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TopWHAT IF SOMEONE COMMITS SUICIDE?
Again, this may be something that some may find it very hard to read. What if someone commits suicide? The idea has been expressed that in the Christian tradition the person would be expected to "go to Hell." What is someone tries? The idea has been expressed that the person has committed a major sin. Is that true? Is there something broader that should be considered? What kind of issues could we be thinking about?
First, let’s define what it is we’re talking about. Let’s consider suicide or an act of serious self-harm that would leave lasting damage to the body in the same light. Let’s consider attempted suicide to be an action that could reasonably be expected to have a clear risk of death, or lasting damage to the body, even if in a particular situation that ended up not happening.
In talking about suicide, there are two special factors that have to be considered. If someone does in fact commit suicide, they don’t get a chance to go back and reconsider. It’s pretty final. The same holds true if there’s damage to part of the body. If someone severely damages or destroys their liver with an overdose, there can be attempts to help it to heal or correct it, but the liver is damaged. It may remain destroyed. We’re not talking about something where someone can easily decide later "Oh, never mind. That wasn’t too good of an idea." The seriousness and permanence of what we’re talking about has to be always remembered.
OK, having said that, there can be a lot of different reasons and circumstances involved in someone committing suicide. Sometimes, people will use another term than "suicide" when they think that the circumstances are special enough that it should be considered differently. A soldier in Korea may decide to throw himself on top of a hand grenade tossed into his foxhole, as a way of trying to save his friends by dying himself. That is not called suicide but an act of heroism. If he’s lucky the hand grenade doesn’t go off. Things would be looked at differently if he had just gotten a "Dear John" letter from his girlfriend and he was disappointed that the grenade was a dud. People would take into account what his intention was.
I would suggest that in situations involving suicide, bearing in mind the unique seriousness, it is important to look at and make an assessment of other issues as well, such as the reason for the act, complicating factors, and how much freedom of choice was present at the time. Rather than just the act itself, I would think that the moral evaluation would depend much more heavily on the other factors.
There are many reasons that a person can have for suicide or attempted suicide. At times, it can be a way of manipulating another person. It can be a way of attacking or harming someone else. It can be a way of telling the therapist that you think they’re mean. It can be a way of causing pain to the present family or the past family. Suicide can be an act of violence, an act of hatred, an act based on a desire for power over others. The suicide or suicide attempt can be used as a way of carrying out that abuse.
Suicide can also be a way that a person chooses to escape from some sort of pain or a life situation that is found to be intolerable. It can be based on a view that no other choices are realistically possible. It can be based on a sense of powerlessness or being trapped by a situation. It can be a form of escape, but it can have the nature of an insistence that others take on the role of being rescuers. It is a statement that other options are not possible, and that other options cannot be developed. Often when someone attempts or commits suicide what is going on is some form of true clinical depression, in which the ability to look at things, to develop other options, to weigh feelings and ideas, etc. is lessened. It can be as if the whole world is being looked at through gloom-colored glasses. There are other emotional dynamics that can enter the picture and influence or distort the person’s decision-making ability. Sometimes someone isn’t really even attempting suicide, but is taking pills as an attempt to medicate themselves but it got out of control, or hurts the body because of a situation called "dysphoria" or even because of an addiction to a kind of narcotic the body produces. Someone else may label it "suicide attempt" when it really wasn’t.
Suicide can be seen by someone as a kind of symbolic empowerment in a particular situation. It can be viewed as a way of saying "I am master of my own fate. I have a right to determine what happens to me, and this is the way that I’m going to say that." Clearly, there are a lot of other ways that would be preferred in making that statement, but for a particular person, at a particular time, that may be what is being communicated.
