Quote:
Originally Posted by f6twister
Being angry at him may not be fair or productive but still remains how I feel. I'm sure my anger mostly stems from my inability to understand how suicide becomes an option. Its just one of those things that is hard to understand if you haven't been in that situation personally.
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You say that I didn't know him well but I'm not sure why you believe that. Is there an assumption that if I truly knew him well that I would have seen his suicide attempt coming?
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Most people who know and care for someone who attempts suicide are angry about it. Depending on how close you were, you may feel anything from disgust that someone would take the "easy way out" or you may feel betrayed that they were so selfish as to
harm themselves without thinking about how that would make you feel. This is especially bad for children and spouses of suicidal people.
Thing is, these people are not in their right minds when they try such a thing. Their logic makes perfect sense to them, but seems bizarre or even stupid to a healthy person. For example, a husband and father may genuinely believe that his family is better off without him, and that they will be happier after he is dead.
For this reason, you really won't be able to truly understand why he did it in an intellectual and logical fashion. Nevertheless, you can work to understand in a compassionate way how badly he must have been hurting even if you don't understand why, and respond accordingly with caring, not anger.
I don't think anyone is implying that you should have seen it coming. Especially if you have always been mentally healthy, you cannot be expected to pick up on his hints, even if there were any. They wouldn't make any sense to you even if you did pick up on them - "Why did his give away his cat? He loved that cat!"