Review of Surviving Suicide: a mothers story

Surviving Suicide: a mother's story 
by 

Heather Hapeta (Goodreads Author)

Pip Adam's review 

Oct 07, 2012

really liked it

Like many people, suicide has been a part of my life from an early age. I found Surviving Suicide: A Mother's Story a very helpful book. Although, thankfully, it has been almost a year since the last suicide in our family I still gained a lot of information and hope from this book.

The book begins with a detailed retelling of the author's experience of her son's suicide. Hapeta recounts this time in an intimate way, explaining exactly how she felt and what she did, in the time leading up to the suicide as she tried to help her son recover from the debilitating affects of a serious accident, when she found her son's body after his suicide and in the time following. I found this account very affecting and the detail was extremely helpful. I have found that we often talk in abstracts about suicide, with our relatives and friends, but to read a detailed account of one person's experience was very useful. I could relate to many of the experiences Hapeta recounts and I found it quite helpful to compare my own experience with hers, both the similarities and the differences. In this section Hapeta also talks about what worked and what didn't during this time in her son's life and death. I'm not sure what it would be like reading this account closer to a suicide but I found it very helpful.

The second section of the book (I am not sure the book is as clearly delineated as I am presented it as, Hapeta's voice continues into the second section which is great because its easy tone and direct language is part of what makes this book so helpful) offers some invaluable advice concerning a large range of things. This makes the book an extremely useful handbook to have in the time of a suicide. This section begins with some lists about how to deal with the time directly after the suicide and comes from both Hapeta's personal experience and her word as a grief cousellor. There is one particular list which helps friends of people surviving suicide might help them. I remember Hapeta giving me this list a long time ago after a friend died and I found it useful then and I think it is still useful now. As well as guidance on how to navigate the emotional landscape of suicide, Hapeta offers pragmatic advice about the law and the media. I think this is an extemely important part of what makes this book so successful. I remember directly after the suicide of a close friend, whose will I was the executor of, being inundated with legal requirements which I didn't understand. I'm not sure I would have been robust enough to read these sections of this book but if I had a copy I am sure someone close to me could have read these and clarified what needed to be done. This legal information deals mainly with New Zealand law, but I feel that if you are an overseas reader it would act as a checklist of things to ask legal experts about. I also found Hapeta's sections about the media very helpful. There is a lot of publicity about whether the media should report suicide and Hapeta offers really intelligent and caring recommendations about how to deal with this that again come from her unique experience as suicide survivor and professional.

This book is unique, I believe. I have never read anything quite like it. The blend of personal and professional experience is invaluable. My hope is that no one will every need a book about suicide again, but I suspect they will and if they do, I think this is a very good option.

this book is avaibake on Amazon

Suicide grief - book reprinted (also for e-readers)

Surviving Suicide: a mothers story - by Heather Hapeta

20,000 words - written by a kiwi mum and therapist

• A practical guide for people who have had someone die by suicide – and ideal for friends who want to support others who have had a suicide death in their family.

• The first half is about a son’s motorbike accident at 15 years old, then his suicide at 20.

• The second half offers the family many helpful tips for surviving this grief and also shows friends of the bereaved ways in which they can help each other during an extremely difficult time.

Unaddressed suicide grief often leads to more suicide deaths … learn how to lessen this risk

www.amazon.com/author/heatherhapeta  (for Kindles etc.)

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/146316 (Kindles & all other e-readers, Kobo, Nook etc.)

Also available as paper copy for $20 - directly from Heather Hapeta (heatherhapeta@orcon.net.nz) when posted to a NZ address. (Direct credit or PayPal )

New suicide grief book

My long-awaited, long promised book on sucicide bereavement is now available for e-readers - hard copies are available directly from the author - Heather Hapeta

Have just been sent this " Heather, you were born to write this book. Tears have been rolling down my face for the last hour, but I've also been cheering. For you, for your courage, your persistence, your bossiness, your in-your-face-ness. I'm so glad you wrote the book, and I hope that others will be comforted and strengthened by reading it."

Buy this book from Smashwords (all formats) here.  It is also for sale here from  Amazon.

Grief at Christmas -- how to cope with the pain?

As Christmas approaches many of us find it difficult to deal with our grief. (I am writing this a mother who had a 20-year old son die, a husband die at 35, and about four years experience as a bereavement counsellor some years ago)

Grief is a necessity and privilege, it stems from giving and receiving love. Just as love doesn't end with death, neither does grief end with the funeral: sometimes our grief is more painful.

There are no rules or simple ways to take away the pain. Sights, sounds and smells bring back pleasure as well as pain and it's important to find people who will support you, and most importantly, allow you to be yourself.

So, how will you cope with Christmas? Will you make a plan or take it as it comes? Most people find advance planning helpful; just remember that plans are not carved in stone and they can be changed.

By the time the first Christmas arrives most of us have realised that ignoring grief does not make it go away. Conversely, talking about our pain does not make grief worse, although it may feel that way.

Often friends stop talking about the deceased person, (or you may with people who don't know the person you are grieving). They assume that when you cry they have made you feel bad - as if their talk could increase our pain – and it's difficult to explain to them that crying is beneficial. I believe it is because they feel uncomfortable with tears rather than their concern for us that stops them talking about our loved one. And we oblige by not upsetting people … funny how the griever often supports the friend – weird but true.

Friends and family may encourage you to keep active, or to "get on with life", "you have to let her go' and other non-helpful advice such as "he wouldn't want to you keep crying". I am sure you have heard these and other such homilies.

