Aftermath: The Legacy of Suicide
Filmmaker Lisa Fitzgibbons grew up with the uneasy feeling that things were not as they seemed. Then she finally learned that her father had committed suicide.
Surprised to discover that she is not alone, she reaches out to other survivors and meets two people who also lost their fathers to suicide at an early age.
Robert describes the 30 long years it took to force the truth into the open. Anne-Marie still regrets her refusal as a child to kiss her father goodbye before leaving for school that last morning.
We listen to their stories, presented simply and compassionately against a background of poetic images. In speaking of their experiences, buried emotions resurface. Hope is reborn as all three come to terms with their fathers' death - and with their own lives.
Suicide is an act meant to bring an end to great pain. Emotional and mental pain of a kind which leaves one believing there is no other answer. No one wants to end their life or cause pain to anyone else by doing so. They simply cannot see any other solution. That is the measure of the pain they feel. I'm glad I failed. I hope that I can recognize that pain in others, now, and perhaps prevent a tragedy, because, having survived, my message is, Yes, there are other solutions!.
I have always feel the aftermath of suicide, focuses on the pain of the survivors, but I always try to think about the pain felt by the person who was driven to suicide, who saw no way out of the pain, even knowing (in most cases) they would cause tremendous pain to loved ones, and yet STILL ended their life.
John Krisfalusci what exactly is the ROFL part? I really hope this is a joke. What I saw was more disturbing then ANY move professional movie maker could make up.
Aww Kay Gibbs I think we are kindred spirits! I was 17 when my mom did the deed. My father soon after drank himself to death. 30+ years later it still hurts. I'm not at all religious -band I worn them - but pray it NEVER happens to my kids!
I have loved ones who committed suicide, and I myself tried to do the same a few times. Suicide is the fatal result of mental illness. While it may appear to be an existential decision, a selfish act, or a reflection of weak character, it is none of these things. People who try to commit suicide suffer from depression and the associated negative thinking and negative perceptions that loop in the mind and seem to make sense, seem to be an accurate, but are distortions. Sadly they create a self-perpetuating downward spiral that is hard to pull out of. People contemplating suicide need professional help, not criticism for being weak or negative. There are surprisingly few resources for those among us contemplating suicide, and a lot of ignorance. People contemplating suicide need love and support, and most of all they need professional help.
Monster, your name say a lot. 'Nuff said.
Ahhhh nobody cares about those people. So what if they killed themselves? It's their business.
So sad to read all the postings about people losing loved ones to suicide. It is a devastating event that affects everyone, but the notion that it is a selfish act negates the depth and breadth of suffering o0ne endures before wanting to end their particular pain.
A big warm hug for all those who live with the pain and the questions left by suicide.
Suicide is the logical end of a thinking problem. Because the sciences refuse to admit that they have no explanation for the existence of thinking, or why it works in the way it does, we have the problems we do in addressing suicidal tendencies. My wife has bipolar disorder and this information is important because it allows me to bring a little certainty to a place where certainty has another meaning. We deal with her condition mostly by ourselves. What she needs, is a constant conversation, and I give her that. Stay strong people, Jesus is coming.
No its not a selfish act. And even though i will be pained by it for the rest of my life, it was not a selfish act. Maybe we live in selfish times. Not sure. But the pain she endured just bacame too unbearable. Love you. J.
We need to fight to help remove the societal stigmas of depression. Too many people are suffering alone and they don't know where to turn for help. My brother committed suicide and it was completely unexpected. He always seemed like such a happy young man. No one knew of the demons he faced. I created a website to help people who are suffering from depression and anxiety in my brother's memory. Help is always available!
An excellent documentary. Only those of us who have lost a parent this way can truly understand the pain, the devastation. Like the courageous gentleman in the film, I, too, was denied a piece of my history. My mother chose to not tell us how my father died, nor did she ever talk about him after he went. It wasn't until decades later when a close friend said to me, "you had the right to know - it was your right - he was your father," did I realize the injustice.
I feel so bad for the gentleman whose Mom, I guess it was, backhanded him for simply trying to rationalize the death, which had never even been explained to him. This was unforgivable - taking her anger at her husband out on her child.
The silence around suicide is certainly indicative of the shame that stupidly goes hand in hand with it all too often. I have been in that boat, unfortunately, simply unable to speak about it some fifty years later. I applaud these three people for breaking their silence and trying to lift the stigma once and for all.
This was just such an emotionally tough video to get through.