I’m sure that many other reasons for suicide could be stated or found. In the situation of MPD, things get quite a bit more complex. One personality may believe that they can die without anything happening to others. One personality may be acting on the basis of a battle with others within. One personality may think that somehow they are acting to protect or defend someone else. There may be, based on what is going on internally, a very fuzzy sense of what is real. There may be a belief that it is another time or place, or there may be emotions coming from a past trauma that are not clearly recognized. There may be a sense of powerlessness from the past that blinds to other options that are really present, or that could be developed. There may be a sense of compulsion to act on what someone, outside or inside, has ordered to occur. With some, there may be a sense that you can die, and yet still wake up after and continue on, as if death isn’t really something permanent. There may be a distorted sense of time, as if a misery currently being felt has gone on forever, even if in reality it’s been a day or a week. Depression is often present at least for one or more personalities, and sometimes may have an impact on almost all. Again, there’s probably a lot more that’s not being mentioned, but I think this at least suggests that it’s often hard to evaluate what is actually going on.
The moral evaluation must take into account all of these different factors, not just the act itself. One thing that tends to occur with patients in general is that after a suicide attempt they condemn themselves, and that often ends up slowing down the process of recovering or gives them a new reason to attack themselves or feel depressed. At the very least there is often a sense of feeling "out of control" and miserable. Often, there is an attempt to evaluate the act while still in the midst of whatever clinical situation was going on with the act itself. Gloom-colored glasses, abuse-colored glasses, etc. are not very helpful with the process.
I’ve often heard the idea expressed that the reason suicide as an act is condemned is because it is based on "despair." Usually there’s not too good a definition of despair. I’ve also heard the idea that God gave us life and that no one may insult that gift by ending it. Again, I would look to what is going on. The soldier jumping on the hand grenade may continue to be a good example. How much of a difference should we allow for the idea that the soldier didn’t throw the hand grenade into the trench himself? What difference would we allow for someone going out on a "suicide mission" where the chances of survival are about zero?
When I was going through the seminary I did quite a bit of research on the idea of suicide and wrote several papers on the subject, including an analysis of what is found in the Bible, in the history of the Church, and in general moral theology. I don’t know where those papers disappeared to, but I still remember at least some of the details. It may be helpful to review some of those ideas. Much of what is usually said about the idea of suicide is an oversimplification of what were often societal issues rather than religious ones.
There is little clear indication of a prohibition of suicide until fairly late, at the Council of Toledo in 500 something AD. Earlier indications were at best unclear, including references in the Bible. Perhaps the most often quoted idea is that Judas was condemned because of committing suicide. In fact, one reference to Judas’ death did say that he hung himself, but another reference had him falling forward and splitting open, and the connection with suicide is at least unclear. Later references to Judas saw the issue not as being the way that he died, but that he reached the conclusion that Christ could never forgive him for what he had done. He saw his life as essentially without the possibility of redemption. That was the sin that was usually being referred to. The phrase I remember was "despaired of God’s love."
In Jewish history, around the time of the destruction of the temple by the Romans in the mid 70 ADs, there is the story of the death of Macabbean followers at Masada. Surrounded in a mountain fortress, they decided to die rather than be taken prisoner to be sold into slavery or killed by the Romans. It was important to them to die with the name of God on their lips, as a free nation. So all of them killed themselves or asked another to kill them. That action was seen by the Jewish people as an act of honor. In fact, today when a Jewish soldier takes his or her oath of allegiance to the defense of Israel, they make their pledge standing on a cliff on the ruins of the fortress of Masada. It is part of their dedication that never again will the Jewish people be defenseless.
I think that the general Christian and Jewish attitude in early Christian times was that killing is presumed to be wrong, whether you kill yourself or you kill someone else. For Christians there was a major concern about whether you could join the army and risk the "spilling of blood" (recognizing that there was also a problem in the usual practice of worship of Mars, the god of War.) Another issue to be worked with was the question of under what circumstances self-defense was permissible. I would expect at least some problem with the idea of someone taking their own life, but I think it would be considered along the same lines.
I can’t remember the name of a slightly later controversy but I could look it up if it’s important. There was what was later condemned as a heresy in the early Church. There were some who felt that the greatest thing any Christian could do was to die for the faith. Martyrdom was seen as the ultimate following of Christ. Well, there was a time when no one seemed interested in persecuting or killing Christians. What some Christians came up with as a solution was to gather together and jump off of cliffs into the sea. They felt that if that way of dying was to them martyrdom, then it was. The Church said "wrong, not OK." The issue wasn’t suicide but the nature of life as a Christian.
