Tragedies, Fates, Furies and Fuels: Narratives of Individuals Bereaved by Suicide

Abstract

Suicide is the leading cause of death for Australians aged 15 to 44, with fifty to sixty per cent of individuals who die by suicide ‘flying under the radar’, dying in this way without receiving formal mental health care or treatment. This paper explores how people bereaved by suicide interpret and narrate the lead-up to, act and aftermath of a male family member who died by suicide. We used qualitative semi-structured interviews to explore how narratives of suicide were articulated by loved ones bereaved by suicide. Analytic findings were conceptualised through Bamberg’s four layers of cognitive narrative structure–setting, complication, resolution, coda. We derived three complications conveyed by the group as a whole: that the men felt sentenced by fate, charged with fury and were fueled by alcohol. These narratives by individuals bereaved by suicide draw us into the larger picture of meaning-making, the loss of life and finding closure. They also speak to the need for early interventions, as most of these stories are rooted in childhood tragedy that was not sufficiently addressed or supported.