Attack on Ariana Grande Over Ex Mac Miller’s Death; The Guilt Felt Over a Loved One’s Suicide And How To Battle The Survivor’s Guilt

“Don’t you know about Vicky bhaiya?” said my mom to me over the phone.“No,” I replied. “What happened?”“He died... by suicide”A long pause followed. It felt strange... surreal... to learn that Vicky bhaiya (name changed), our next door neighbour, with whom we would compete every Diwali for the quantity of crackers burnt, was gone. Later, I came to know that he’d swallowed rat poison. Right after consuming it, he called up his parents, who had gone to Punjab for a wedding, and said, “Maine kuch kha liya hai.. Aap log please aa jao (I have eaten something, please come soon.”By the time the family came, it was too late. It’s been three years... but regret still consumes them. My brother tells me they don’t celebrate Diwali anymore.Earlier this week, when news broke of Mac Miller, Ariana Grande’s ex-boyfriend dying of drug overdose, many jumped in to blame Grande for his death.Apart from coping with the loss of someone so intimate, Grande also had to battle the wrath of insensitive trolls. She then temporarily disabled comments from her Instagram.In the wake of her breakup with Miller in May, Grande was also blamed for Miller’s drug relapse. When in fact, Miller had battled a drug addiction for years. This is how Grande had responded back then.Back in the 90s, when Rekha’s husband Mukesh Agarwal committed suicide, the star too faced a misogynistic backlash. Headlines shamed her, many from the film industry attacked her, and her reputation became one of a ‘cold-hearted man-eater’.But far removed from the screaming, sensationalist headlines of tabloids, the deep trauma felt upon the loss of a loved one to suicide, or a drug addiction remains unspoken.As someone who fears losing a loved one to their suicidal tendencies (which have been there for years), I strongly object against the vicious attack that the friends and family of someone who died of suicide are subjected to, and worry about the effect it can have on them. The accusatory words, I can imagine, only deepen the overbearing sense of guilt that one feels post a loved one’s suicide. Whether it is Grande, or someone close to a person who died of suicide, blaming them for something that wasn’t in their control in the first place, is not only unfair, but can also severely deepen the survivor’s guilt.Survivors’ GuiltDid I do enough? Did I miss any vital sign? Did I notice when they were communicating their despair? Was I too demanding? Which then leads to a never ending stream of if onlys...If only, I was more around. If only, I had been a good mother/daughter/lover. If only, I had been home early that day...At this point, all rational thought gets clouded by the deep emotional turbulence that follows the loss. Guilt begins to consume the person completely. It is also compounded by grief; the grief of not being able to see a loved one again, the grief of the finality of the loss that stares one in the face.“If left unresolved, survivor’s guilt can lead to depression, or anxiety. It can make one feel a loss of purpose or meaning in life. It can also cause relationship problems between family members, who might subconsciously be blaming each other or even themselves”, says Dr. Nivedita, a clinical psychologist.The human mind often finds reasons for something that goes wrong; and especially in cases of someone dying of suicide, the close ones often tend to blame themselves. Their anger, which they don’t wish to direct at the person who lost their life, gets directed inward.“The emotional turbulence distorts our thinking, hijacks our reality,” says Dr. Nivedita.We blame ourselves – and unfairly so – while playing and replaying past instances under a microscopic lens inside our heads. Cursing ourselves for what we could have done. What we could have said. All only deepening our survivor’s guilt.Reach Out - A Double Edged SwordToday, social media is replete with affirmative messages encouraging people to open up about their addictions and suicidal tendencies. But the belief that reaching out can help prevent suicides, although well-meaning, can also be a double-edged sword. Because it also carries the dangerous underlying thought that if in the unfortunate scenario where a suicidal person has succeeded in ending their life, the close ones might not have reached out enough.In hushed whispers, some still continue to speculate if Vicky bhaiya’s family had put too much pressure on him about career and marriage. Without realising that despite the full devotion and empathy of a caregiver towards the person in need, sometimes it isn't enough. For no fault of theirs.‘Emptying the Vessel’Holding on to the unhealthy and all-consuming emotion of guilt can derail the path to recovery after a major loss. And sometimes even bring life to a standstill.“You need to empty the vessel,” says Dr. Nivedita. “You need to process what happened differently. Only then can you come out of it,” she says. Therapy helps a lot too. So does telling yourself (repeatedly) that it doesn’t do good to blame yourself and/or others for something which was never in your control.Guilt is an intense emotion, which if left unchecked, can have no end. But if you make way for sadness in its place, you are more likely to overcome it – as all humans are gifted with resilience. We have the strength to overcome any loss, no matter how long it takes. As for the other survivors left in the wake of a loved one’s untimely death, instead of harbouring resentment towards some of them for their earlier actions or inactions, it is better to walk alongside them, and together deal with the common grief.With the alarming numbers of suicides and addiction-related deaths that stare us in the face, learning how to effectively deal with survivor’s guilt assumes even greater importance.Every 40 seconds someone is dying of suicide, and the last known number of suicides in India alone was 1,31,666 in 2014. While every day, India sees 10 suicides related to drug abuse, about 27 percent of the world’s drug overdose deaths happen in America.Of course, by talking about survivor’s guilt alongside these grim numbers, we don’t mean to suggest that we cease to be empathetic towards those around us.It just means that in the unfortunate case that a suicide could not be prevented, it was not the survivor’s fault. But most importantly of all, the survivor needs to recognize it themselves.

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How to Battle Survivor’s Guilt

Apart from coping with the loss of someone so intimate, one also has to battle the vicious hate and survivor’s guilt

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