The Council of Toledo simply said "Suicide is wrong." I don’t remember there being much more detail. My own sense is that it was as much societal as anything, as much an issue of justice as personal moral obligation. If a father of a family in those times killed himself, his wife and children may well end up starving, having to become slaves or prostitutes, simply in order to live. There was a very practical obligation to others that was undermined by suicide.
Things got really carried away in the Middle Ages, as reflected in English law, which most of us are familiar with, and which is responsible for many of the presumptions that are made about suicide. I think that the English law in many ways was reflected in the laws of other countries as well, but I didn’t research those.
In English law, suicide was viewed as a direct attack on society. The person was seen as stealing from the king, since he in effect owned the citizens. There was reflected the idea "What happens if everyone decides to kill themselves just because their life is miserable?" Everyone’s life, except perhaps the nobility, was pretty miserable. (Please don’t read this part without all defenses in place.) There was a combination of societal and religious motivation that led to the following penalty for suicide: The person’s property was forfeit to the king, leaving the rest of the family to starve. The person who killed himself was hung, drawn, and quartered. The body was hung, then tied to four horses that would go in different directions, then chopped up. The body was taken to a crossroads, with the idea that it was a place apart from God. The body would be covered with stones rather than buried, and each person passing by was expected to spit on the grave and curse the person who died. By not being buried in blessed ground the person was expected to never be able to be at rest.
Does this seem like a bit of extreme reaction? Many of the same ideas persisted over time. Condemnation of the family of someone who died as if they were also to blame, the sense that the person who committed suicide is apart from God, refusal to pay life insurance policies, at one time the refusal to bury the person in blessed ground, and a general attitude of hatred, fear, and scorn of the person who died—all of that has continued. Until fairly recently, in most places it was considered a crime to attempt to commit suicide. (By the way, this has nothing to do with the idea of "physician-assisted suicide" – that’s a very different issue.)
With the development of the idea that the person who attempts suicide has an emotional problem, there was the possibility of a bit lighter attitude. That concept at least allowed the clergy to give someone who died "the benefit of the doubt" when it came to the funeral. Many clergy also used the idea that the person may have changed their mind before dying.
I continue to have a problem with the idea that suicide as such should be viewed in any way differently than we view other issues. It’s not just the act, but many other factors that need to be considered. Was there an attack or assault on others via the act? Was there an emotional problem that reduced or removed true moral responsibility? Was there confusion or disorientation or a forgetting of what it means for someone to die? Was this an attack by one personality on another? Was part of the problem a failure of those who are supposed to help, leaving the person with less options than are really supposed to be there? (Such as having someone in intense physical pain with a doctor who refuses to try to really treat the pain?) Did the person try to do all that they realistically could? All of that and more would need to be considered.
I am one human being. I can’t possibly know or evaluate all the factors involved, and usually neither can the person involved in a suicide attempt. In that case, I’d rather see the attention of all involved be focused on working out something that will lead toward healing. If the situation is one of actual suicide, I think that God can do a much better job of figuring things out. By the way, I think that Christ well understands grief (remember Lazarus) and the sense of abandonment (the cross) and terror of the future (the agony in the Garden) and abandonment by friends (Nazareth) as well as raw pain. I think that God understands each of us better than any human. To paraphrase something I’ve heard around Rainbow House, "If God can’t understand, who can."
There are times that some therapist or counselor will ask clergy to reinforce a patient’s fear of Hell if they commit suicide. When I’ve been asked, I did not respond very nicely. I am not in favor of suicide or attempted suicide, and I think that sometimes people push others in that direction whether they admit it or not. I think that is what should be challenged rather than attempting to increase fear. If it is true that all that is keeping someone with emotional problems from committing suicide is a fear of God, I think that it would be far more effective for the person to not commit suicide because of a sense of God’s understanding. Often, I think that it is a profound sense of alienation and looking through fuzzy glasses that leads someone in that direction in the first place. More creativity is needed, not more pressure.
