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 Your Depression and Bipolar Disorder Source Knowledge is Necessity A family's struggle to cope ... "My mother's dead, isn't she?" Main articles page. Go here. More Suicide Prevention Articles
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Daughter of Suicide Tearful survivors hold lit candles. Names are read, pictures are displayed, the camera lights on the image of a smiling woman ... Bonnie Rice. So begins the documentary film, Daughter of Suicide, produced and directed by Bonnie’s oldest daughter, Dempsey Rice. "She was young, vivacious, and single, and a lot of fun to be around," Bonnie's former husband Ray recalls of his wife. The birth of their first daughter was a time of "uncommon" happiness, but with their second daughter, Chrissy, Bonnie experienced postpartum depression that lasted for more than a year. In her memoirs, she candidly discloses as a youth, "nobody dreamed of all the depression, anxiety, or anger I contained beneath the surface. I held all that in." And she continued to do so raising two daughters. The family album shows a supermom who seemingly delighted in life, one who did "a lot of cool stuff" with the kids, from rafting and skiing to parasailing and crafts to making Christmas something special. Then, in the summer of 1980, when Dempsey was 11, the supermom facade shattered with devastating force - Bonnie attempted suicide by swallowing sleeping pills. This marked the beginning of a gradual estrangement from both her daughters. There was no way to hide Bonnie's suicide attempt from her children, but amazingly, yet not surprisingly, the incident was kept secret from all but one member of the rest of the family. Following her recovery, Bonnie became a full-time psychotherapist, but in 1984 her depression reasserted itself with a vengeance. Ironically for a person in her position, she never sought help. Instead, she became a born again Christian. Her Christianity, however, was not one of closeness to God. Rather, it was a perverse expression of the psychotic features of her illness. By now, she was convinced both her daughters were the devil’s children. It all came to a head one day when Bonnie ordered her husband to leave, and he refused. Then came the fateful decision from both daughters - they told her she should go since she was the one causing all the trouble. Bonnie moved out of the house, and photos from this period show a woman far older than her years. Her last words to Chrissy were, "I hope I never see you again as long as I live." Not long after, a Catholic priest from Dempsey's college turned up in her dorm room. Instantly, she knew why he was there. "My mother’s dead," she said, "isn’t she?" On Halloween of 1987, Dempsey's mother had put a gun to her temple and fired. She was 48. Even all these years later, Dempsey cannot purge herself of the hate and resentment. "To have your mother abandon you," she reflects, "leave you, say nothing is worth living this life for, not even you, not even your sister - that is the most horrendous awful thing that can happen." At the same time, she is pulled in the other direction by the knowledge of her own role in her mother’s leaving the house. It doesn’t matter that nothing she could have done would have changed the final outcome. Suicide has a way of leaving a residue of guilt that forever clings to the survivors, even the innocent. An uneasy acceptance comes in the form of a dream Chrissy has, and of Dempsey and her grandmother feeling Bonnie's presence. Undoubtedly, the three years Dempsey spent working on this documentary helped bring a partial closure to her mother's death. Yet there's no getting around the thought that it would have been far easier for Dempsey to get on with her life had her mother’s depression biologically taken her away, instead, perhaps in the form of a heart attack or other malady. But depression can be horribly cruel in how it chooses to strike the final blow. And Dempsey and her family are still dealing with the terrible aftermath. HBO Daughter of Suicide is a staple of HBO's documentaries. Please check Dempsey's website for future screenings and information on how to order the video. Order Night Falls Fast from Amazon.com. For three free online issues of McMan's Depression and Bipolar Weekly, email me and put "Sample" in the heading and your email address in the body. Suicide Prevention articles All articles
Yvette (Aug 8, 2005): In my opinion these beautiful children should never have had to suffer. Neither should their mother. Suicide is completely preventable. I am suffering from post partum depression also. I am deeply sorry for any family survivors, especially the children of mommies that have committed suicide. As a mother who struggles with this driving force post-partum depression and thoughts of suicide), I just want to say that I don't think this is something that is done to anger anyone, especially the children. It is very hard to explain, but the feeling of guilt and pain carried by a mother is absolutely overwhelming, you have no idea. No this is not an excuse but suicide is the final stage in an illness. I fully believe in taking total responsibility for ones own actions, however the people around your mom failed her terribly. would you have left her bleeding to death if she refused treatment ? i think no. Do not be angry. At least for me, I do not want to end up a statistic. I do not want my children to have anger or resentment of any kind. That is why I fight day by day. However it is very disheartening to repeatedly come across stories of suicide. I wish there were more help and awareness out there available to me and other moms and husbands, as to how to deal with this. Especially to the children of mothers who have lost their battle suicide). Suicide is a steadily progressive illness. The sooner this is realized ,then maybe we will be on our way to saving lives. I do not know if this true for all suicide victims, but I do know that this is very true for women sick with post partum depression. If it were men or presidents sick with this then I do believe that we would have a totally different attitude toward the whole situation. For society to go on and let the children believe their moms hated them or were selfish, just continues to fail these women. They truly died in vain. Not just because they committed suicide, but because the ultimate outcry is still going unheard and ignored. There needs to be much deeper and better intervention. And if post partum depression ultimately reaches suicide, then there needs to be taken great care that the survivors are healing and understanding that it had nothing to do with them. It was overwhelming sadness and guilt felt by their mom, due to her illness-- left unchecked. Post-partum depression. Post your opinion here. |
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