Why do people write suicide notes?

To tell those they’ve left behind that it is not their fault.

To clarify their actions, probably. if they felt that no one understood them, they probably feel a need to explain why they felt such action was necessary (to them).

or just a sense of drama~

You don’t seem to grasp the pressure that drives a person to suicide. They don’t necessarily stop caring about others. Many suicide notes are goodbyes and apologies. Others are accusatory or confessional in nature.

What @DarkScribe said, and to add to that, they may want to leave a pet or child to a specific loved one, so the note can act in their mind as a will.

@augustlan—Or to tell them that it is…

They have the mistaken idea that explaining their reasons and telling those they left behind that it’s not their fault will make those they left feel better about it somehow.

Unfortunately they are mistaken in that belief. It does not help in the least.

The only thing it does is shorten the investigative time spent by the detectives assigned to the case. Once they determine from handwriting samples that the note is genuine they no longer have to investigate the other family members as possible murder suspects. That’s about the sole value of a suicide note.

It does not provide any emotional solace to any of the survivors.

@MacBean True.

@Buttonstc It does not provide any emotional solace to any of the survivors.

This is absolutely untrue. It doesn’t make all the pain and loss go away, but it can provide some degree of solace. To be ignored, to have no explanation can add to the hurt – it alleviates that aspect. It will for instance make a huge difference to someone if they know that a person close to them committed suicide as a result of the effects of a painful, terminal illness rather than despair. There are other instances.

@astrakan, in that state of mind, logic doesn’t rule.

@ DarkScribe

I understand the logic behind your position but I’m speaking from experience, are you?

It’s not just my experience alone but everyone else in my family as well a many subsequent people, too many to count. For quite a while I attended meetings for SOS (Survivors Of Suicide) groups in several different US states.

That was a fairly frequent topic of conversation among us and I have yet to hear of anyone speaking about the suicide note being helpful in any appreciable way. Yes, it removes one from being a murder suspect so eliminates the stress of being under police scrutiny, but frankly that’s about it.

Logically one can convince himself that they are blameless, but every survivor whom I’ve encountered goes through a period of “if I had only” type of guilt. Doesn’t make any sense as it was the person’s own decision, but it’s there just the same. It’s just a normal stage of the process and nothing a note says changes that. It seems as if it should, but it just doesn’t. Feelings are what they are and shoulds or shouldn’ts are irrelevant.

I guess if someone chose suicide in the latter stages of a painful terminal illness that might be the one mitigating factor, but I never encountered folks in that circumstance so can’t really speak to that. Presumably the loved ones of that type of suicide would have been aware of the illness so the note would just be stating the obvious. But as I said, my experience has been with the un-obvious and notes do diddly-squat to lessen the emotional impact.

My mother in law’s 16 year old daughter it’s my husband’s step mother committed suicide and left no note. My MIL said she always wished that she had, so they could have known exactly why she did it. She hanged herself in the closet in the morning. My MIL said investigators told her they believe that the girl thought someone would find her because she did it around the time her dad usually woke her up. He said her bedroom light was on so he thought she was up and didn’t go in. So that’s probably why she left no note. It’s heart breaking. I am about the same age her daughter would have been, and she and I have a very close bond.

@Buttonstc I understand the logic behind your position but I’m speaking from experience, are you?

Yes, unfortunately. I am fifty-six years old and during my adolescent and adult life have had three direct family/friend suicide experiences and at one stage in my life I worked as a volunteer lifeline counselor until the stress from the inability to prevent a number of suicides got too much for me and for my wife. I gave it away in 1997. One of the constants was the increased level of bewilderment and stress caused by those who left no farewell note or letters. Some people blame themselves if the reason isn’t apparent.

Well, I can definitely understand why those without a note would be desirous of one. In fact this is one of the reasons why it was such a frequent topic of discussion amongst us and why I know how many many others besides myself found the note unhelpful.

I think what it comes down to is that regardless of what reason is given, there is NO good reason that will satisfy.