If anything is to be condemned, it should be manipulation, or violence, or an absence of true choices. If anything should be fostered it should be courage, and compassion, and community, and creativity. When there is a strong and extreme condemnation of suicide, it usually says a lot more about the fears of the person doing the condemning than the thing being condemned.
One word about "physician-assisted suicide." I think that the idea is a farce. Active killing of our sick is a cop-out for society. Things rapidly turn from a stated concern about someone’s misery to sending them a strong and clear message that they are viewed as worthless, that their life has no "quality" and that for the good of others they are hereby expected to die. By the way, those criteria would also come to be applied to those too young or sick to even give any input into the decision. Physician-assisted suicide can rapidly become a vehicle for abandonment by family. For a doctor to become involved changes the essential character of the relationship with the patient. It makes worse the interference of insurance companies or, if that occurs, national health care. It increases the relative power of the doctor in relation to the patient. The whole idea is not something new—it’s been around in some form or another for a long time. It has always been a disaster. What makes anyone think that our wisdom and compassion has gotten that much better? What makes anyone thing that we can avoid the same traps that have been there before? Oh well.
Different groups have different views and traditions, but let me tell you what my pastoral practice is with the Sacrament of Reconciliation. First, the presumption I make is that if someone is in the hospital for an emotional problem or substance abuse they are not capable of celebrating the full Sacrament. For the full celebration, the person has to be able to look at what has occurred, evaluate it, and choose to change, with a reasonable idea of what that will mean and how they will go about it. That requires an ability to realistically look at things, and also, I believe, for emotions to be appropriate to what is being talked about. I simply don’t think that balance and ability is there. If we do celebrate the Sacrament, I, and the Church, are in the position of arguing with the person about what is reality and what intensity of emotions are appropriate, or, if you simply accept what the person says you are in the position of confirming how they feel about things whether appropriate or not. It’s a huge mess.
For that reason, I refuse to celebrate the Sacrament, and explain that to the person. The usual response after a minute is "That makes sense." I then offer the proclamation of forgiveness that is central to the Sacrament, with the understanding that they will later, perhaps months later, celebrate the full Sacrament when an appropriate balance has returned.
OK, let’s say I did celebrate the Sacrament with someone who had just attempted suicide. Let’s go through just one possible situation.
What would be important? What might we see as "the sin" involved? We wouldn’t stop at the idea that pills were taken, etc. but go beyond that. That was just the vehicle. Why did you take the pills? "I was angry and felt alone and abandoned and felt that my husband didn’t love me anymore because he had an affair." Was anything else involved? "Well, I had been what the doctor called "depressed" and had been taking pills for a long time. I was finding myself less depressed but kind of "jumpy" and irritable."
Eventually we may end up identifying the possible "sin" as being an act of violence against the husband, using a very dangerous attack on her own body as the vehicle. The responsibility may in fact be lessened by the depression and possible side effect of meds. That might be the "confession." What about healing and reconciliation? Working on what is going on in the marriage, with clear and honest discussions with the husband, would be strongly encouraged. Working with the staff on the issue of depression and medication would also be encouraged. Making a clear plan for dealing with emotional pain without violence may be part of the "penance" (actions agreed upon as part of the healing with the understanding that they must be fulfilled as part of the Sacrament.) I might ask the person to write down such a plan, to pick three people in the next 24 hours and tell them something positive (and true) about themselves, and engage in one activity that feels calming and healing. I could also suggest something like a massage or warm bath or something as a way of being nice to the body that she attacked unfairly.
I realize that this description has been long, and there’s a lot more that could be said. The question of suicide is not a simple one, for the patient, mental health staff, family, or clergy. It tends to lead to a pattern of overreaction. For many people (and not just the person considering suicide) there is an strong undertone of the exercise of power. Motivations are often unclear. It deserves to be treated seriously and honestly. I hope this helps.
© Fr J Mahoney