just in order to spare other people the emotion of grief (which they are inevitably going to have to confront at some point anyway, at least until we conquer all death
It is the emotion of shame that others are spared. (As you note, the grief is going to come anyway.)
I’ve gotten the impression that the grief of having lost someone to suicide is considerably stronger than losing them to old age, say.
Losing someone to old age is something that people expect will happen eventually, and they’ll usually have the time to mentally prepare. In contrast, suicide can be sudden and unexpected, even if a person’s depression may give something of a warning. Someone’s suicide also involves grief about the things the dead person will never have a chance to see or do that they would have if they’d lived to a natural death, grief about not having seen it earlier and done something about it, etc.
I’ve lost agemates to accident, to homicide, to suicide, and to disease. And I’ve lost people a lot older than I am to accident, to suicide, to disease, and to old age.
FWIW, I agree that having time to prepare is useful; unexpected death is harder in some ways to deal with than expected death. I’ve been a lot angrier about the suicides, but I haven’t grieved them more. I’ve grieved the loss of young people more than the loss of old people.
All of this is very noisy generalization, since of course the specifics of my relationship to the person matter way more than any of that stuff.
Consider hyperbolic discounting: grief now is far worse than grief later.
Also, in addition to shame there is anger and a sense of betrayal. See Jonathan Franzen’s recent essay in the New Yorker on, among other things, David Foster Wallace’s suicide.
I don’t know whether DFW is different to the people I know who attempted or commited suicide, or if I’m different to Franzen, but I didn’t feel those sorts of emotions when a friend killed herself or my dad was in hospital on a pill overdose. I’ve got depression and have occasional suicidal urges, so maybe I assume they’re like me and were just suffering from anhedonia and pessimism about their future enjoyment of life rather than anything to do with people they know. I feel bad that I didn’t realise and couldn’t have tried to help in some way, but more in that I would rather it not have happened rather than feeling ashamed and betrayed.
It is the emotion of shame that others are spared. (As you note, the grief is going to come anyway.)
I’ve gotten the impression that the grief of having lost someone to suicide is considerably stronger than losing them to old age, say.
Losing someone to old age is something that people expect will happen eventually, and they’ll usually have the time to mentally prepare. In contrast, suicide can be sudden and unexpected, even if a person’s depression may give something of a warning. Someone’s suicide also involves grief about the things the dead person will never have a chance to see or do that they would have if they’d lived to a natural death, grief about not having seen it earlier and done something about it, etc.
I’ve lost agemates to accident, to homicide, to suicide, and to disease. And I’ve lost people a lot older than I am to accident, to suicide, to disease, and to old age.
FWIW, I agree that having time to prepare is useful; unexpected death is harder in some ways to deal with than expected death. I’ve been a lot angrier about the suicides, but I haven’t grieved them more. I’ve grieved the loss of young people more than the loss of old people.
All of this is very noisy generalization, since of course the specifics of my relationship to the person matter way more than any of that stuff.
Consider hyperbolic discounting: grief now is far worse than grief later.
Also, in addition to shame there is anger and a sense of betrayal. See Jonathan Franzen’s recent essay in the New Yorker on, among other things, David Foster Wallace’s suicide.
I don’t know whether DFW is different to the people I know who attempted or commited suicide, or if I’m different to Franzen, but I didn’t feel those sorts of emotions when a friend killed herself or my dad was in hospital on a pill overdose. I’ve got depression and have occasional suicidal urges, so maybe I assume they’re like me and were just suffering from anhedonia and pessimism about their future enjoyment of life rather than anything to do with people they know. I feel bad that I didn’t realise and couldn’t have tried to help in some way, but more in that I would rather it not have happened rather than feeling ashamed and betrayed.