You still end up wondering why. This is what we tried so hard to convey to those who had no note. One young woman’s husband was a lawyer and wrote a well organized, point by point, reasoned explanation ( it was obvious he had been contemplating and planning this for some time and didn’t just dash if off at the last moment) and the PRIMARY effect it had upon her was that she blamed herself for not finding the note in time to stop him from acting on it. He had dated it about 3 mos. prior to acting on it.

The horror and finality of his act totally eclipsed all of his well “reasoned” rationale. It made no more sense to her than if he had written nothing.

I don’t know if any of your family members left a note or not. If they did and it was a comfort for you I am truly glad for that. And that would make you the first person I’ve ever encountered for whom that was true.

Those who express wanting a note so they can know why are assuming that it would be some type of comfort or help. And the absence of a note seems to cause it to loom larger in importance. The disappointing reality is that there is no good reason for such horrendous choice. There is nothing they could say that would satisfy.

The only possible exception
being terminal painful illness and perhaps that’s why you don’t find those coming to survivors groups because that does make logical sense. But for those cases, a note would just be confirming the obvious as the family would already presumably know the circumstances.

I used to work at a photo lab and once the county coroner brought in 15 or 20 rolls of film for me to develop. They were all of dead people. Suicides, car wrecks, everything. Anyhow this one guy had committed suicide by cutting his wrists then hanging himself from a tree in his backyard. On the same roll as the pictures of him, was a picture of his suicide note with the bloody knife stuck in it. It was really sad, the note was to a woman and it said something like “I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY NOW, YOU FUCKING BITCH” and some other angry words. It was a bit disturbing to see, but not as disturbing as the next roll, which featured a body in a garbage bag that was badly decaying. :(

So I suppose this guy wrote one to make sure his ex girlfriend felt bad? To prove a point?

It is a way to buy time. Hopefully finding a way to avoid offing yourself.

I don’t believe anyone ever really wants to die. I think they just want the pain (that they believe will never stop) to go away. It’s the only way they can conceive of that will take the pain away.

Sometimes—often—the pain comes from depression. Sometimes the depression is for no reason other than the brain chemicals went nuts. Other times some event kicks off the change in the brain that leads to depression.

It is my belief that most often, the pain comes from a belief that one is unloved or unlovable or shouldn’t be loved because one is so unworthy or evil or something. I believe that suicide is a call for help—it says, “can someone please remove the pain, please? I can’t do it, and it seems hopeless that it can be done.” People then attempt suicide in hopes that someone will fix them. Or, if they are really, totally hopeless and depressed and angry, they make sure it gets done. Inside, though, they really wish someone could have saved them at some point.

The note—I think, is partly a call for help and partly an assignment of blame. Even when the note tries to absolve everyone of blame, I think that is just because people want to prove to themselves it is justifiable to take this step. It says this is my choice to just get away from the pain. It is my failure. It says this, understanding somewhere deep inside that we are all connected, and there is no such thing as a completely personal failure.

Having said that, when I contemplated suicide, it never occurred to me to think about writing a note. Maybe I wasn’t that serious. I knew I didn’t really want to, but I couldn’t believe it would ever get any better. Suicide, for me, was a selfish thing. I knew that, in theory, people I cared about would be hurt, although I did not think they really needed me, and I was only harming them, and I knew better than they did what would be better for all of us. But mostly it was about stopping the pain.

I never want to go there again. Never! I love life, and even when I wanted to die, I loved life. It was all about the pain, and having given up hope of any reduction, ever, to the pain.

I wanted to believe I was lovable. Part of me hoped someone would show me I was lovable. There was a problem with this that I hadn’t counted on. People were trying to show me they loved me left and right. I just couldn’t believe it.

It’s all a mess, and it doesn’t really make sense, but that’s my experience and that’s why I believe what I believe, even though I’m not in anyone else’s head who has tried this.

I had to leave that post before I had really thought it through, and one other thing occurred to me afterwords.