I want to thank the people that made the video and those that
shared their story. It has helped other people, who are on the edge,
more than you can know.
Thank you very much for covering this subject, that few want to
talk about, but that affects so many of us.
I lost my father to suicide just before my 9th birthday, I wasn't told how he died and I wasn't allowed to go to the funeral. I read about it on the front page of the local newspaper, but I didn't quite understand what a hosepipe from the exhaust of the car in the garage meant, so I asked my mother every single night at bedtime, how did he die, but she would never tell me, saying she would tell me some other time. I eventually found some more newspaper clippings when I was fourteen and I confronted my mother and she told me the truth. It wasn't until the funeral of my maternal grandmother, when I was 34, that I was told that my paternal grandmother, my father's mother, also killed herself and it was my father who found her with her head in the oven when he came home from school, he was ten years old. That made me so angry and devastated that my father could do that to me and my younger brother, after it happening to him at such a young age.
I use to look down on people who committed suicide because I lost my wife to cancer at the age of 31 but after losing a close family friend to suicide at 19 years old and having emotional issues of my own in my mid 50's I have a lot more empathy and understanding of what these people go through!
It's hard enough being suicidal from unbearable pain inside, and it doesn't get much better by feeling guilty from hearing people talking about those being left behind, while having to continue an existence that makes no sense and obviously is hurting the people that care anyway. That just produce the thought that family and friends are better off if I finish it once and for all, instead of just talking about it.
It's like waking up in the morning and deciding you wanna die. Or going to sleep hoping you will die in your sleep and not wake up, than waking up angry that you are alive. There are many moments when you would rather be dead than like this. Depression can eat you alive. Me, I think after this life comes another, like sleeping and waking up a different person.
My Step Father commited suicide a few days ago. I feel so strange and weird.. in fact, I don't know how I feel. Through this very recent tragedy, my family has one advantage, me. I am a uni-polar. I was diagnosed with this emotional disorder a few years ago and it's through my depression and very strong suicidal tendencies that I have helped my mother cope. At 33 years old, I have struggled to hold onto life for so many years now. Every morning is a question, "do I live, or do I die?" I have read through the comments from this documentary and am chilled to see how many people think/thought as I do/did about suicide. I'd like to ask all of you who are or may be suicidal one question.... has anyone in your family ever done it? I am a person that has believed, through my entire life including childhood, that suicide is ok. It's like a cancer, or AIDS, or a heart attack, just another way to move on, but then someone did it my family. He did it just a few days ago. All of those years fantasizing about my suicicde, when would be the right time, how would I do it, would anybody really care, and then someone beat me to the chase. To all of you who are like me, that believe in suicide, please re think it. It WILL hurt everyone around you, you WILL be missed, you SHOULDN'T do it! 33 years of wishing death on myself, and now I get it. I wasn't close to my step father at all. None of the family was because he was plainly said, completely on another planet. But he made me see. To my suicidal friends.... please don't it. please.
Since my cousin committed suicide last Easter at the age of 28, leaving behind a wife, a 3 year old son and a 6 month old daughter....I have always wondered the actual effects of suicide on children. Thank you so much for making this documentary and sharing your stories!!!
Excellent film! As one who has contemplated and attempted to commit suicide many times, I am so thankful that i did not succeed. This film is a testament to the lifetime of pain that was avoided, due to my failure.
Beautifully filmed. Absolutely stunning. Our beautiful sister Lori took her own life when she was barely 37. Unlike the families in this documentary there was no deception. She experienced major depression for several years and killed herself in our parents home. That was in 1998 and the words of one of the young women in this documentary speaks to me and how I feel to this day about our loss.
"Feeling outside the margins of life I am a mourner. To be a mourner is to open the world of one to the other." It's not easy.
Stunning. Our sister and my parents first daughter took her own life at age 37 in our parents home. So there was no deception. Only the pain we will have to live with that we weren't able to do more to help her.
I lost both my father and my daughter-in-law to suicide. I can truly relate to this wonderful video. The pain is so different from a normal death. My father was 49 and my daughter-in-law only 20. I miss them both every day.
That was so touching
Some people often exploit the depressed suicidal person. Much creativity has been born of the depressed personality, climbing his way from his obscure hell into success and popularity. They don't much care what happens to the object of their exploitation. It is their own obsession with success and popularity that drives their behavior leaving death and destruction in its wake.
Mental toughness is necessary in our society today. NLP, mind control, we are all being manipulated by it in one form or another. Might as well prepare yourself and program your own brain and mind before someone else does.