
at each meeting as well as time for survivors to talk about their struggles.
"I think when a survivor talks to another
survivor they experience a huge feeling of relief," Ubelhor said.
"I think it is very important for people who are suicide survivors
to get help and work through the grieving process."
· For more information about the group, contact
the Crisis Center at 742-0244 or visit the center at 1244 North 15th
St. in Lafayette.
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