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These people have lost sons, daughters, fathers and boyfriends, but have found each other through a support group started by an Overland Park couple.
Two years ago, Bonnie and Mickey Swade started Survivors of Suicide — A Healing Journey, almost two years after their 31-year-old son died.
“I felt like I was healthy enough to be able to help other people,” said Bonnie Swade, a junior high school counselor. “I think what makes the group work is the common understanding. There are very common feelings when you lose a loved one to suicide, and unless you have personally experienced it, I am not sure you can totally understand.”
Among the shared feelings, Swade said, is guilt.
“With suicide, for some, there was no clue, no preparation,” she said. “With diseases, sometimes you walk that path for a while. If someone dies from an accident, well, you say it happened with no fault of theirs.
“Even with parents of murdered children, they might blame the person that killed their loved one. With suicide, the one who is most missed and loved is the one who chose to make the decision, and sometimes that is very hard to comprehend.”
The twice-monthly meetings are free of charge and open to anyone affected by a suicide — no matter the relationship and no matter how recently or long ago the death.
And each survivor decides how often to come.
On this particular night, there was a woman who had lost her boyfriend 57 days earlier and a father who lost his son eight years ago.
“We’re an ongoing group,” Swade said. “I didn’t want to put restrictions on it. My experience is when you need a group, you need a group.”
Mickey Swade said that those affected by suicide need their own time frames for healing, even though well-meaning friends or family tell them, “It’s time to move on. Get over it.”
“You do have intense feelings, and you just need to talk to someone about it,” he said. “With suicide, I don’t know if you ever get over it.”
Discussion is not preplanned and can vary greatly, even within a session. On this Tuesday, the group talked about Christmas cards not received, seeing people who looked exactly like their lost loved ones as the survivors went about their days, and the benefits of yoga to fight the stress.
“I joined the group to validate my feelings that what I am feeling is normal and OK,” said SallyAnn Gray, a 27-year-old Kansas Citian whose father killed himself six months ago.
She found the group through a Web search.
“I didn’t expect the Web site,” she said. “I am just lucky to have a group.”
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