May 17 - Early one morning in July of 2003, Linda Dublin’s 77-year-old father walked into the backyard of his home in rural Arkansas and shot himself in the head. Neighbors who heard the blast immediately called police. But by the time they’d arrived, he was dead. Dublin, who lives near New Orleans, got the news at work. “I was devastated,” she says, stifling a sob. “He’d promised he wouldn’t do it.”
Her father, Billy Coker, who had been suffering from degenerative osteoporosis of the spine, knew how painful suicide could be on those left behind. Two years earlier, his 75-year-old wife, Pauline, had shot herself in the chest days after being discharged from the hospital after surgery for peripheral vascular disease. In November 1992, his daughter Bobbie—Dublin’s only sibling—shot herself in the head after sending her 5-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter off to school. Bobbie had been suffering from depression, but “insisted she could pull herself out of it,” remembers Dublin. Seventeen years earlier, when Dublin was still a teenager, her mother’s sister had also killed herself. “My family is unusual,” she acknowledges, “but not that unusual.”
About 30,000 Americans kill themselves each year, or 80 people each day, making it the 11th-leading cause of death in the country. An estimated 90 percent of suicide victims suffer from a diagnosable psychiatric condition—typically depression or bipolar disorder—at the time of their death. “But they’re not recognized or they’re untreated or incompletely treated,” says Dr. Dwight Evans, chairman of the psychiatry department at the University of Pennsylvania and current president of the board of directors for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP).
Depression often runs in families, so it is not uncommon to have more than one suicide in a family. What’s unusual about Dublin, who was diagnosed with depression several years ago, is not only that she has survived the suicides of her closest family members but that she has gone on to have, as she puts it, “a good life.” Dublin credits a combination of counseling, medication and a support network that includes her longtime partner, Mary-Ellen Harwood, as well as friends she’s made through groups like SOLOS-Sibs (Survivors of Loved Ones' Suicides) and SCOLOS (Surviving Children of Loved Ones' Suicides). “There were times I would not have uttered that I had depression. But suffering through the suicides changed that,” says Dublin. “There comes a point where you have to speak out, be proactive and do something positive.”
One of those steps: this summer, the 49-year-old survivor—as those who’ve lost close friends or family members to suicide call themselves, will fly with her partner to Chicago to spend a night walking 20 miles through the city. At least 2,400 people are expected to join them in the second AFSP-sponsored “Out of the Darkness Overnight” walk (theovernight.org) on July 16 to raise funds and awareness for suicide prevention and education. It will be Dublin’s second walk. She was one of more than 2,200 who participated in the first, held in Washington, D.C., in 2002, which raised more than $1 million. Dublin says she and her partner are hoping to raise $1,000 for each member of her family she’s lost to suicide. “I want to turn my pain into something positive,” she says.
That’s one reason Bob Thomson is doing the walk again, as well. The 62-year-old, who runs a wholesale bakery and a real-estate agency in Vermont, lost his first wife to suicide 23 years ago. His sister killed herself four years ago, overdosing on drugs and alcohol. “For awhile I thought, I’d been through this before, why didn’t I see it?” says Thomson, who went through therapy after the deaths. “But I’ve learned it wasn’t my fault.”
Guilt often haunts the survivors. But the stigma of suicide can make it even worse. When Dublin’s aunt killed herself in 1975, she says, “No one talked about it at all.” And while that’s changing, suicide survivors and prevention advocates say: not fast enough. “Death from suicide is now recognized as a major public-health problem,” says Evans. “But we have a long way to go in terms of awareness and education and directing the necessary resources toward the underlying illnesses and prevention of suicidal behavior.”
Researchers are now stepping up efforts to study suicide prevention. The University of Rochester and the University of Nevada have set up specific centers to examine suicide, and other universities have conducted substantial research in the area. In 2001, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published a national strategy for suicide prevention (mentalhealth.org/suicideprevention), a collaborative effort between several agencies, advocates, researchers and survivors. And the Suicide Prevention Resource Center
(sprc.org) lists links to eight national and international suicide-prevention organizations.
Still, in terms of funding, research and awareness, suicide remains far behind other deadly health problems like breast cancer and AIDS (which kill about 40,580 and 18,000 Americans a year respectively). But AFSP executive director Bob Gebbia is hopeful. “There are definite parallels with breaking down the barriers and showing that there’s no shame in seeking help and getting treatment. The more we can show depression is an illness, not anyone’s fault, the more we can reduce the stigma,” he says. “Most people with depression can be successfully treated.”
Dublin, and many others who will join her in Chicago, are living proof of that.
“People need to know that you can have a good life—even after something like this,” she says. “I know it is important for me to speak up as a survivor of suicide, but it is also important to speak out as a survivor of depression. It’s important people know that there is help out there.”