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When There Are No Answers

Are you in crisis? Help is available. Speak with someone today. Call or text 988, the suicide and crisis lifeline. More information is available at www.afsp.org/get-help.

It is inconceivable that Luc-John Pentz should have died.

Just 30 years old in 2017, the handsome, athletic, well-educated young man with an easy smile and a contagious laugh was surrounded by co-workers who valued him and family members who loved him and cherished him. They also worried about him when he disappeared following a breakup and an argument, a painful but all-too-common experience in any young person’s life. His family began to search for him. He was found dead by suicide.

Sure, you could analyze his childhood, his state of mind, the events immediately preceding his death. You could state this fact: that more than half of suicide deaths in the United States are, like his was, by a firearm. He bought the gun thinking it would help keep him safe, and there was nothing to keep him from buying and owning that gun. He resisted entreaties from those who loved him about whether he really needed it. You could repeat this from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention: research shows most people in suicidal crisis who don’t have easy access to lethal means, including guns, will not simply find another way to kill themselves and so instead just might survive the crisis.

While all of that is true, and his family would like you to know all of that, his mother, Vanessa Pentz, wants you to know this too: that having a child die from suicide is the worst thing that could ever happen to a parent. The second worse thing, a close second, is the profound abyss of loneliness that follows when so many friends and relations simply don’t know what else to say or do. Instead, they might turn away, saying and doing nothing.

Having experienced just that, Pentz took action, creating a group that meets regularly at the Madison Senior Center called PS It Hurts, which offers bereavement support and resources to parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends–those left behind– experiencing the specific kind of grief the follows losing a loved one to suicide. She also is organizing a Silent Grief Conference that will take place on Sept. 15 and 16 at Mercy by the Sea in Madison, focused on how to navigate silent grief, along with how to provide support for and raise awareness of disenfranchised grief.

When Others Cannot Fathom Your Loss

I’m a parent. And so, when of the first things I want to know when I talk with Pentz is whether there were any flags. Was there something she didn’t see at the time, something that she could tell us now, to warn other parents?

As the words come out of my mouth, I realize what I am doing, or at the very least what it sounds like I am doing: I want to know what the family could have done differently to avoid this profound tragedy. It sounds too much like blaming the victim, I realize, immediately wanting to take the question back.

Pentz, quietly, calmly, kindly, calls me on it.

“Well, you know, you're asking me a Monday morning quarterback question,” she says.

Then we talk for a bit. The story she tells, about what happened before, is remarkable only for the way it ends, in Luc-John’s death. And it’s remarkable for what happened, or didn’t, after the funeral.

“This is very painful for me to say, but there was no support for me…,” she trails off. “Look, after Luc-John did what he did, I came back to my home alone, which should never happen to a mother after the funeral.” The profound aloneness of that moment, and the many lonely moments afterwards tempted her to follow her son’s path.

“I basically did not want to live,” she says. “I tried, myself.”

Then, she took another path. She created a support group called PS It Hurts to provide a place for parents and family members who have suffered the kind of loss she experienced, a place where they could talk candidly with others who would not flinch away, or ask what sounded like blame-the-victim questions, a place where they could process the grief they are experiencing and provide useful support.

Pentz knows all too well how that particular grief, of losing a child, and of losing a child to suicide, can be overwhelming. “I thought there might be some support for it somewhere. But I’ve not received that support. And I’m not complaining,” she says. “Because now I know why. I could tell that there was something in between me and others, especially parents. And that feeling is parents cannot believe that something like that could happen to them. And they can’t deal with it. They don’t know how to deal with it.”

As a result of her experience and her efforts to make sense of the aftermath, Pentz learned there was a name for what she was experiencing: disenfranchised grief.

“That’s a specific term that is used when other people cannot, when they absolutely cannot, fathom that loss. So they don’t know how to deal with it.”

Even, sometimes, other parents who have had child die from other means cannot relate to a parent who has lost a child to suicide, she says.

“A parent who loses a child to suicide is different, vastly different form a parent who’s lost a child to a car accident or for a medical reason. And so they might look at me or us differently. We’re in a special category. Because the first thing people want to know, what did you do wrong as a parent.”

A Flimsy Psychological Barrier

Right.

It’s a classic case of blame-the-victim mentality. We don’t mean to do it. But all too often, we deal with the bad things, the horrifying things, that happen to others by trying to find someone or something to blame, trying to find a specific cause, so as to create a psychological barrier between us and the victim. It makes us feel less vulnerable and creates the illusion that if only we don’t do this, that, or the other thing, we will be safe. We create a false sense of security. We cling to it.

The truth is that any one of the so-called reasons, the events, that led to Luc-John’s death could have happened to any one of our kids. I’ve looked at the list of events leading up to this young man’s death time and again. There isn’t anything on that list that I haven’t heard, haven’t seen a hundred times or more right here in Madison and in nearby towns, including Clinton, where Pentz lives.

Pentz tells me what people’s reactions can sound like, reactions that can contribute to a feeling of disenfranchised grief.

“I mean, you know… ‘your child had this wonderful life and look what he or she did to their life,’” she says. “So that disenfranchised grief is what happens to the parents, to the siblings. It’s a very, very difficult grief to deal with. I mean, look, after Luc-John did what he did, I would ruminate, I would never sleep, of course. There were days, weeks, months when I would go over his conception, and then minute by minute, all the way through. What went wrong at that birthday party? What did I do wrong? What led to this, this thing that was not at all in our value system? This was not the way my son was raised. We valued life; we valued relationships. I will never understand. It cannot be understood. Right? It will never be understood by anyone.”

