Suicide: More Than a Plot Device

When I built the world for my fantasy series, The Vault of Heaven, I intentionally made it a dire place. Not bleak, I don’t think. At least, not all of it. But I established some places and practices that lead to suffering—a need-state, some call it. And when people suffer, sometimes their needs are met—they’re rescued from their condition. Sometimes they’re not.

And then sometimes those who suffer rescue themselves. And do so by taking their own lives.

It’s an unhappy topic. And I should be clear that my second novel, Trial of Intentions isn’t about suicide. It’s not some long thanatopsis. But it is true that self-slaughter is part of the backstory of a few of my characters, and it becomes a motivation for them. A motivation to try and change the circumstances that lead to this choice.

So, as I say, it was something I set up when I was doing my world-building for the series. It ties to a practice of human trafficking. And it ties to a barren place—known as The Scar—where cast-offs are sent to be raised when their parents no longer want them. You can imagine the emotional and psychological battles children and teenagers there might face. And lose to.

Then, as I was writing Trial of Intentions, something happened in the real world. A friend of mine took his own life. It caused all the feelings you would expect. And I thought I’d passed through the phases of grief okay.

But, when I was going back through the book as part of the editorial process, I began to realize something: My friend’s choice had gotten into my writing. Here’s an example:

When someone we know takes their own life, our natural response is, “What could I have done to prevent it.” Consider: While well-intentioned, this reaction does not sufficiently acknowledge the magnitude of the sufferer’s pain. In short, it’s beyond you.

As I’ve written before, life has its convergences. A sad irony is that as I sit to write this article for Marc and Fantasy Faction, my friend who committed suicide . . . it would have been his birthday today. I’ll be honest, I would likely not have remembered this. But as I went through my wake-up routine—I get up at 3:30 a.m. to write—Facebook told me it was his birthday. I browsed his photos, and a wall not written on in quite some time. Sad reminders.

But it seems overt reminders weren’t necessary, or at least not used consciously, when I was writing about suicide in Trial of Intentions. The feelings of being a friend of one who makes that decision spilled out on the page.

I suspect it’s possible that others won’t see it as obviously as I do. But it now stares up at me when I review those parts of the book. And perhaps that’s appropriate, since the circumstances for every death and those who mourn those deaths are different.

Still, I believe there’s a shared human experience in it, too. And I hope I’ve done right by that in what I’ve written.

I will say, though, concerning the quote from my book above, I did feel that way. I wondered what I could have done to prevent it. I examined how good (or bad) a friend I might have been. Like most people, I live a hectic, over-scheduled life. I move from writing very early in the morning, to a long day at work, to brief dinners and extra-curricular functions for my kids, to bedtime for the same, and then short moments with my wife and a good book to close the day. For my part, I try to squeeze in music creation and performance, as well. It leaves less time than I’m proud of for friends and helping others.

But none of that, while entirely true, makes me feel any better. What more could I have done?

Then another convergence took place.

I finished the book, got it all turned in with editorial revisions, and finally began cleaning my writing office—I’d promised myself I’d do so once the book was done. As I straightened and organized, I found a stack of sealed envelopes.

I teach sometimes. A class here or there on various topics, including fiction writing. And one of the things I often do is have the students write a letter to themselves describing who they want to be, what they want to achieve, and what they imagine their future will look like if they succeed. Then I tell them that years later I’ll mail the letters back to them, so they can see where they’re at relative to what they’d planned.

I took the stack of envelopes down, written some fifteen years prior, and began going through the names and addresses hand-written by their authors. And near the bottom was the letter of my friend who’d committed suicide.

I stood frozen, just like I sometimes write about characters doing in my books. I’d forgotten about these letters. Didn’t even know I still had them. And I certainly hadn’t remembered that my friend had been in one of my classes.

I wondered what to do with the letter. His parents had passed on. And if he had siblings, I hadn’t the vaguest idea how to contact them.

After a good long while, I sat on the couch in my office, in the silence, and slowly opened the letter. Somehow I had the feeling that it deserved an audience. Even if it was an audience of one. Me.

The page I read was heartbreaking. There weren’t a lot of ambitions written there. Some simple desires. Mostly a desire to cope. And at the end, a statement about hoping he could stave off the desire to end his own life.

I’d had no idea this was something he was considering. No idea that he’d been depressed. That he’d wanted to end his own suffering. For a long time, as it happens. He’d kept it a secret—from me, at least.

Goddamn I wish I’d known.

A feeling of failure crept up inside me. It was like a voice of condemnation inside my head. And I immediately began thinking about all the shitty things I’ve done in my life. And then I started to feel selfish that I was even having regrets, because I was still alive to have regrets. And damn it, this wasn’t about me, or how I felt.

I muddled through the mix of emotions, feeling crappy at every next thought.

I sat on that couch a long time.

I have some distance from it now. Enough to see that some of it got into the book. The aftermath of losing someone to suicide. The resolve to change circumstances that conspire against those who might consider suicide a way out. These things get deep inside a few of my characters, and burn there. Firing their desire to change the way of things. To do what they can to end war. End despair. At any cost.

Trial of Intentions isn’t about suicide. But the world I built is an often dire place. And in dire places, people sometimes make dire choices. And like I say, I can’t vouch for how someone else will read those portions of the book where two of my characters are recalling their own loss of loved ones to suicide, and working through the anger and grief that follows. But I know now I wrote them as honestly as I could.

And why do I share this at all? Am I working through further stages of grief?

I told Marc, really what I’m hoping is that if there’s any good that can come of me sharing this for those who are in a bad way, or working through the aftermath of losing a friend or loved one to suicide, then I wanted to do it.

I don’t have answers, and my book certainly isn’t meant as such. But I know there are people who stand ready to help. People who know the right way to do just that. And I’m hoping that those who need help will seek them out.

For my part, I try to be more aware and considerate of how friends and family are feeling. It’s fair to say I’m far from perfect at this. But I try to ask. I try to do what I can. I try to do like I wrote for my characters in Trial of Intentions:

But everyone knows that when the heart fails, what’s needed is a friend who doesn’t falsely reassure, and can walk a road with you just because. Doing things because. That’s what friends do when the heart fails.

Peter Orullian

May, 2015

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