What Those Touched by Suicide Want You to Know

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A survivor gives her insights ahead of a conference on preventing tragedy.

Shirley Weddle of St. Mark’s UMC in Mesquite knows the pain of losing a loved one to suicide. Her only child, Matthew, a gifted computer science student at the University of Texas at Dallas, died at age 22 over the July Fourth weekend in 2014.

He was “really smart, very funny, had a great smile,” she said. He was a bit of an overachiever, never taking summer breaks from school, reading textbooks for fun, and studying philosophy beginning in high school. He seemed like the typical stressed-out college student — but signs of being a stressed-out college student can also be signs of the suicidal.

Weddle turned to Christian Survivors of Suicide at Highland Park UMC and, when that group became so large, an additional group at the church for survivors of child suicide loss. The Rev. Dawn Anderson, whose husband died by suicide, runs the Highland Park program and will be featured in a documentary that will be shown at the conference. Rev. Anderson is also on the board of the North Texas chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), which is hosting the conference and will put the documentary on its website after the event.With International Survivors of Suicide Loss Daycoming up Saturday, November 19, 2016, along with a free conference that day at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Walnut Hill Lane in Dallas, she wants others to be aware of the danger signs and she wants to help survivors cope with their grief.Only recently has she been able to talk about his death. “It’s hard to even say that you’ve lost them,” she said.

“I think of Dawn as God’s angel here on earth, supporting and comforting those of us who have lost someone to suicide and helping us to help others as well as ourselves,” Weddle said. “Somehow, she knows just what to say and do at the right time.”

Part of the problem in preventing suicide is the reluctance to talk about it, Weddle said.

“We don’t talk about mental health, which is also brain health,” she said. “It is a physical condition, like diabetes or high blood pressure, that can be treated if people start talking about it, recognize symptoms, and feel comfortable in getting help.”

Chemicals in the brain can be influenced by genetics, lack of sleep, food or other factors, she said. Typically, people think of depression, as in Matthew’s case, or bipolar disorder as being behind suicide.

Researchers are also looking into CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and its links to the suicides of football players such as Junior Seau. The Taylor Hooton Foundation, formed in memory of a Plano high school athlete who died of suicide after taking anabolic steroids, looks at the tie to performance enhancing drugs.

One move encouraging to Weddle: The North Texas chapter of the AFSP’s offer to organizations, such as colleges, to sponsor setting up an interactive screening program — an online service that allows people to anonymously answer a few questions and be linked, also anonymously, to a counselor. If the person needs face-to-face counseling, that can also be arranged.

Churches are another resource if someone needs to talk confidentially. Weddle said St. Mark’s helped her and her husband, Brad, greatly as they mourned the loss of Matthew as well as the loss of their dreams like seeing their son marry and have children.

“Education and open discussion are key to making progress in helping others, especially in our churches where people can feel safe,” she said.

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Linda S. Johnson is a special contributor to the North Texas Connection, a publication of the North Texas Annual Conference. This article is republished with permission.