I think that suicide is a very passive-aggressive act. You hurt yourself in order to show others how much pain you are in. When we are in pain, we often respond with anger. Depending on cultural assumptions, we may also feel a persecuted by a deep unfairness in the way we are treated by others. Still, we have to hide that anger, because if people knew we were killing ourselves to hurt them, we’d only get anger in return.

Thus, even though you are expressing your anger at others by hurting yourself, you have to hide the fact that you are angry at the unfairness of the world (and by extension, of those in it in their treatment of you). If you don’t hide your true feeling, then you won’t get any sympathy. So you can leave a suicide note in order to throw people off the scent. You tell them it isn’t their fault, even though, in your heart, you wish they would have treated you better, or somehow made the pain go away.

The people left behind who do feel guilty, and wonder what they could have done to prevent it, even though the note absolved them of guilt are right in their suspicion that they could have done something. Still, there should be anger in their response, too, because suicide is such an aggressive act. It is designed to shame others, and it works. It is cowardly in the sense that the person does not give anyone a chance, since they don’t ask for what they want, and they don’t take responsibility for getting what they want, if those around them won’t help.

Of course, if you are depressed, you may be unable to ask or take responsibility for helping yourself. Some people are very good at hiding their depression. In most societies, it is shameful to be mentally ill. So suicide can also be seen as an attempt to martyr oneself for the cause of destigmatizing mental illness. Human society does bear some blame for making it more difficult for people to be honest about the pain they are in.

So it’s very messed up. Passive aggression. Shame. Stigma. Unimaginable pain. Anger. Lack of empathy. Misdirection. Hidden agendas.

When I was thinking about it a lot, I still tried to be responsible about it. I remembered the time when I couldn’t ever imagine taking my own life. On some level, I knew that was still true, but the depression kept turning my thoughts towards suicide as a way to express my anger at myself, for failing me. I spoke openly about it to my psychiatrist and therapist and my depressed friends, even as I tried to hide it from my wife and children, so they wouldn’t know how bad off I was.

At the same time, I couldn’t hide it. My wife was terribly worried, and my kids started having emotional problems at school. Still, I hated myself—or thought I did, anyway. I felt horrible and there was no reason for that, so I had to make a reason. In addition, the thought of suicide made me feel important—in the sense that I believed what I was going through really mattered. It mattered enough so I was thinking of taking this step.

I never wanted it to be blackmail, though. If people loved me because I manipulated them into doing it, it wasn’t real. In my mind, they had to love me because they wanted to, not because I asked. I didn’t deserve it, unless they thought of helping me all on their own. Still, that was a passive-aggressive thing to do, I think. I wasn’t giving them a chance to show concern or to help. Even if they did show concern, I never believed it—I always found a reason why it wasn’t real.

My lack of self-worth was a real thing, and it made me think in dysfunctional ways. I was smart enough to be able to watch myself and analyze my emotions, as if I were an observer, and yet still be unable to change my behavior. That made me feel guilty and incompetent, which only made my hatred for myself worse. It just made it even harder for me to hear it when anyone told me they loved me.

I guess it’s a kind of negative feedback loop. Unfortunately, when it happens the first time, it happens without you being aware of it happening. That shouldn’t happen to me again. I will recognize the signs next time (if there is a next time), and I should be able to make myself get help sooner. I hope.

Some people don’t learn from these experiences. Or they get hopeless that they can learn. For me, self-criticism plays a big role, and so I have to be watching for that all the time. It is a sign that something is wrong. Not that I can stop thinking self-critical thoughts, but my coping technique is to try not to take those thoughts as seriously as I used to.

It’s so complicated. Issues of blame to spread around, and yet we also have to take responsibility for our feelings, even though we are sick and may be unable to to cope with the responsibility in a constructive way. We are in pain, and therefore angry at both ourselves and at others, but unable to express it except in this dramatic way. For many of us, it’s just thinking about it, and that’s a sign that something is very wrong. Others may not have enough introspection about what is going on in order to see the thoughts as a symptom, and so they have to carry it further. Sometimes to actually do it. Which damages everyone and leaves no one any way to change things.

Does any of this make sense?