Keeping busy will not heal grief, in fact, experience shows it often increases our stress and merely postpones or denies the need to talk, feel, and cry. Time heals grief 'they' say: not true. It's what we do with the time that does the healing – ask anyone who has used medication to dull the pain: when the pills are stopped our pain is still there, just waiting for us to deal with it.

• Remember you are not alone. Find someone to talk to.

• Use your loved ones name. Talk about them, good times, bad times, and other holiday seasons.

• Eliminate as much stress as possible. Plan ahead, keep it simple. Ignore others' expectations.

• Involve your children in your discussions and planning - it will help their grief too.

• Do what’s right for you & your family, don't be pressured into doing things that aren't OK

• Use whatever form of spirituality is meaningful to you.

• Pace yourself physically and emotionally, be tolerant of your limitations...grief is tiring!

• Christmas will come no matter how much you may not want it. You will survive.

• Remember the worst has already happened!

• Take one day at a time, one hour at a time.

• Anticipation of the event is always worse than the actual day.



HEALING ACTIONS to consider

• Buy a special gift and donate it to a charity in your loved ones name

• Burn a candle over Christmas to symbolise their presence in your thoughts.

• Write a letter to them in your journal. Describe how Christmas is without them.

• Change holiday habits: Christmas breakfast instead of dinner; restaurant instead of home.

• Keep all your holiday habits. For some, the familiar is reassuring.

• Expressing your feelings honestly always helps.

• Volunteer to work at the local mission, old folks home.

• Have a special toast to absent loved ones before the main meal.

• Tie a yellow remembrance ribbon on the Christmas tree - your own tree, or the town one.

• Set aside an evening to look at photos and talk about him or her.

• Make a memory book. Children find this really helpful too.

• Make a list of things you found helpful, share it with others. Keep for next year!

Death, funerals and grief

Are people who do it control freaks or are they just susceptible to the marketing practices of some funeral directors?

Do what? Arrange their funeral that’s what. A few generations ago grandma lay in the front room, someone washed the body, friends and neighbours paid their respects and supported the grieving. There was little planning as funerals were similar, the minister knew the deceased and cemeteries were often beside the church.

Funeral directors, as with all commercial enterprises, look for new ways to increase their profit and many years ago they convinced us, for ease and hygiene, to take grandma out of the family parlour. Be modern they told us, bring her to our parlour, save all the worry and show your friends and neighbours how sophisticated you are.

Well, maybe not those exact words, but the result was the same and grandma was taken off our hands and another layer separated us from death: they are doing it again.

As a result of suggestions, adverts, and free books for funeral planning, it seems already 5% of Kiwis are arranging their own funerals. Adverts tell us how helpful it will be for our grieving and stressed family. Nonsense. Funeral rituals are for the living, a vital part of our grieving process.

Planning the funeral helps us move through the beginnings of grieving healthily. Getting in touch with the all the feelings that such planning exposes is painful but helpful – it also gives us another chance to express love. Conversely, it allows us to work through feelings that are not so love-based. After all not all funerals we are involved with will be for people we love absolutely. Working through those so-called negative feelings is important too: relief, guilt and anger are just a few we may have.

Children also benefit by being involved. As a bereavement counsellor, I was often told how younger members of a family came up with a suggestion that really struck a chord and the adults grasped it with appreciation. As with the adult’s grief, children too are helped by being involved, so don’t remove them from the rituals. Reading a poem about grandma at her service not only involves the child but also allows the expression of their grief.

Sitting beside my husband’s coffin I was horrified at the sight of my daughter walking back into Rehua Marae with her beautiful long, blonde hair gone. Her gift to her stepfather was to place her hair in his coffin. Where, at twelve, she found that idea I have no idea but she's still happy with her gesture of love.

‘They’ say time heals. Not true: it’s what we do with the time that does the healing, and working through the funeral planning is just part of the doing.

The amount of money spent on a funeral does not equate with love, however the appropriateness of the funeral rites, showing we have really thought about the person does equate with love. It’s also possible to have an economical funeral that is sensitive to our needs so get quotes for all or parts of the funeral: in fact the funeral process and service or ceremony can be undertaken by anybody. A funeral director, undertaker, or minister of religion is not required by law at any stage: nor is embalming.

Despite simple legal requirements, they can appear overwhelming, especially when we add our perceptions about what’s required. We must have:
· a death certificate, issued by a Doctor, showing the cause of death or, a coroners burial certificate
· the body must be contained in a coffin or other suitable container – solid enough to be handled by the pall bearers
· burial must be in an area permitted by law or cremated in an approved crematorium

Then, within three days of the burial or cremation, the following forms must be lodged with the Register of Births and Deaths.
· death registration form
· medical certificate as to cause of death, or the coroner's burial order

And that’s all. A helpful friend can be delegated, or may offer, to get these certificates and take them to the Register of Births Deaths and Marriages.

So if you think you will help your family by planning your funeral, think again – you may be delaying their grief process just as pills, or alcohol, do.

To help, leave money to pay for the rituals if you can, and make sure you have talked about death, and organ donation, with your family then leave it up to them. After all, our bodies belong to our next of kin when we’re dead: don’t try to control them – they don’t have to do what you planned!

I look forward to a conversation with you about this blog!

©Heather Hapeta 2008

Heather, previously an alcohol and drug therapist, studied bereavement counselling under Mel McKissock at the Bereavement CARE Centre in Sydney Australia. She then worked for the Canterbury Bereaved by Suicide Society for four years, had a private practise in Napier, and was a founder member of NALAG NZ (National Association of Loss and Grief).

She is currently working on a book about suicide grief, continues to write travel pieces, and her book, Naked in Budapest: travels with a passionate nomad, was published in 2007