I understand that whatever questions we might have, there really are no answers that will be like magic and protect us, as much as we might yearn for that.

But we can turn to the research and data and what it shows, overall, about combating suicide attempts, in the hopes that maybe we can prevent at least some other children and families from joining these ranks. For example, Luc-John’s family members have been very active in educating others about the role that guns play in deaths by suicide. We can help pass that information on, that people who buy guns to protect themselves all too often find themselves the victim of that very gun. And we can support those, like Pentz, who are providing spaces and places to support people suffering from this disenfranchised grief.

Parents of children who have died by suicide are not the only ones to suffer disenfranchised grief. It can, to varying degrees, affect people suffering from a wide range of losses, including someone who loses a spouse who may have been abusive; a breakup with or the death of a same-sex partner for someone who feels they have to hide their sexual orientation; the loss of a loved one who may have committed a crime; the loss of a pet. What these losses have in common is that they are generally not sanctioned or accepted or understood by society as a whole, making it hard for the person affected to mourn publicly and to get the kind of comfort afforded to those suffering from other kinds of grief.

Despite the horrific ubiquity of suicide–it is one of the leading causes of death across all age groups–suicide still carries with it the additional burden of a huge stigma. So many of us don’t know what to make of it or how to talk about it, even though it is estimated that 85% of people in this country will know someone, personally, who has completed suicide, according to a recent article published in the scientific journal Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience. (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3384446)

“Many bereaved individuals report that it can be difficult to talk to others about their loss because others often feel uncomfortable talking about the suicide. This can leave the bereaved feeling isolated,” the article in Dialogues says. Due to stigma, anger, guilt, and confusion related to deaths due to suicide, the normal channels of “reassurance, support, and information” from family, friends, and clergy often is unavailable.

This makes self-help support groups particularly beneficial in cases like this.

“For many survivors, participation in support groups is felt to be their only access to people who they feel can understand them, or the only place where their feelings are acceptable, thus providing them with their only means of catharsis,” the article says. “The universality of their experiences provides great reassurance that they are not alone in their feelings and that others have faced similar experiences and have come out not only intact but often stronger. The bonds that develop among people can be very strong as they join a club whose ‘dues’ are high and as they offer each other mutual support.

“Through such supports, individuals may receive helpful suggestions for taking care of real-life obligations such as dealing with estates and legal issues: talking to others, including children; developing fitting memorials for the deceased; coping with holidays and special events; and setting realistic goals for one's new life which now has such a huge and unfillable void.”

A Lifeline

PS It Hurts, the group Pentz created, meets at the Madison Senior Center.

“And basically what we do at the beginning is we check in with one another and see how people are reacting to their week and how they’re feeling,” she says. “There are triggers, as you know. Holidays, other significant events. We deal directly with that and discuss their feelings and listen. That is extremely important. It’s very important for people to be heard, just to have a place where they are comfortable talking about what is going on.”

Pentz’s hope is that this group will provide others with something she did not have “something to hold on to, a lifeline somewhere,” a place to deal candidly with feelings of guilt, shame, despair, that “sense of not having, and not having anyone to talk with about that. That is why I started PS It Hurts.”

On any given week, the group ranges from about seven people to more than a dozen. And Pentz has plans for the bigger gathering in September at the Mercy Center in Madison with a focus on disenfranchised grief and those who are suffering from it. She is lining up politicians, religious leaders, and others to talk about what can be done going forward to provide support for people suffering from this unique and particularly painful kind of torment, disenfranchised grief.

She says she’d love to have help with the September conference, and she has one other request.

“Be kind,” she says. “Practice kindness. What does that mean to be kind? Be sensitive to other people’s needs and the needs of the community. Sensitivity goes a long way. Reach out and listen to what other people say, even if sometimes you don’t know what to say or how to make sense of something. Reach out anyway.”

She says her goal, for anyone who walks through the door, whether at the Madison Senior Center for the PS It Hurts meetings, or the Mercy Center for the disenfranchised grief conference in September, is for these people to know their feelings count. “For people who have suffered this specific kind of loss, they should know that they can come and they can get specific help from people who can relate to what they’ve been through. They should know they won’t be disenfranchised at this grief meeting.”

For more information about the meetings at the Madison Senior Center or the September conference, email Psithurts@gmail.com or call 203-645-7777.

Help Is Available

Are you in crisis? Help is available. Please reach out if you or someone you know might need it. Speak with someone today. Call or text 988, the suicide and crisis lifeline.

Warning Signs Of Suicide

• Talking about wanting to die

• Looking for a way to kill oneself

• Talking about feeling hopeless or having no purpose

• Talking about feeling trapped or unbearable pain

• Talking about being a burden to others

• Increasing the use of alcohol or drugs

• Acting anxious, agitated, or recklessly

• Sleeping too little or too much

• Withdrawing or feeling isolated

• Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge

• Displaying extreme mood swings

What To Do

• Do not leave the person alone.

• Remove any firearms, alcohol, drugs, or sharp objects that could be used in a suicide attempt

• Contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988

• Take the person to an emergency room, or seek help from a medical or mental health professional

Some people mistakenly feel that bringing up suicide could put the idea in someone’s head. But research shows that expressing concern and asking someone directly, “Are you thinking about suicide? Are you thinking of hurting yourself?” instead can provide a sense of relief and an opening for someone to talk about how they are feeling, creating a path for you and that person to get them to someone who can help. More information is available at www.afsp.org/get-help and www.qprinstitute.com.